Writing in Biology

Birds must overcome gravity and drag to be able to life itself in the air. Lift is the upward force and thrust is the forward force that can be produced by the bird itself. When the lift and thrust is equal and opposite to gravity and the weight, the bird can finally fly in the air. The wing of the bird allow the forward thrust movement. Everytime the wing flaps it produces force to move forward. Once the bird is in the air, airfoils are produced . The bird wing creates the air flow through airstream then circulate the air and brings its body up. The orientation of the wing is essential to keep the balance for the body and fight against the drag. Wing tips of birds have slots where it can adjust the air turbulence.  It makes the body either horizontal or vertical in the air to provide lift and slow speed at the same time. The slot and the adjustment of air is vital for birds when the bird has to take off or land on the ground. The modern aircrafts also resemble these slots for a more stable flight.

Once genomic DNA is extracted, PCR can be performed to amplify a specific region of the DNA. PCR reactions can be set up by preparing a master mix of reactants to be added to the DNA. This master mix includes sterile water, polymerase buffer, a dNTP nucleotide mix, two primers for either end of the selected fragment, and Taq polymerase. The Taq polymerase is always added to the mix last and is treated with care to prevent denaturation of the protein. The master mix and DNA are then added to PCR tubes, which are small and typically only hold about 2 milliliters of liquid at maximum. The tubes are placed in a PCR machine that will cycle through a set protocol of specific temperatures at specific times. Different temperatures are required to repeatedly denature the double stranded DNA, anneal the primers to the DNA, and extend the DNA with the polymerase. Once PCR is complete, which usually takes 2-3 hours, the PCR products can be run on a gel to verify the fragment and separate the DNA from the contaminants in the PCR reaction. Agarose gel electrophoresis is completed, loading the gel wells with a DNA ladder and each sample mixed with loading dye. Once the gel has been run, the DNA can be visualized using UV light. There should be a distinct band that represents your DNA. 

To create my figure, I used Sustainable Umass as a source, which I found by using a search engine and typing in “trees of Umass Amherst”. A link should appear labeled “campus tree finder” I clicked on the link and there was a map of all the trees on campus. I retraced my step, located lot 43 and was able to zoom in to the tree that I was observing. I located lot 43, by clicking on the fourth icon on the bottom left hand side that is for “my location”. I took a screenshot of that map section and cropped the image into a 15.5 in x 9 in image so that it is zoomed in enough to see the location of the tree, part of the parking lot and the Arnold house. I then used a black marker (an arrow) to signify what the image was dictating that was pointing at the green circle that identified the Crab Cutleaf tree.

The interspecific interaction that I decided to document was between a tree named “Crab Cutleaf” and moss that was growing on the tree itself. The tree was located in lot 43 behind the Arnold house to the right of a staircase leading up to North Pleasant street. I approached the tree from the parking lot in which I entered right off of Eastman Lane on Saturday morning around 6:50am. The sun had not completely risen quite yet, but it was still bright out. I started taking pictures of the species from different angles using my iphone 7 plus. The first picture that I took was a wide shot of the entire Crab Cutleaf, the picture was able to depict the size of the tree and all the branches that were attached. I stood at the edge of the sidewalk and was able to fit the tree with its crown including most of the branches in the shot. Behind the tree to the left, you can see a bicycle and towards the right of the tree is a window with an air conditioner attached to it. The very bottom of the tree trunk is covered in snow so you are unable to see it.

Speciation is more common in Aves classes mainly because they can geographically isolated from their original population due to migration. There are evidence that we see in birds that lived in Galapagos island, and the Hawaiian archipelagos. Differences in geography can have a big impact on one population than the other causing species to evolve and adapt.

Scientific names are essential when classifying birds. Taxonomy is the study of naming  and classifying different organisms to make connections between different species. In order to do classification, there are important steps and rules taxonomists must follow to classify birds into the correct category.

 

In this section, Pearce discusses water usage in southeast Asia, western Africa, the Middle-East, and England, with a particular focus on the consequences of dam building and agricultural irrigation. I found it interesting that a common theme throughout Pearce’s analysis of most of these regions seemed to be upstream countries staging development projects on rivers that subsequently have negative impacts on downstream countries. First it was China’s dam-building on the Mekong, causing adverse effects on the fisheries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, then Ethiopia building a dam on the Omo River, causing the significant decline in water levels of Lake Turkana, and finally Afghanistan building a dam on the Helmand River, contributing to the complete destruction of the Hamoun wetlands over the border in Iran. The common motives for the constructions of these dams seemed to be energy from hydroelectricity and irrigation of crops, both of which were prioritized by each of the governments over the long term sustainability of their respective water ecosystems.

