Perfect Paragraph

          Due to the deterioration of coastal wetlands in the United States, efforts have been made to devise effective conservation strategies to halt their destruction and potentially aid in their recovery. Wetlands are not only among the most biodiverse habitats, but can also serve as natural speed bumps to approaching hurricanes by starving them of warm ocean water and creating physical barriers to surging flood waters. However, in the last hundred years, the combined forces of human development and increasingly extreme storms have turned thousands of square miles of wetlands in the U.S. into open water.  One strategy to address this issue is 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 figures by passing two 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. These bills put into law restrictions on pollution, such as requiring more strict run-off protocols, which resulted in reduced agricultural impacts on wetlands. Through these two programs, NRCS works with farmers and ranchers to maintain or increase important wetland benefits, while ensuring the farmers' ability to continue to produce crops. 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 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.

Summary of Capturing the Tree and Moss

I took a picture of a tree named “Honey Locust” located to the side of the parking lot next to the Life Sciences Building. I took a few steps away from the tree and captured a wide shot at eye level. The camera was in portrait mode showing the tree in the middle of the frame. The picture was from the ground to the top of the tree before branches extended from the tree. Behind the tree was a gray fence and the Life Sciences Building. The Life Sciences Building stood to the right of the the Honey Locust tree and there was another tree to the right captured in the shot. For the second picture, I stepped closer to the tree just until the words “Honey Locust” came into focus. The Life Science Building was also in the background of this image and the tree to the right of Honey Locust was also present. The lowest two branches extending from the tree were more visible than in the previous picture. Finally, I took a close up image of the tree showing the moss and the bark just below the sign. The tree occupied most of the frame but not all of it. The moss was the focal point of the image. 

Summary of Making the Figure

First, I imported the 3 pictures into Inkscape. Then I set the width of each picture to 500 mm. I aligned the pictures from corner to corner. Then I made a text box of width 40 mm and typed in the letter “a.” Then I made a white rectangle of width 80 and layered it under the letter. I then centered the letter “a” in in the rectangle. I dragged the rectangle with the centered letter to the top left corner of the figure. I repeated this process with letters “b” and “c” for the next two figures. Then I made two freehand lines of width 6. I put a marker on both of them to make them arrows. I put a white filling on the markers. I positioned the first arrow to point to the moss and the second arrow to point to the bark on the tree. Then I exported the file to create a PNG image. I saved this image onto my computer. 

Sleep Theories

There are several theories on 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 physiological processes are restored and revitalized when organisms sleep. This also ties into the other theories, which are likewise all interconnected. The evolutionary theory suggests that sleep is an adaptation. According to this theory, when food supply was short, in order to conserve energy, organisms developed the adaptation to sleep. The information consolidation theory, similar to the repair and restoration theory, suggests that sleep helps process information gathered from the day. It also helps with processing information during periods 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.This is because sleeping organisms are more prone to attack while they are asleep.

Like I stated earlier, the first step in genotyping adult zebrafish is fin-clipping. By fin-clipping, we obtain tissue usable in DNA extraction. Each clipped fin should be placed in labelled PCR tubes. I'm going to discuss extraction using an extract-n-amp kit. To the PCR tubes, add 25µl extract and 6.25µl tissue prep, from the kit. Incubate at room temperature for 10minutes. Then, incubate at 95⁰C for 3 minutes. Add 25µl neutralization buffer and dilute 1:10 in autoclaved double-distilled water. This 1:10 dilution will involve obtaining new tubes and adding 10µl ddH₂O before adding 1µl of DNA extract from the original tubes. It is essential to extract DNA so that we can gain more insight into the genotypic nature of the adult zebrafish. After, we can run polymerase chain reactions (PCR) to isolate the gene of interest.

    The theory of splitters and connectors states that everyone lies on a spectrum between two extremes when it comes to logical thinking. One side of the spectrum is a group of people that are known as splitters, and they are people who tend to have more difficulty connecting ideas on their own accord. For example, if a child was taught how to subtract two large numbers using the traditional method, one child may ask “why do we have to carry the one?”. When the same concept is taught to a different child, that child might understand why without them having to ask. This second child is an example of the opposite side of the spectrum; a connector. A person who naturally is able to connect ideas without them being explicitly told. This concept is usually discussed about in regards with academics, but it can also relay into daily life as well. For example, a person may dine at a restaurant, and notice that due to their water glasses not consistently being filled up, they may complain explicitly about the service a busser or a server. Other people dining may notice that there are only two waiters in a restaurant seated for 40 people, and may think “they must be understaffed”, so they are able to sympathize and do not complain. Then there are those who before even walking in, notice there are only two waiters in a busy restaurant and decide to dine somewhere else. These three examples represent one person who is a splitter, another who is in the middle, and finally one who is a connector.

The pupae has stayed in its shell for a week leading me to believe that it was dead. On February 10th at around 11 am the fly emerged from its enclosure. The pupae has been black and and a half an inch in length. It had a cylindrical shape to the shell with small ridges circling the exterior. On one end of the pupae there was a white ridge. When the fly emerged from the shell it emerged from the side that did not have the white ridge. There was a small slit on the side where the fly left. The fly has three legs on each side of its body for a total of six legs. It’s abdomen was black and it had two translucent wings. The fly spent some time exploring the small container and was able to walk on the sides of the container that as a larva it was unable to explore. After three hours I took the fly to the trash room and this is where I opened up the container and let the fly out. The fly struggled at first and barely made a few inches off the ground. It wobbles around trying to gain some balance before it finally was able to succeed and fly away.

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. 

The electromagnetic spectrum represents the range of frequencies of electromagnetic frequencies with its corresponding wavelengths. The order of increasing frequency is radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray. Radio waves capture waves by nearby radio stations to produce tunes through radio speakers. Microwaves are slightly higher in wave frequency and are emitted in kitchen microwaves for heating purposes. The next kind of waves capture heat from either objects or animals can be seen with infrared. The visible waves are the only waves humans are able to see with the naked eye, which includes all the lights and colors produced from red to violet. Following visible waves are ultraviolet waves that are strictly emitted from the sun and can cause sunburns and tans with prolonged exposure. Lastly, x-rays and gamma rays are used in the medical field and for security purposes to capture scans of the body or objects. X-rays consist of x-rays of teeth and scanning images of baggages at the airport. On the other hand, gamma rays are more powerful and dangerous and thus are highly regulated for precaution. In the oncology department, gamma rays are used to treat cancer for certain patients to kill cancerous cells and reduce tumors in the body. The electromagnetic spectrum explains what humans visualize in the universe and further explain images taken and studied by machines that measure the range of waves.

The main genetic difference between chimpanzees and humans is the number of chromosomes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes whereas chimpanzee have 24 pairs of chromosomes in their genomes. The human genome contains 46 chromosomes while chimp genome contains 48 chromosomes. Humans and chimpanzees have 1.2% of non-coding DNA difference in their genomes that are responsible for all the unmatching characteristics of humans and chimpanzees. The size of the human and chimpanzee genome is similar, they have about 66% gene duplications in both genomes and 29% of the human and chimpanzee orthologous proteins are also very similar.