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Tetrahymena is a genus of free-living ciliates, a freshwater organism that can inhabit lakes, streams, and ponds and can be found almost everywhere and in a variety of climates. Their main food source is bacteria. Tetrahymena feed by the process of phagocytosis, where is the engulfing of other cells or particles. The membrane of a phagocyte surrounds a cell to be engulfed and then pinches off to create a phagosome inside of itself that contains the engulfed material. The resulting phagosome may be merged with lysosomes to form a phagolysosome for the digestion and release of nutrients for use in other metabolic processes (Phagocytosis Process). Phagocytosis can be quantitated by counting the number of vacuoles that form in a defined time period. Tetrahymena were selected in this experiment to study food vacuole appearance. This was done by taking five samples of cells as follows: one immediately when the India ink was added, one at ten minutes, one at twenty minutes, one at thirty minutes, and one at forty minutes. Samples were taken in small test tubes, and inside a mixture of 100 µL sample of the Tetrahymena and India Ink (which was used to be able to visually observe number of vacuoles formed) and 20 µL of dilute glutaraldehyde to fix the cells was added at each interval of time. After all of the samples were taken, they were studied under a microscope at the 10X objective. The number of marked vacuoles formed for ten different Tetrahymena cells were recorded for each of the time intervals, then graphed using a line graph.

    At the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, there lies an interspecific interaction that in principle is dangerous, yet seems to be a regular occurrence for the majority of dormitories. At the university, access to the dormitories require a specific ID in order to unlock the doors. These ID’s are only acquired if a person is given permission to own one and is approved by the university. This includes paying expensive housing fees, attending the university itself, and paying tuition. In essence, there is a very high requirement in order to gain access into any of these buildings. Yet on the contrary, if you happen to catch a resident leaving the building at the same time someone else is trying to enter it, it is likely that the resident will exit the building, and then hold the door open for the other person so they can go inside. This occurs so frequently, that it’s very likely that if someone were to wait outside one of these dormitories, eventually someone will notice and invite them in. The buildings are so easy to get into, that it begs the questions as to why we have ID card authorization as a security measure. I hypothesize that its functionality serves as a formality, rather than as security like it was originally intended.

The researchers, Laurent Debarbieux et al reveal the effectivness of treating P. aeruginosa lung infections by using bacteriophages. The researches used mice as their test subjects, different primary colonization and chronic strains of the bacteria P. aeruginosa to infect the mice, as well as the bacteriophage they called PAK-P1. Their hypothesis was that if bacteriophages are effective in attacking only the bacteria, the bacteriophages will significantly reduce the bacteria in the victims and thus save them. The dependent variable was therefore the survival of the test subjects, the mice; and the independent variable is the amount of bacteriophages. The controls were infected mice not treated with any bacteriophages. Experimental evidence reveals that timing and dosage of bacteriophages mattered in saving the lives of the mice. Even though the research revealed bacteriophages' effectiveness in treatment in vitro, the researchers were questioning its effectiveness in vivo. The research performed is therefore significant in the medical field, possibly leading to medication that will use the virus to save humans infected by the lung bacteria, P. aeruginosa.

Feather is one of the unique characteristics for birds. It serves as the fur for mammals. The primary feathers, known as contour feathers are the most common type of feathers found in birds. It has the long flat shape with a hollow stick called a calamus supporting the root and connecting to the rachis. Lateral barbs then branch off from the rachis creating the soft and smooth shaft of feather. The inner part of the feather serves as insulation, and the outer part is for different purposes. As the feather goes inward toward the body, it becomes more rigid structure to support the shape and give insulation.

Today in biochemistry, we learned about the hydrophobic effect. This is when nonpolar molucules are exposed to an aqueous environment and they bunch together. The process is driven by entropy. Molecules in nature perfer to be disordered, therefore the nonpolar molecules bunch together to minimize interactions with the polar water molecules. When polar and nonpolar molecules interact, the polar molecules form a ridgid shell around the nonpolar molecules. The polar molecules are in a tight formation and not free to move around. The polar water molecules can form dipole-dipole interactions with other polar water molecules because water has permanent, partical charges. The nonpolar molecules form van der waal interactions between themselves. This process can be seen in salad dressing when the bottle is shaken. The bubbles of oil that are formed disperse but reappear after a few minutes. 

Update on the Unknown Organism (Larva)

The larva was given a peel of clementine skin. The organsim reacts be exploring the peel and proceeds to crawl beneath the tender, white, inner portion of the skin and appears to be eating the peel. Later, the organism remains still, lying beneath the peel. When disturbed, the larva retreats and clings onto the white portion of the skin. Over the course of three days, the organism changes physically and behaviorally. Changes include darkening of the skin, the spots along the side of the organsim, as well as the legs.There is also a decrease in activity and lesser response to disturbances (such as shaking the container). On the third day with the peel introduced, the organism does not seem to be eating the skin, but simply remains still, rarely moving beneath the white side of the clementine peel. 

The reason behavioral ecology interests me greatly is because there are so many different things that factor into it, and the wide range of things you can study. From environmental factors, to learned behaviors, the genetic variances, there are so many things that can determine why a certain organism lives and behaves the way it does. It would be interesting to see what the driving force behind certain behaviors are, and why it is better for the organism to live the way it does. Finding out if a certain way of doing something is better evolutionarily as a whole could tell you so much about an organism and the evolutionary pattern of that organism and its ancestors. The only way to study this would be by testing the success rate of different organisms in similar environments that act differently in similar situations. The behavior of organisms is, to me, that most interesting and variable part about ecology.

In 1869 Thomas Huxley proposed the theory that birds descended from dinosaurs. For a long time, however, the idea was widely unaccepted and it wasn't until the discovery of many specimens of feathered theropod dinosaurs such as Archaeopteryx and other like it which lived in the late Jurassic and thereafter that pushed the idea into the spotlight and allowed it to gain traction and support. The idea is now widely accepted and new fossil finds are providing insight into how small flightless feathered raptors became the incredibly diverse array of birds that share the Earth with us today.

My friends and I were time together last friday and somehow the topic of anti vaccination came up. We were talking about it and came to the conclusion that there was zero evidence to suggest that vaccines give you autism. I knew that the movement started after a discredited doctor published a fabricated paper claiming that there was an association with autism and the MMR vaccine. What I didn’t know is that this was the paper that antivaxxers use to support their argument to this day. It has recently been discovered that the doctor who published the paper, Andrew Wakefield, had a major conflict of interest in publishing this paper. He was in the process of developing an at home test for parents to screen their children for autism and projected that he could make over 43 million dollars a year on the tests. So it appears as though he created an autism scare in order to sell his at home tests.