I think...this cold may be drawing to a close.
And also, I take back everything I said about parents day and the awkward. Yep.
We had to MATE with our classmates. To baby making music might I add.
To see how evolution changes the traits of populations over time, we passed on characteristics by breeding with our peers. Mmhmm. It was a little funny, but oh man was it uncomfortable. (Sorry Quick, but we did TRY to mate with different people, despite our awkward.) We used our results from our procreation to learn about Hardy Weinberg problems, which basically just FOIL genetics. What?! That's a thing. Yeah. Cool right? The problems are a touch tricky, but I'll get the hang of them eventually.
Also, don't go with 19 friends to an island and start a new population. Someone will get cystic fibrosis. Yep.
Hopefully next week the vlogs will be back, as I miss doing them! They're so much more fun than this stuffy writing!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Day 14 Blog
So, hairless tigers are a thing?
Apparently so, as genes can really screw them over. By the end of this lab though, we almost wanted the tigers to die so their recessive traits could stop being passed on. What were we doing? Pulling beads out of a paper bag randomly to represent the genes of tigers. Two red, hairless beads meant death. Two furry, green beads meant guaranteed survival for them and their children. One red, one green bead meant our frustration with the living tigers. Well, not really, because by our 8th generation all the red genes except one had disappeared, meaning all tigers will live forever! Okay no, but they should survive. Yay live tigers!
Tata for now!
Apparently so, as genes can really screw them over. By the end of this lab though, we almost wanted the tigers to die so their recessive traits could stop being passed on. What were we doing? Pulling beads out of a paper bag randomly to represent the genes of tigers. Two red, hairless beads meant death. Two furry, green beads meant guaranteed survival for them and their children. One red, one green bead meant our frustration with the living tigers. Well, not really, because by our 8th generation all the red genes except one had disappeared, meaning all tigers will live forever! Okay no, but they should survive. Yay live tigers!
Tata for now!
Parents' Day Blog
Okay, so you don't understand how awkward this was.
We had to choose how attractive we thought people are
WITH OUR PARENTS.
So, most of us picked the most feminine men and women, and here's why:
MEN:
The guys were pretty split 50-50 with masculine and feminine men, because they either felt intimidate by masculine men because they are competition and they need to challenge it, or they felt they could more trust the feminine men. Guys are weird.
Girls on the other hand liked feminine men because they see them as more trustworthy and as better fathers who would help them raise a child. Also, fun fact, girls with low self-esteem like more feminine men more because they associate masculine men with a wilder lifestyle and date "hotter" women.
WOMEN:
I think all of us chose women that looked more feminine and the reasoning is almost obvious. Of course there is the conventional media definition of beauty, but there is also the fact that more feminine women are more fertile and look more trustworthy.
So yeah. Now can we redefine "hot" as "nerdy"? Please and thank you.
Bye y'all!
We had to choose how attractive we thought people are
WITH OUR PARENTS.
So, most of us picked the most feminine men and women, and here's why:
MEN:
The guys were pretty split 50-50 with masculine and feminine men, because they either felt intimidate by masculine men because they are competition and they need to challenge it, or they felt they could more trust the feminine men. Guys are weird.
Girls on the other hand liked feminine men because they see them as more trustworthy and as better fathers who would help them raise a child. Also, fun fact, girls with low self-esteem like more feminine men more because they associate masculine men with a wilder lifestyle and date "hotter" women.
WOMEN:
I think all of us chose women that looked more feminine and the reasoning is almost obvious. Of course there is the conventional media definition of beauty, but there is also the fact that more feminine women are more fertile and look more trustworthy.
So yeah. Now can we redefine "hot" as "nerdy"? Please and thank you.
Bye y'all!
Day 13 Blog
I thought I was feeling better, then BOOM sore throat comes back stronger. UGH
So, like, over the course of this lab, I'm pretty sure we're responsible for the death of little shrimp. I feel kinda bad. If there is a God, is this what (s)he feels like? Okee, now we're getting a little too deep (I can't tell if I meant for that to be a pun about shrimp) for me, so let's get through this lab.
We filled petri dishes with water with a salinity of 0, .5, 1, 1.5, and 2%. Next, we added between twenty and 40 eggs and let them sit for 24 hours for them to hatch! Oh, the miracle of life. Well, not so much. In the 0%, there was not even one brine shrimp, while in the other ones there were 2 in the .5%, 5 in the 1%, 13 in the 1.5%, and 21 in the 2%! We rescued the little live shrimp and put them in a beaker with their friends to live out the rest of their (pitifully short) lives. On day 2 (with our parents, which I'll discuss later) there were even less alive ones, with 0 in the 0% and 1%, 2 in the 2%, and 3 in the .5% and 1.5%. I'm sure all these number don't mean that much to you, but basically they mean that brine shrimp have adapted to be more successful in different salinities of water, for us being the 2% after we calculated the viability of them. Evolution helped these baby shrimp survive in their environments to the best they could and procreate.
