Drafts

The sonic hedgehog pathway is a third highly conserved pathway involved in tissue growth and repair as well as PaCSC self-renewal. In pancreatic adenocarcinoma, KRAS promotes sonic hedgehog expression via the inflammatory transcription factor NF-kB (Gu et al. 2016). The sonic hedgehog protein inhibits the receptor patched, which releases its inhibition of the protein smoothened. Smoothened leads to the activation and nuclear localization of GLI transcription factors, which regulates expression of target genes. An appealing target for this pathway is smoothened, and inhibitors BMS-833923 and PF-0444913 serve as effective treatments for pancreatic adenocarcinoma (Jia et al. 2019). These two inhibitors work most efficiently in combination with gemcitabine, but also have shown beneficial effects on their own (Jia et al. 2019). The researchers plan to incorporate these two smoothened inhibitors, BMS-833923 and PF-0444913, into their treatment as well to block the self-renewal of PaCSCs.

Scientists had found that long term use of opioid medications can cause a change in hormone levels. 65% of males that use opioid medications long term started to develop hypogonadism. Hypogonadism is a condition that causes erectile dysfunction and infertility. It can also cause a loss in muscle mass, hair loss and eventually development of breasts. Another condition is hypocortisolism, low levels of cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for metabolism and immune response. Having low cortisol levels can cuase fatigue, weight loss and mood changes.

We started by placing our vial full of adult flies in the refrigerator in a bucket of ice for at least 15 minutes, until the flies stopped moving, then moved this vial to our ice bucket to prepare to sort the flies. At the same time we labeled 4 plastic vials with our group name, lab section, and the date and treatment (appropriate ecdysone hormone concentrations), and put 2 grams of dehydrated fly media in the bottom of each tube, then added 10 mL of water or the appropriate concentration of reagent (control (water), 0.1, 1.0, and 10 µM of ecdysone), and mixed to create blue, uniform medias in each vial. Then we added flies to the vials by using a soft brush to gently sweep two male and two female flies into each separate vial, inserting cotton stoppers, and laying the vials on their sides until the flies regain consciousness. The vials were then placed into incubators.

Solitude, or a lack thereof, is a significant issue brought about by the ever-expanding age of technology. Solitude has long been a great social and spiritual value. With the increase in activity on social media websites, there has been a very apparent decrease in the amount of time people spend alone. In today’s world, young people are all vying for renown and versions of fame on the internet. Like William Deresiewicz stated in his article, The End of Solitude, “The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many google hits does my name generate?” As time goes on, it is increasingly harder for people to remove themselves from the comfortability of the constant socialization provided by the internet. Though it takes much courage to let go of the desire to gain renown through various technologies, being alone has always been a significant social and religious value, so its benefits should be reaped as often as possible.

Deviance is defined as, the recognized violation of cultural norms. The topic of deviance is highly applicable to television, especially in today’s culture. When you look at television shows such as “Jersey Shore”, “Are You The One?”, “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead”, the premises are inherently violent and sexual. Each and every individual storyline has violent and sexual undertones and overtones. This deviant behavior is so prevalent in television that you will seldom find a popular program without at least one of the two. Why is deviance so common in television? And what it is doing to change our society? People are attracted to deviance in TV for the simple fact that it is behavior they themselves would not commit to. The characters on these television shows share values and characteristics with many of the viewers, so they become highly relatable. Because of this relatability, the deviance being committed seems more real to the audience. Often times, on TV, deviant behavior is just that, deviant. Because it is TV, this behavior does not wander into the realm of crime. Crime is defined as the violation of society’s formally enacted law. Viewers are not going to commit crimes just because they saw their favorite character do it on TV, so to achieve the same feeling they got when they first watched deviant behavior on television, they return for more. While violence and sexually explicit activity seem like obvious deviant behavior, deviance is often times subtle.

Gene duplication is the copying of a region of DNA that contains a gene. This is different from a regulatory mutation, which is a loss of an enhancer portion of a gene. This changes the way the gene is regulated, affecting the development of the part of the organism that it corresponds to without losing this part of the organism. Finally, a coding sequence mutation is a mutation that causes a change in the coding sequence. The coding sequence encodes for the gene product. These mutations include frameshift mutations, missense mutations, nonsense mutations, and silent mutations. Gene duplication, coding sequence mutations, and regulatory mutations are all significant factors in how snakes gained the ability to use crotamine as a defense mechanism. Crotamine genes, which encode for the venom that snakes use to hunt and defend, evolved from defensins. Defensin is an antimicrobial gene that underwent gene duplication, which altered the regulatory and coding sequences of the original defensin gene. This created a crotamine gene and allowed for the production of venom.

Gene duplication is the copying of a region of DNA that contains a gene. This is different from a regulatory mutation, which is a loss of an enhancer portion of a gene. This changes the way the gene is regulated, affecting the development of the part of the organism that it corresponds to without losing this part of the organism. Finally, a coding sequence mutation is a mutation that causes a change in the coding sequence. The coding sequence encodes for the gene product. These mutations include frameshift mutations, missense mutations, nonsense mutations, and silent mutations.

Communication with the population of the area being excavated is key when working on a project as an archaeologist. If the community is not served properly, then the end product is generally bad for everybody involved. Community based archaeology is based on the indigenous peoples’ experiences with archaeology. A partnership must be formed with the community; its needs and goals must be met. If I were to formulate a community based archaeology platform, the needs of the community would outweigh the needs of the archaeologists. I would form goals that line up with the goals of the community and allow the community full access the the archaeological site.

When engaging the public, it is important to remember that it will not always be a positive experience. People will disagree and there may be arguments that could turn into larger problems. To best avoid situations like these, the first public engagement method I would use would be a committee dedicated to sorting artifacts, presenting them to the public, and deciding where and to whom they should go. This would serve to avoid unwanted conflict upon discovering artifacts that may be claimed by more than one member of the community. Beyond this, as archaeologists, we could make sure the names of the members of the community are carried on throughout the project. When an important discovery is made, or a new artifact discovered, then the names linked to that artifact would be acknowledged.

The study of food, food waste, and foodways is an excellent way to observe our culture’s eating and spending habits. It can answer the many questions that are posed in regard to waste. We can understand the socio-economic state of an area by looking at what is in their dumpsters. We can determine where food deserts are and if people are spending too much on food. Most importantly, we can determine whether or not food is being wasted. In most cases, food is certainly being wasted. People do not fully understand what they are using and throwing away. By looking at trash we can discover what is being wasted and how much of it is being wasted. We can, by determining the quantity of what is thrown away, provide a rough estimate of how much is being wasted in terms of money. On top of this, we can understand the environmental and cultural impact of food waste.

Soil is a complex thing after all. It is a heterogeneous mixture with inorganic particles that may have charges on them. Since soil is composed by so many different factors, the pH, temperature, ratio of each element can all be different from one day to another. For the plant to be able to obtain sufficient amount of nutrients without being affected by the soil condition, plants have developed a complex root system. Each plant specie may have a different shape and number of roots, but they all serve the same purpose to get nutrients from the ground. Researchers also claim two hypothesis about roots. One is that each part of the roots absorb different type of nutrient. In other words, the nutrient absorbed at the tip of the root and at the middle part of the root is not the same. The other one says that the entire root surface absorb the nutrient. The two hypothesis are true depending on which plant specie the researcher is talking about.