LAST BLOG

What was your favorite topic this semester? Why?
What was your least favorite?
What would you change about this class if you could?
What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment in biology this year?


My favorite topic this semester was the study of animals, because the we had dissections.  I enjoyed working with group in the dissections of real specimens.  One of my most memorable dissections would be the shark.  The most exciting part of the dissection is when we found other marine animals within the shark's stomach.


My least favorite topic this semester is the study of genetics, because it frustrates me whenever I attempt to explain the concepts of genetics to my parents.  They complain about my short height; however, they don't believe that my height is a result of genetics.


If I could change something about this class, I would suggest an addition of a calendar of due dates.  This calendar would allow students time to plan according to the activities of this class and would be able to work ahead when time permits them.


I feel that my biggest accomplishment would be my success in keeping my big biology notebook.  My biggest notebook of my whole academic career had been my biology notebook.

Genome Chapter Summary (10)

Chromosome 10: Stress


"When you have a lot of cortisol coursing through your veins, you are - by definition - under stress. Cortisol and stress are virtually synonymous."  Cortisol as Ripley explains is produced by cholesterol and it is the hormone that interferes with the human immune system and it changes the sensitivity of the eyes and nose while altering bodily functions at the same time.  However, Ripley concludes this chapter by stating the different explanations for stress that he does not agree to.  Such reasons were proposed by Martin and Davies, and since Ripley does not find them convincing he ends with, "...so I challenge you to find a better one."

Genome Chapter Summary (9)

Chromosome 11: Personality

"A man's character is his fate."  -Heraclitus

Ripley begins this chapter by defining the word "personality", "It means the innate and individual element in character."  He describes that the genome is what make humans similar and different as seen in the same experiences of humans and their differences in personality.  Several examples of these cases includes the experience of stress and the different personalities included humans being shy, anxious, risk-seeking, etc.  With the explanation of the serotonin system, Ripley states that the human brain's serotonin system would respond to outside signals and there sensitivity to certain signals represents the differences in human personalities.   

Genome Chapter Summary (8)

Chromosome 22: Free Will


"Hume's fork: Either our action are determined, in which case we are not responsible for them, or they are the result of random events, in which case we are not responsible for them."
                                                                                    Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
In this chapter Ridley focuses on discussing the relationship between freedom and that it is how someone shows determinism and ownership.  This relationships explain the reason to the fear of cloning; cloning would allow an individual's unique characteristics to be shared and those characteristics would no longer be unique.  Therefore, Ridley concludes by stating "Everybody has a unique and different, endogenous nature. A self."  

Genome Chapter Summary (7)

Chromosomes X and Y: Conflict

         The following quotes clearly summarizes the X and Y chromosome's significance in this chapter of Ridley's Genome.  "The body is the victim, plaything, battleground and vehicle for the ambitions of genes.  The next largest chromosome after number seven, is called the X chromosome.  X is the odd one out, the misfit. ... The X and Y chromosomes are known as the sex chromosomes for the obvious reason that they determine, with almost perfect predestination, the sex of the body."  And Ripley concludes with " The idea of the gene in conflict with each other, the notion of the genome as a sort of a battlefield between parental genes and childhood genes, or between male genes and female genes, is a little-known story outside a small group of evolutionary biologists.  Yet it has profoundly shaken the philosophical foundations of biology.  

      In summary, Ripley points out the function of these chromosomes; they determine the sex of the offspring.  In addition he finishes as he mentions the conflicts that relate to these chromosomes such as the body being a "battlefield" and philosophical issues.

Genome Chapter Summary (6)

Chromosome 6: Intelligence

"I ought to write it out a hundred time as punishment: GENES ARE NOT THERE TO CAUSE DISEASES".  Ridley discusses a common misconception that most people have; genes are here to cause diseases, instead diseases are caused when genes are mutated or altered.  The next topic Ridley mentioned was one based on intelligence and it is involved with the sixth chromosome.  He brings up the conflict of intelligence being due to nature and/or nurture.  Genes being the cause would be nature; however, when the environment becomes a factor nurture would be the cause of one's intelligence.  He then elaborated on the topic of intelligence by relating it to several experiments, some involved psychology, humans, and others.  

    

3 Invertebrates

Sea Cucumber: Holothuroidea 

As echinoderms, sea cucumbers, have similar physical features of most echinoderms.  At first glance, they appear to have soft- bodies that resembles cucumbers.  Their physical features includes tube feet that that has the appearance of tentacles which surrounds their mouths.  Their systems allow them to recycle the material and waste they consume.  They also have other systems that allow them to defend themselves.  They maybe attack predators with sticky threads, contracting muscles, or the ejecting of internal organs.  Their unique structures allows them to grow back such organs quickly.  

Common Earthworm: Lumbricus Terrestris

Common earthworms came be 14 inches long and they are made of annuli, ring-like segments, that are surrounded by setae, small bristles.  Their features make up of a system that allows them to burrow underground, dig, and move.  Their mouth, which is in the first segment, allows them to dig and eat the soil they dig through.  Their clitellum allows them to reproduce by forming cocoons.  

Coral: Anthozoa

Corals or polyops have physical features of a soft and tiny translucent body.  The have a calicle or a limestone skeleton that allows for protection and the forming of reefs.  As corals attach to rocks or the ocean floor, corals begins to grow to form large colonies of reefs.  Other features and systems includes poisonous tentacles that allow them to consume prey.

Sources: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/coral/
                http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/earthworm/
                http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/sea-cucumber/