Blogs

We worked with a really cool bacteria in lab today called streptomyces it is in all of the soil. In fact the streptomyces is what gives the soil its characteristic smell. This earthy dirt smell is caused by geosmins that the streptomyces produce. These bacteria need oxygen to breathe and can use a lot of nutrients from the soil that they are in. One of the main reasons I chose to write about them is because of how cool they look when they are plated. They are white colonies that are sort of leathery. They stick to the agar and are almost impossible to get off, we have to restreak them which took a while. They sort of look dried out but they aren’t, the white part of the colonies are the spores that are produced by the streptomyces. When you restreak them the white usually rubs off of the colonies first, this is because you have only collected the spores. The streptomyces look kind of grey and drab, but this is the part that sticks to the agar so it is really hard to remove. I can’t wait to observe them under a microscope and see what they look like up close.

    There is a saying that goes “every person you meet in your life, is either a lesson or a blessing”. This idea plays on the philosophy that mistiming occurs, which a lot of us can agree upon. Sometimes we’re too young when we met the perfect person, and that immaturity caused rifts to grow, when in reality the relationship could’ve really went somewhere had the two met later in life than earlier. Yet can that really be said? Sometimes we meet the right people at the wrong time, but if we had not met them, would we still be the same person now? In my opinion, the answer’s no. Without that person we lost in life, we would not understand how to preserve those that are important to us now. To call it mistiming in my opinion, is misconstrued and comes from a place of regret. Instead, it’s important to understand our mistakes so that these mistakes are prevented in the future.

Molting is done in the warm seasons before the breeding season. It usually cost 25 to 40% of the energy. The new feather production requires a lots of proteins so they must eat to grow faster. That is why molting in the warm season is advantageous because the bird can eat more and molt faster. The American Redstart is a common bird in North America that is well study for its molting. The male has a bright red orange feathers that are for the breeding season. They molt right after they care for their young, however, the day to departure the area results if the male is able to molt into this bright color or not. If the male can leave the young early enough, then they succeed to molt in this color, but if they are late, the molting will not be complete. This results the late molting males to have a lower breeding rate than the ones that completed their molting.

There are two types of birds, the one that lives in the same habitat all year around and the ones that migrate seasonally. The common pigeon is one of the famous permanent bird that will not leave their habitat unless their environment drastically lack in food. They complete their life cycle in two places. One to grow their offspring and other to mate. The migratory birds will schedule their reproduction location, non-breeding location, and molting location depending on the time of the year. Most birds will not overlap these times so that they can win the resource competition. If a bird is a migratory one, it has many physiological stress such as weight gain and loss. To travel long distance, it must eat as much as it can to gain twice as much so that they have enough fuel.

Clostridium difficile is the inflammation of the colon caused by the clostridium difficile bacteria. It results from a lack of healthy bacteria in the body that causes diarrhea, stomach pain, and fever. The common way to treat this disease, likewise for several other bacterial infections, is with antibiotics, however a risk remains for the infection to come back. In recent years, researchers and scientists have consulted a different treatment approach with fecal transplant. The fecal matter from a healthy person can potentially restore the healthy bacteria in the infected colon of an affected patient and restore the bacteria killed off by the antibiotics. So far, this process has been shown to be successful, however critics are concerned about the pricing for patients and the methods are still being reviewed by the FDA. This breakthrough has helped patients feel better within hours after a single treatment. The fecal transplant can be admitted through colonoscopy or capsules contained fecal matter.

            The relationship between urban societies and its rivers have become a critical issue in many developing countries as it has placed a barrier preventing populations from enjoying the various benefits of water bodies. As urban river ecosystems degrade, the intensity of significant health problems have begun to rise and could be aggravated when it comes to flooding. Nature-based solutions are receiving increasing attention to tackle issues such as climate change adaptation, population health, food security and natural disasters. The project aims to develop and test nature-based solutions in storm water management, water quality improvement and river restorations. The project involves a wide range of interdisciplinary collaborations which allows researchers to accelerate findings and solidify experimental implementations as mass urbanization presents one of the most urgent challenges of the 21^stcentury. 

“The guardian of the genome” or p53 is essentially a gene that codes for a protein that regulates the cell cycle. One may categorize p53 as a tumor suppressor as many of the genetic mutations could lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation. The protein itself was discovered in the 1970’s and ever since has been well-studied as its key role in the pathogenesis of human cancers is fundamental. It converts incoming signals into alternate cell fate decisions by changing the expression of hundreds of target genes. With its wide range of function in activity of interacting pathways and the type of stimulus that is generated, the p53 system has the ability to generate various responses. This lab aims to explore the cellular responses of the p53 pathway given different forms of genotoxic stress. Genotoxins are destructive chemical agents that result in a negative effect on a cells genetic material. These genotoxins can be mutagens, carcinogens or teratogens, in which they all result in some type of damaged genome.