lgarneau's blog

Most people are under the assumption that plants move water actively. Moving the water actively would require an output of energy, however, plants actually move water passively. A good way to picture this is imagining a paper towel slowly soaking up water. To regulate the water though, energy needs to be expended. It’s thought that leaves constantly transpire but the stomata regulate this. Stomata, in greek, means mouths and its essentially the pores of the plant and how the plant allows water to leave. A stoma opens when the solute potential is negative and the turgor pressure is high. A stoma then closes when the solute potential is approximately zero and turgor pressure is low. The plant essentially wants water to leave and bring CO2 in. It creates a balance between the conservation of water and photosynthesis.

There is a right way and wrong way to go about research. Ethical practices are important for research to ensure the trust of a participant and for the accuracy of data. For example, when running a trial in a lab, it is important to always be professional. The idea of professional varies from person to person, but generally, this means proper attire, a level of knowledge and respect for the participant. This means leaving judgment outside of the lab and personal stories and conversation to a minimum. An example that was shared today in the ethical training I attended was about someone sharing a highly offensive joke with a fellow RA while a participant was performing a task. The participant overheard the laughter and assumed the RA’s were laughing at them and this compromised the data and made the participant rather uncomfortable. Avoiding this is vital in order to successfully respect the participant and the study as a whole.

There are a lot of ways to see if a psychological test is valid or reliable, especially in the context of abnormal psychology. Validity means the accuracy of a test in assessing what it is supposed to measure. In terms of validity, there are a lot of different types. There is content validity, concurrent validity, predictive validity, construct validity, and face validity. They cover a lot of bases on which psychologists believe these tests will alter the data obtained. Reliability indicates its consistency in measuring what it is supposed to measure. There are also a lot of different types of reliability. There is test-retest reliability, internal reliability, alternate form reliability, and interrater reliability. Both of these aspects are very important for proper testing and assessing of psychological abnormalities.

There are many ways to approach diagnosing abnormalities in a human. The behavioral learning theory makes basic assumptions and alludes to the fact that abnormal behaviors are learned. Some examples of learned behaviors are classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modeling/observation. Classical conditioning explains seemingly irrational responses to a host of neutral stimuli and targets associations made between emotions and stimuli. Operant conditioning shapes new behaviors by rewarding desired behaviors and punishing undesired behavior. With operant conditioning comes the idea of extinction in which someone can learn to eliminate a learned behavior by creating negative associations with something. Modeling/observation shows that new behaviors are learned by imitating the behaviors modeled by important people and a person who observes rewards behave accordingly to also receive rewards. Other approaches include cognitive, psychodynamic and humanistic, family systems, and emotion-focused approaches.

Diagnosing diseases is often a difficult task. The reason many people find this difficult is because of multifinality. Multifinality means that a single cause can lead to multiple outcomes. So in the case of diagnosis, multifinality makes it difficult to pinpoint an exact disease because one symptom can point to many different diseases. An example could be a lack of exercise. A lack of exercise could lead to obesity, diabetes, respiratory issues, etc. and so make it hard to figure out exactly what is wrong. Of course with one symptom, there are usually multiple and these can all lead to the same result. This idea is referred to as equifinality where multiple pathways lead to the same outcome. These ideas are important to consider during the prognosis of diseases and getting multiple opinions on health advice is usually very important.

For my research lab, we were sent an article on how to make scientific writing more effective and to increase the probability of having your published article cited. The article was surprising in that the findings of how to catch a readers eye didn’t sound like typical scientific publications. The article suggested that “highly cited articles were short; used first-person narration; placed findings in context by providing a setting;...linked ideas by using conjunctions;...punctuation marks;...and consistent terminology” (Freeling 343). Often we are told when writing something scientific to add almost no personality and make it strictly factual and scientific. However, this article disproves this theory which is interesting to consider. Adding a personal attachment to the writing can make others feel like you are having a conversation with them rather than lecturing and talking at them. This article is important to keep in mind when writing in the future and I believe it may be relatable and helpful for this class. Although our textbook for this class may state otherwise, I do think this idea is important to keep in mind nonetheless.

Water plays a really important role in the life of a plant. It's interesting to compare and contrast the need for water between plant and animal cells. Surprisingly though, out of all the resources that a plant needs to flourish and function, water is the most plentiful but also the most limiting. This is because the actual availability of fresh water is so low. The availability can limit the productivity of ecosystems which leads to differences in vegetation type. Also, water is usually a limiting source for plants and not so much animals because plants use water in very large amounts and approx. 97% of the water evaporates that is taken in. Both cells ultimately survive on water and need it to prosper. However, a big difference that has a large impact on their water relations respectively is that plant cells have cell walls and animal cells do not. The cell walls allow the plant cells to build large internal hydrostatic pressures which is essential for physiological processes.

All facts stated can be found in the textbook Plant Physiology and Development (sixth edition) by Lincoln Taiz and Eduardo Zieger

DNA tests can be a really cool way to learn more about yourself. They can give you insight into your ancestry and DNA. However, there are things to be wary about when taking DNA tests. In my class, Human Genome Analysis, our professor played us this video about the truths of DNA testing and continued on to share his personal stories with DNA testing. In the video, the lady discussed that people will end up contacting you whether you want them to or not. I find this very fascinating because you can find out so many things about ancestors that you didn’t even know existed. However, others may not find this as cool because they might not want to know secrets about their families. DNA testing has gotten so much better over the years and its ability to accurately pinpoint where your family is from is amazing. It used to just tell you your family is from Europe but now it has the ability to tell you where precisely in Europe your family is from and such. Testing my DNA and finding out where I am from is such an exciting experience and I cannot wait to see where my family is from.

An unknown organism, most likely a larva, is off-white in color and measures approximately ¾ an inch long. The larva, when left unbothered, seems rather ordinary. Upon stimulation, such as flipping the container, the organism seems to react. The reaction was predictable as the organism seemed startled. However, a significant reaction occurred when a light was shined onto the organism. The larva ran away from the light every time it was put directly overtop it. This finding may shed light onto the typical environments the organism thrives in and lives in. An assumption can be made that the organism may be used to living underground such as in the soil because of this finding. Another minor observation that may further this prediction was that the unknown organism resembles that of a grub and may belong to the grub family. Because of this educated guess about its ancestors, it could further explain the type of environment the organism usually lives in.

This organism looks a lot like a grub and might belong to the grub family. It doesn’t seem to be exactly “thriving” in the enclosed environment, but this may just be its function, doing nothing. It may belong in more of a soil like environment, but this is just a guess based off the ancestors I think it has. The organism is off-white in color, measuring approximately ¾ an inch, it’s very tiny. The insect does seem to have the ability to sense his surroundings. It might have feelers on the bottom part of his body that makes it able to sense its surroundings. Plus, when the organism is turned over, it tends to freak out about being on its back and does everything in its ability to flip back over once again. The insect tends to move slow except when stimulated or disturbed by an outside source. After learning more about the insect from our professor, the worm almost can’t prosper unless it is in an enclosed container by itself. I find this very interesting and offers insight into the types of environments it should live in and will do well in. It’s purpose doesn’t seem apparent in this environment. What is this insects purpose? Is it supposed to provide nutrients to other organisms? It can be inferred that this insect is prey because of the “eye-like” dots on the back of it. Usually this is supposed to intimidate other organisms and animals.