Drafts

The last issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion was for the overall effects and benefits of GMO’s. Our first question dealt with if people thought they posed a risk to health or the environment they lived in, which around a 70% majority answered with agreement. This shows that a majority of people believe that at GMO’s have at pose at least some potential risk on their current lives. The last question of our survey asked if people thought the benefits of using GMO’s as food outweigh the risks. This question gave us the most varied response with an almost even split between agreement and disagreement.  This shows us the people still either have a large misunderstanding of either how dangerous GMO’s can be to us or the opposite of how helpful they can be to our lives.

The third issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was the level of general education for GMOs in food. Our first question for this was question 8 was to determine general knowledge on the prevalence on how common GMO’s are in our current society. This question showed us intesting results, while the vast majority of answers, 82.5% , agreed with the question that over 50% of processed foods contained Genetic modifications only 45% Strongly agreed that it was over 50%. This leads us with a majority of 55% percent that either thought the statement was incorrect or was not sure that it was correct. The second question for this issue was question 9 consumers on genetically modified foods. This question was answered with a OVERWHELMING majority with 97.5% agreeing with the question, 85% of that was strongly agreeing. This makes sense as more education on a topic leads to people having a better understanding of both the benefits and drawbacks of the situation leading them to be able to make a more informed decision non matter which side they land on.

The second issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was in what ways we should be allowed to modify organisms. In our survey we had 4 questions each tackling a different situation to see how people agreed with the used of genetic modification to solve the problem. Questions 4,6 and 7 showed a majority of agreement with 75%, 72.5% and 85% respectively of slight agreement or strong agreement. In contrast however, question 5 only had a 25% agreement rate with 0% of the voters strongly agreeing. Based on this data it seems that people agree with genetically modifying in situations in which there is a problem that needs to be solved but are reluctant in situations in which there is no urgent need to change something. This could potentially be due peoples uncertainty on what all of the side effects of modifying these organisms are. In situations such as question 4,6 and 7 were the effects that these modifications provide is the prevention of human deaths most people are fairy comfortable to accept potential side effects, however in situations such as question 5 were the outcome does not provide some major benefit such as saving human lives, people are much less willing to accept the side effects.

The first issue we wanted to figure out a public opinion for was for government regulation on GMO’s in modern society. Our first question brought up the issue if GMO’s should be required to be labeled on foods containing them which came back as over overwhelmingly agreeable. In general people would rather have the information of what is in what they consume or how it is made regardless of the effects of the product. For question 2 we asked a question regarding if companies should have to seek approval before creating new GMO’s for food which also came back overwhelmingly as strongly or slightly agree. In general it seems that people don't agree with notion that we should just be modifying whatever we see fit without proper procedures in place to protect consumers.

Gastrotrichs live in a diverse range of habitats. They can be found in freshwater, marine, and a few semi-terrestrial environments, though they are more abundant in freshwater and marine environments.  In semi-terrestrial environments, they live in a film of water surrounded by grains of soil. Because they are so small, they usually live in interstitial spaces between particles of sediment. They are also a part of the benthic community, and are usually attached to underwater plants or submerged objects, which makes them sessile organisms. They have adhesive tubes all over their body allowing them to attach to surfaces. They also have a short life cycle that can span from 3-21 days depending on the species.

Responses to Questions 4 through 7 of GMO Survey. Questions 4 through 7 aimed to gather respondents opinions on influential motives for modifying foods. On average, 69.16% of respondents agreed that modifications in order to help better developing/growing populations were acceptable as well as modifications to combat pests/diseases. In contrast, only 25% of respondents, were in favor of modifying food to make it more marketable.

The Ct (the number of cycles to reach threshold) results from qPCR were then analyzed by calculating the fold-change using the ∆∆Ct method: ∆Ct (treated1) = 3.245, ∆Ct (treated2) = 5.54, ∆Ct (treated3) = 1.21, ∆Ct (control1) = -0.21, ∆Ct (control2) = -5.715, ∆Ct (control3) = -1.75. The control ∆Ct’s had a mean of -2.558333 and standard deviation of 2.840125 while the treatment ∆Ct’s had a mean of 3.331667 and standard deviation of 2.166301. A box plot of these ∆Ct was created on R (Figure 8).

The ∆Ct values allowed us to calculate the ∆∆Ct to be 5.89, so the fold-change between the control and treated samples was 0.016863, indicating a sharp decrease in expression of the Bradi1g72430 gene in treated samples. A T-test performed on R revealed the p-value to be 0.04993, meaning there is a significant statistical difference in the fold-change between control and treated samples. The expression of Bradi1g72430 in roots decreases in response to IAA treatment and subsequent increased growth.

    With sandbox game modes, the player is able to choose the way they play without any sort of quests or challenges to guide them through the game. These kinds of games allow the player to progress as fast or as slowly as they want, and to play the game in any way that they want. An example of a sandbox mode MMORPG is Old School Runescape, where the game is set in a medieval time with a very large world and different skills a player can level up to unlock more content. With a setting like this, the options are endless and there’s a lot of unlockable content. Yet with all this freedom, recently a Youtuber named Settled decided to fix his own rules, and lock his character in just a specific area of the map, called Morytania. This portion of the map is very swampy, and thus he named his character “Swampleptics”. By restricting his character to a specific portion of the map, he’s forcing himself to come up with new ways to train abilities and to level up his skills. By documenting this new way of playing the game, the content becomes an interesting way of looking at the game that a lot of people don’t look at it anymore; a feeling of exploration. For a game as old as Old School Runescape, which has all the most efficient leveling up methods explored already, to discover new things that have still been in the game for so long brings up a feeling of nostalgia for old players that they haven’t felt since playing the game as a kid.

Every high school graduate should understand topics in global climate patterns, terrestrial biomes, coping with the environment and heat, evolutionary ecology, life history, behavioral ecology, population distributions, growth, dynamics, and regulation, symbiotic relationships, communities, biogeography, diversity, productivity, food webs, nutrient cycling, and conservation biology. I believe that all these topics should be covered to some extent in high school because it opens up a new perspective to have a broader understanding of everything in ecology. In high school we covered all these topics briefly except for population dynamics, diversity, productivity, conservation biology, and biogeography.

I think it would be beneficial to go into these topics more especially since a major driving force for ecological relationships and balance within ecosystems is how populations function, and can be affected by certain factors. Especially because humans are a major cause of population fluctuations and extinction. This is why i also think conservation biology should be a focus because with thousands of species becoming extinct each day and year, we have to work hard to stabilize and increase populations of endangered species, and prevent further species from going extinct.