rdigregorio's blog

To start the lab, we labeled five test tubes from zero to 40 minutes, and one with the label of Tet+Ink. Next, 500 microliters of Tetrahymena solution was and another 500 microliters of India Ink was added to the tube labeled Tet+Ink. We had to add seven microliters of serotonin to the same tube to assess how the serotonin would affect the rate of phagocytosis in the tetrahymena cells. In the five other tubes labeled from zero to 40 minutes, we added 20 microliters of glutaraldehyde solution (WE DID NOT add glutaraldehyde to the Tet+Ink tube). After starting a timer we immediately added 100 microliters of the solution in the Tet+Ink tube to the first tube, labeled zero minutes. At ten minute intervals, 100 microliters of the Tet+Ink solution was added to the next tubes. We were careful to mix the solution and glutaraldehyde within the tubes. After 40 minutes passed, we put 15 microliters of the solution in each tube onto separate microscope slides. We then observed and counted the number of dark colored vacuoles in ten different cells for each slide. Finally, we recorded the number of vacuoles found into a table and calculated the average and standard deviation for each tube.

The everyday behaviors that female foals of the Equus Caballus species exhibit help to define the communication tendencies between foals, who they are with, and what context they are in. By examining different bouts of behavior, categories can be formed to understand the spectrum of actions that the young foals use to convey messages. The data is used to evaluate the difference in foal behaviors depending on social context and how often each behavior is performed. Long hours of observation and distinct behaviors were captured and described to be put into tables. Recordings were analyzed through reliability, time-budget, and sequential analyses. Reliability analyses shows how dependable the scoring of the behaviors was executed. The time-budget analysis shows how much time the foal spend performing each category of behavior. The sequential analysis shows the probability of one behavior following another. After the collection and analyzation of the behaviors of female foal interactions, it is concluded that the context that the foals find themselves in have a large impact on which behaviors they exhibit. Some of these contexts call for a display behavior for communication, and the foals are able to perform interactive displays.

These labs were focused on finding the speed of a reaction in a chemical equation and how it relates to temperature and concentration of an added solution. The speed is also called the activation energy, and it differs depending on the temperature of the reaction. In the same way that the amount of each reactant added will affect the reaction time, temperature will also change the time of the reaction, or the time that it takes for the KMnO₄ and H₂C₂O₄ to change color, or react.

In Section 5 of the module, we were asked to use what we observed from the examples we were given (A, B and C) to create our own versions of reserves that would promote successful generations for the ferrets. Both reserves that I created were mainly inspired by Reserve C. The success of the small connected spaces produced a higher heterozygosity, and prevented the loss of alleles. In Reserve 1, I connected three larger habitats. The expectation was that the generations would be separated enough to preserve heterozygosity when parents would travel to other populations, but would have large enough populations to stay fairly unique. By giving Reserve 2 five moderate sized habitats with small connections, I wanted to compare the diversity of alleles and lack of allelic loss with Reserve 1. With one habitat in the middle, the four habitats on the outside would be forced to travel through the middle habitat before going to any other, more independent and unique, habitat. I expected the heterozygosity to be lower because there was a common space for all populations to share alleles.

My name is Ryan DiGregorio and I am a junior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am on the pre-med track but my major is Biology. I am from Norton, Massachusetts which is in eastern mass. Things that I do in my spare time are usually based around sports and friends. I play baseball or any other sport my friends are interested in, and when I’m not playing sports I am just hanging out with my friends. My favorite thing about UMass Amherst so far has been how diverse it is. My home town is small and not very diverse so this definitely something new and exciting to me. Some important strengths of my generation are staying informed and being tech savvy. Something that I think our generation needs to improve on is focusing on the future. I feel as though people focus too much on what is happening now and not what the effect on their future will be.  

My name is Ryan DiGregorio and I am a freshman here at UMass Amherst. I am on the pre-med track but my major is undecided. I am from Norton, Massachusetts which is in eastern mass. Things that I do in my spare time are usually based around sports and friends. I play baseball or another sport if my friends want, and when I’m not playing sports I am just hanging out with my friends. My favorite thing about UMass Amherst so far has been how diverse it is. My home town is small and not very diverse so this definitely something new and exciting to me. Some important strengths of my generation are staying informed and being tech savvy. Something that i think our generation needs to improve on is focusing on the future. I feel as though people focus too much on what is happening now and not what the effect on their future will be.  

The goal of this project was to great a methods and a figure from an interspecific relationship so as a classmate could recreate it. The relationship that I chose to use was between feeding time and my cat. The figures were of a photo of the cat with its food bowl, as well as a picture of the bowl itself. Many differences arose in the figures that were both from making the figure and the contents within the figure. These could easily have been qualmed if the methods that I provided were more detailed and formed better.

The actual contents of the figure showed differences to figure 1. The first and most noticeable difference would be that the cats have different markings. The cat in figure 1 had gray and black coloring with dark gray stripes. The cat in figure 2 has gray, black, white and a bit of brown. Also the hair appeared to be different as well. From these differences it's safe to make the assumption that the cats are different. This was expected as she did not come over and take pictures of specifically my cat, but this did not hamper the experiment as it should have worked with any cat. The same thing applies to the background of the photo; these pictures were taken in our apartments respectively so they were bound to be different. The evidence that lead me to this conclusion is that the flooring underneath the bowls are different, one is wood and one is tiled. Also the carpets are different colors and patterns so they rooms were different.

In the Spring of 2019 we were assigned a project in Writing in Biology as part of my undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This class was set up to challenge our writing and to make sure we wrote like true scientists. In every paper done in science the goal is to make a sure that the the experiment can be recreated and the results remain consistent time after time. One of the most important ways experiments have communicated to others is through the methods section. The methods section should explain the exact things that took place in the experiment so that someone else can recreate it.

The Clicker question that I chose asked what characters of an atom determine the magnitude and duration of a charge. The options that were given to choose from were size, weight, density, and electronegativity. The correct answer would be electronegativity. Electronegativity is the measure of how strong the atom is attracted to its outer substituents. The higher the electronegativity the more it is attracted. So, the charge is determined by this because if an atom bonds with something that will allow it to be positive or negative and it has a high electronegativity; the atom will keep the bonds for longer. Also, the more electronegative atom will pull the electrons in the bond closer which will determine the magnitude of the charge. Size does not tell us anything about the bonds of the atom or the makeup of it so that doesn’t work as an answer. It’s the same thing for the weight, it does not tell us anything about how it will interact with other atoms. The density will tell you some about the internal forces of the atom but it has nothing to do with charge and it definitely can’t express the magnitude or duration.