Drafts

There are several theories to why animals must sleep. Some of these theories include the "repair and restoration theory," "evolutionary theory," and "information consolidation theory." The repair and restoration theory suggests that the physiological processes are restored and revitalized when organisms sleep. This also ties into the other theories, which are likewise interconnected. The evolutionary theory suggests that sleep was an adaptation that was helpful in reducing activity when energy needed to be conserved due to lack of food in the environment. Information consolidation, similarly to the repair and restoration theory, suggests that sleep helps process information gathered from the day, and plays a role in helping processing information from the following period of being awake. However, these theories do not fully capture why it is necessary to sleep, and some biologists have made claims that sleep is one of evolution's biggest flaws, because sleeping organisms are prone to threats such as predators.

Due to the importance of coastal wetlands, efforts have been made to devise effective conservation strategies to halt their destruction and potentially aid in their recovery. One method is through government regulation. By 1984, over half of all the wetlands in the U.S. had been drained or filled for development or agriculture. Congress responded to these alarming figures by passing two critical wetland conservation and restoration programs administered by National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to slow or reverse these trends. These two programs are the Wetland Conservation Provisions which was authorized in the 1985 Farm Bill, and the Wetlands Reserve Program which was later authorized in the 1990 Farm Bill. Enactment of the 1985 Farm Bill dramatically reduced agricultural impacts when compared to pre-1985 wetland impacts. Through these two programs, NRCS works with farmers and ranchers to maintain or increase important wetland benefits, while ensuring their ability to continue to produce food and fiber (Barras). Another strategy is to better communicate the economic benefit of healthy wetlands, in order to incentivize the private sector to take action. Using the latest modeling techniques, researchers from the conservation, engineering, and insurance sectors studied the impact of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast United States in 2012, when New York and New Jersey were badly hit by storm surges. The study determined that more than $625 million in property damages were prevented during this catastrophe due to coastal wetlands along the Northeast coast. Promoting these advantages of wetlands may result in greater consideration in coastal development and habitat restoration decisions, and may provide greater incentives in the private sector to design their development projects in a sustainable way so as to conserve and restore these natural habitats.

Predicting the energy level of an electron when activated by a photon is possible using the conservation of energy. If the energy before is equal to the energy after the interaction with the photon, then the respective energies become as follows: Ei+Ephoton=Ef. To calculate which energy levels are involved in this interaction, the information would need to be provided. The size of the boundry to which the electron is bound must be provided since the other factors are constants. The equation for the energy of an electron at an energy level n, is therefore En=(h^2)(n^2)/8mL^2, where h is planks constant of 6.626X10^-34J*s, n is the energy level, m is the mass of an electron (9.11X10^-31), and L is the provided length. Solving for the initial energy, then the energy of the photon will provide the final energy of the electron after interaction with the photon. To find the energy of the photon, the wavelength of the photon may be provided since the energy is E=hc/wavelength.

Kelly and Sears (2011)  “Limb specialization in living marsupial and eutherian mammals: constraints on mammalian limb evolution” aimed to test the argument that the functional requirement of newborn marsupials to crawl to the teat is constraining the evolution of the marsupial forelimb, based on two core hypotheses: first, that marsupial forelimbs are less specialized than eutherian forelimbs; and second, that marsupials tend to have more specialized hind limbs, whereas eutherians follow the opposite pattern and tend to have more specialized forelimbs. The first hypothesis was formulated based on the fact that marsupial forelimbs show a small range of possible forms, are very similar among different functional groups, and are less morphologically different from the average mammal than eutherian forelimbs are.   The second hypothesis was based on the fact that marsupial young have highly developed forelimbs and shoulders at birth because they are born premature and need to crawl up to the mother’s teat immediately after birth, where they attach and finish developing. This specialized morphology is necessary at such an early time in their development that the theory is that it prevents variation, and thus reduces the likelihood that marsupial forelimbs will evolve and specialize. The hind legs are not used in this post-birth crawl, which leaves them free to diverge and specialize. Eutherians, on the other hand,  tend to have more specialized forelimbs and less specialized hind limbs. The proposed theory is that eutherian hind limbs are functionally important in locomotion, which constrains how much their morphology can vary, but the forelimbs are free to evolve and diversify—the opposite of limb specialization seen in marsupials.

