sharrath's blog

In a world that we live in today, there is constantly pressure around us pushing us to be as “perfect” as we can be. But what exactly is defined as being ‘perfect’? One’s ideal version of perfection can be the complete opposite of another, and because of these distinctive perspectives people will continuously judge and be judged. Along with these judgmental views come one’s insecure thoughts. Insecure thoughts are only derived from our own sense of self and how we compare ourselves to others.  We as human beings have a strong desire of wanting to be approved and accepted and that is exactly why we care so much about society's opinions. Family, friends, school mates, media and even strangers are all outside sources that all have some type of contribution to our own mentality. The people that we interact with on a day to day basis all have different ideas of who we should be and we know very well that the most important perspective is our own. However, sometimes we tend to seek confirmation from these people based on their desires which may not even end up creating any fulfillment in our own lives. Why do we even end up caring?

Today top tech companies are already in a constant race to change the way robotics are implemented into people’s everyday lives and how robotics can transform our future. Being able to explore how a robot can play an active or passive role in the learning process will allow for a better understanding and advancement of automation and mechanization of robotics. The global economy has grown an approximate of sevenfold, and technology has played an extremely large part in this growth.

The BIMROB project aims to improve the scientific foundation for better robot training, by combining intuition from both areas of motor control and learning in both humans and robots. The project utilizes interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists of both sports medicine and computer science, in which demonstrates the universities drive for cross-departmental collaboration. With ambition to yield new automated training and rehabilitation equipment, BIMROB and its researchers combine key insights of two essential research topics. The understanding of the ability of humans to learn to integrate perception and the approaches for robots to learn as well as execute precise movement. 

I believe a crucial aspect for undergraduates wanting to pursue higher education include research. I have been involved in extensive research at my university in which we are focused on elucidating molecular mechanisms to improve basic understanding of muscle function and develop more effective treatments for diseases related to fatigue. The force generating capacity of muscle is ultimately derived from changes of muscles molecular motor, myosin. In that case, the lab that I am involved in closely investigates myosin and the mechanics and kinetics of myosin function. We hope these lines of investigation will both improve our basic understanding of muscle function and reveal the root molecular causes of related diseases, ultimately leading to improved treatments.Different techniques that are used include both in vitro motility assay and single molecular laser trap assays. The single molecular trap assay consists of an actin filament attached to two glass beads held in optical traps which are brought in to contact with a third bead sparsely coated with myosin. 

In an article I read “Arctic Sea Ice Annual Minimum Ties Second Lowest on Record”, NASA talks about the decrease in ice coverage over the Arctic and how it’s been affecting our atmosphere. The ice coverage over the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas, helps regulate the planet's temperature, influences the circulation of the atmosphere and benefits different arctic ecosystems. Scientists have been observing that sea ice shrinks every year during the spring and the summer and eventually regrows during the fall and winter when the “sun is below the horizon in the Arctic”. However, the pace of melting ice was unpredictable and continuously changed paces worrying many scientists this past year. This changing of pace caused melting momentum in June and July to slow down, when normally those two months should have a steady increase of melting ice because the Arctic is exposed to 24 hours of sunlight. Careful examination of the ice in the Arctic goes to show that the ice has not been “rebounding where it used to be” and there is a clear significant change of sea ice. As winter ice continues to disappear, evaporation will also increase resulting in even more clouds in the atmosphere therefore warming up the atmosphere during the winter. Wildlife that has once depended on these cold temperatures and ice sheets are now in danger. It is our responsibility as humans on this earth to stop climate change from continuing on.

S. Cerevisiaeis a unicellular, eukaryotic fungus and has the ability to grow aerobically or anaerobically in media. Cells divide through mitosis, resulting in two haploid daughter cells. Reproduction occurs between opposite genders, denoted as MATα or MATa. These two haploid cell types produce different pheromones necessary for mating which then allows the yeast to grow in a certain direction. During reproduction, cells fuse together, resulting in a diploid offspring. The cell remains in its diploid state until nitrogen starvation promotes sporulation. During sporulation, the four gametes produced are bound by a single membrane in a structure called an ascus and remain bound in this state till further environmental conditions improve. 

The budding yeast of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a model organism, was chosen to analyze the effect of complementation within the adenine biosynthesis pathway. Four haploid  strains were mated together and grown on MV plates. The resulting phenotypes of these crosses were then analyzed. Utilizing the phenomenon of genetic complementation helped determine whether the mutation causing an adenine deficiency was caused by the same gene in haploid yeast strains or by different genes. The HB1 strain was determined to be an α-strain with a genotype of ade- ,while strains HA0, HA1 and HA2 were determined to all be a-strains with HA0 being ADE+ and HA1 and HA2 being ade-.

    Although DNA sequencing is a great way to extract information based on genotype of a specific organism, it is not the only way.  In this experiment, genotypic information about the dogs was gathered using a combination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequences (dCAPs). PCR is a method of DNA amplification that can produce an exponential number of copies of a specific sequence. PCR is run in a thermocycler in a tube containing taq polymerase, dNTPs and a primer specific to the section of DNA to be amplified. The end product of PCR is millions of copies of the desired DNA sequence. The amplified signal is useful for reliable repeated assays of that target sequence. For this lab, the product of PCR was used in dCAPs to figure out the genotype of the dogs at a gene. dCAPs is a derived version of RFLP that can be used for SNPs without a natural restriction site. Both RFLP and dCAPs use a restriction site containing a desired SNP to determine the genotype at a gene, by cutting the sequence with a restriction enzyme and running the product(s) of the digestion on a gel

The purpose of this lab is to determine how single nucleotide polymorphisms in the Canis Lupus Familiaris genome can be linked to specific traits. Dogs are perfect candidates to study how changes in ones genotype relates to phenotypic variation. This was accomplished by isolating canine DNA, designing primers to amplify desired single nucleotide polymorphisms, running PCR and digesting the DNA sequences with a restriction enzyme.The products of the digestion were then run on a gel to determine the alleles of each trait. Gel electrophoresis yielded no discernable result or conclusions due to possible errors with load dye or restriction enzymes.

I have been involved in extensive research at my university in which we are focused on elucidating molecular mechanisms to improve basic understanding of muscle function and develop more effective treatments for diseases related to fatigue. The force generating capacity of muscle is ultimately derived from changes of muscles molecular motor, myosin. In that case, the lab that I am involved in closely investigates myosin and the mechanics and kinetics of myosin function. We hope these lines of investigation will both improve our basic understanding of muscle function and reveal the root molecular causes of related diseases, ultimately leading to improved treatments.Different techniques that are used include both in vitro motility assay and single molecular laser trap assays. The single molecular trap assay consists of an actin filament attached to two glass beads held in optical traps which are brought in to contact with a third bead sparsely coated with myosin.