    As of right now, the current minimum wage is 11 dollars per hour. This means that if someone were to work at a minimum wage job for 50 hours a week, 10 hours a day, they would be making 550 dollars a week, not including taxes and social security. This brings their total annual salary to 28,600 dollars a year, again not including taxes and social security. Taxes and social security (in the united states) takes roughly 22% of your paycheck. In total, $22308 is all that remains for a minimum wage worker annually. Even if the person working manages to find a cheap place to live (let’s say 500$ per month) and cooks every meal every year (let’s estimate 30$/week on groceries), that’s already $7560 of their paycheck gone to living arrangements, assuming they walk to and from work. This leaves about a little less than 14000 dollars for the person in this hypothetical to survive. This includes health bills, insurance, car costs (assuming they can even afford to own a car), and more. 14000 dollars sounds like a lot for a year, but the small things add up. Traveling to see family, buying soap, home repairs, clothing, electricity and water bills, etc. The minimum wage that currently exists is unsuitable for a person living in a 1st world country, and must be raised in order to combat the rise in living costs in America.

Another reason that many of these genetic basis  are influences rather than flat out determining our behavior is from the existence and persistence of competing behaviors in a population. One example of this can be found through the existence of self sacrifice in populations. Both self sacrifice to help protect the genes of the population as well as self preservation to protect and pass on one's own genes exist in the same population.  Another example of this can be found in the T shirt experiment. While this test might be a found a valid genetic behavior that leads to us choosing our mate, it is only one factor in a huge number of other variables that we use in determining if somebody is attractive or not. These factors don’t always necessarily go together so while the smell in the test might lead some people to choose one person as a mate, a different factor may influence them in the opposite way leading to a situation were our behavior is being influenced in two, or potentially more, different ways. In conclusion while our behaviors are greatly influenced by our genetics, I do not think this really affects the situation if we have free will or not. Our genetic behaviors seem to be affected by what our environment is or was and many could result in behaviors that contradict the genetic basis, and even if environment did not play a factor our genetics seems to only influence decisions not decide them for us and can result many different choices.

While our human behaviors may have a genetic basis that evolved, many of these genetic behaviors only have an influence on us and are not the only factors when weighing in on how we will react in a situation. One example of a non genetic factor affecting how we make decisions is the environment. Depending on environmental factors, people may be able to act against genetic behaviors or may be even further entrenched into these behaviors. One example of this would be with dealing with two aggressive that have had a very different background with managing anger. In the BBC article “Missing gene link to aggression” they talk about how a gene, PET-1, was related to both aggression anxiety in mice and that there could be a similar gene or genes that affected it in humans as well. In a hypothetical example with two aggressive humans, if one has had an environmental influence that allows them to deal with this aggressiveness then their behaviors may not bet that different of a normal person. In contrast a person who’s environment has not given the proper skills to cope with this aggressiveness might have a much different response. Both of these individuals might be influenced in a similar way to do similar things but due to a different in the environments the actual behaviors may be very different. Another example of a environmental factor can be found in the “How your cat is making you Crazy” article. This article talks about how a a parasite found in cat feces can over time result in changes in our normal behavioral patterns. This shows how a outside parasite could potentially also affect our normal behaviors.

In this section Pearce discusses the water usage in the western United States and at the southern U.S. border. He notes that the heavily subsidized farming industry in these regions grow “thirsty” crops like cotton and alfalfa, which require higher than average amounts of water, and furthermore, that the farms are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. I found it interesting that Pearce alleges these subsidies lead to increased wastefulness in terms of water usage. I was also surprised to learn of the apparently bleak condition of the Rio Grande River, due to massive levels of over extraction and pollution. In addition, the role of snowpack in feeding California’s rivers and lakes was something I had not been previously aware of, and learning about how the long drought irreparably damaged the state’s aquifers such that they are unlikely to ever retain the amount of water they once could was deeply concerning. The part discussing Las Vegas’ successful implementation of water conservation policies was one hopeful note in the section.