I do not have a very clear understanding of my personal genetic ancestry but am very curious about finding out more. My family has always said that I am a “mut” meaning my family comes from all over the world. Also, none of my family members have ever done any genetic testing (that we know of) so we aren’t completely sure on anything. My dad’s side of the family is easier to trace he has some Irish in him, along with French Canadian, and Swedish. There is probably a lot more to his side of the family but those are the ones we are more sure about (but not completely confident). My mom’s side of the family is a big guess because her family was displaced when issues with people of the Jewish religion arose. My nana believes that she is from Lithuania, but she only started mentioning this recently, it may be skewed because of her old age. When she had a better memory, she used to say that her family was from either Russia or Ukraine. I’m sure this will become more clear when I take the genetic tests and actually see where it can be traced, I convinced both my mother and father to do it too so we can see more clear information.

The interspecies interaction that I decided to use for my project was between a tree and the Ivy branches climbing the trees. I started my search for pictures of this interaction by walking along the West side of North pleasant st between Puffton village and UMass Amherst campus. While there were several examples of this interaction along this route, I wanted to look for a example that had a thick layer of Ivy branches going a good way up on a larger tree. The example i choose from this was a tree right in front of Puffton village. For the individual species I took a photo of the Ivy branches from approximately 1 foot away from their side to try and isolate them in a picture. For the tree I searched around for another tree in the nearby area that did not have any IVy branches climbing its trunk. For the interaction pictures I took two pictures both from around 5 ft away from the tree. The first angled downward showing the base of the tree as well as the Ivy branches coming out of the ground and climbing the base of the tree. The second was angled slightly upward, showing the Ivy branches climbing higher up the tree wrapping around the branches of the tree. After taking these 4 photos I proceeded to return home and upload them to my computer to prepare for construction of my figure.

Gel electrophoresis is a method for separation and analysis of macromolecules and their fragments, based on their size and charge. The fragments are negatively charged due to the phosphate groups moving them from negative to positive. Smaller fragments move faster than larger fragments because they move more easily through the pores of the gel. Most commonly, the gel is cast in the shape of a thin slab, with wells for loading the sample. The gel is immersed within an electrophoresis buffer that provides ions to carry a current and some type of buffer to maintain the pH at a relatively constant value. The gel itself is composed of either agarose which is extracted from seaweed or polyacrylamide which is a cross-linked polymer of acrylamide.If we add the DNA fragment onto the negative side of the gel electrophoresis than the DNA fragments would move across the gel because of the DNA's phosphate backbones negative charge.

The ancient enviornments preserved in the orange rocks that form the cliffs around Bay of Fundy are those that contained lake beds, streams, and deserts. Where the fossils were found was not the normal enviornment that fossils were preserved in which was basalt, rock formed from cooked lava. But it was among this rock that a jaw was found that belonged to a creature called the Tritheledont. This animal was extremely mammal like but it still retained many reptilian traits. One way that mammal's skin differs from that of a reptiles is that mammal's skin keeps the skin moisturized unlike reptiles, the skin is a lot softer while a mammals is a lot dryer. The tritheledont have teeth that have cusps made for chewing food while the gorgonopsid does not. The gorgonospid is over 250 million years old and have giant elongated canines that are used to pierce skin.

Blood flow can be affected by restriction forces, specifically blood vessels. A smaller blood vessel diameter creates more friction between the blood and the blood vessel and restricts blood flow. When a blood vessel is dialated, the blood vessel diameter is larger and blood can flow more easily. The human body uses this technique to control blood pressure. When someone works out, blood flow is increased to the contracting muscles. In this time blood is also restricted to areas of the body that are not involved in the work out. When a person in cold, blood vessels that are not supplying blood to digestive organs are restricted. Blood vessels supplying blood to digestive organs are dialated to increase the break down of glucose. 

The studying of ecology: the ways in which different organisms interact with each other and their environments—could prove itself to be very useful in my field of study because many of our medicines have been derived from other organisms directly or about what we’ve learned in these organisms’ behavioral patterns. For example, one of the most recent studies provides evidence that humans may be able to slow down the body’s aging process by essentially reconstructing and imitating the telomerase cells found in lobsters. These cells allow the lobster to be considered biologically immortal as they can live for many years if they avoid being eaten. Without our ability to study these animals’ interactions in their communities we would have never came across such interesting study.