Yay for the fragility of life and death!
Stay tuned for the parents' day awkward!
So, like, over the course of this lab, I'm pretty sure we're responsible for the death of little shrimp. I feel kinda bad. If there is a God, is this what (s)he feels like? Okee, now we're getting a little too deep (I can't tell if I meant for that to be a pun about shrimp) for me, so let's get through this lab.
We filled petri dishes with water with a salinity of 0, .5, 1, 1.5, and 2%. Next, we added between twenty and 40 eggs and let them sit for 24 hours for them to hatch! Oh, the miracle of life. Well, not so much. In the 0%, there was not even one brine shrimp, while in the other ones there were 2 in the .5%, 5 in the 1%, 13 in the 1.5%, and 21 in the 2%! We rescued the little live shrimp and put them in a beaker with their friends to live out the rest of their (pitifully short) lives. On day 2 (with our parents, which I'll discuss later) there were even less alive ones, with 0 in the 0% and 1%, 2 in the 2%, and 3 in the .5% and 1.5%. I'm sure all these number don't mean that much to you, but basically they mean that brine shrimp have adapted to be more successful in different salinities of water, for us being the 2% after we calculated the viability of them. Evolution helped these baby shrimp survive in their environments to the best they could and procreate.
Yay for the fragility of life and death!
Stay tuned for the parents' day awkward!
Day 12 Blog
So, apparently, my cold is good because we're reading this book Survival of the Sickest, and I'm feeling pretty darn sick.
So like, what we learned in this book is that fava beans kill people. Well not all people, specifically those from around the Mediterranean. It's not like they have a personal vendetta against Mediterranean people, it's more like they want to help them live, because malaria is generally a thing that people don't like. Yeah, it kills you. But people from the Mediterranean who can be killed by fava beans will generally not be killed by malaria. Pourquoi? Because they lack G6PD, the bouncer of the biological world. Without this G6PD, the blood is not a very good environment for the malaria virus, who is actually quite wimpy, so it doesn't take in these people. However, they also can't eat fava beans, one of the primary crops of the area. #worthit
Evolution: killing you so you don't die since 2 billion years ago.
I bid you adieu!
So like, what we learned in this book is that fava beans kill people. Well not all people, specifically those from around the Mediterranean. It's not like they have a personal vendetta against Mediterranean people, it's more like they want to help them live, because malaria is generally a thing that people don't like. Yeah, it kills you. But people from the Mediterranean who can be killed by fava beans will generally not be killed by malaria. Pourquoi? Because they lack G6PD, the bouncer of the biological world. Without this G6PD, the blood is not a very good environment for the malaria virus, who is actually quite wimpy, so it doesn't take in these people. However, they also can't eat fava beans, one of the primary crops of the area. #worthit
Evolution: killing you so you don't die since 2 billion years ago.
I bid you adieu!
Day 11 Blog
Ugh I'm still sick...this stupid cold.
So for this class I got to embrace my inner daycare child and play with beads! We got to make bead versions of DNA to compare our relationship to gorillas, chimpanzees, and our common ancestors. Did you know that we share something like 98% of DNA with chimpanzees?! Yeah, me neither. Our comparison of our beads showed that the gorilla was really closely related to the common ancestor, and not so much to the chimpanzee, who was pretty close to us. DNA is a really interesting way to see what our evolutionary family is, in terms of who's that uncle we don't talk about and who's that third cousin twice removed that lives in the jungles and picks bugs off of his family (I'm talking to you gorillas!)
Anyways, this experiment was really cool and I really like DNA and beads (also snacktime, movies, and naps if we're going with the daycare thing)
Aloha! (it means hello AND goodbye! cool huh?)
So for this class I got to embrace my inner daycare child and play with beads! We got to make bead versions of DNA to compare our relationship to gorillas, chimpanzees, and our common ancestors. Did you know that we share something like 98% of DNA with chimpanzees?! Yeah, me neither. Our comparison of our beads showed that the gorilla was really closely related to the common ancestor, and not so much to the chimpanzee, who was pretty close to us. DNA is a really interesting way to see what our evolutionary family is, in terms of who's that uncle we don't talk about and who's that third cousin twice removed that lives in the jungles and picks bugs off of his family (I'm talking to you gorillas!)
Anyways, this experiment was really cool and I really like DNA and beads (also snacktime, movies, and naps if we're going with the daycare thing)
Aloha! (it means hello AND goodbye! cool huh?)
Day 10 Blog
Hello *cough cough cough ugh I'm dying sneeze cough grr*
I took a break from vlogs because I've been sick recently so I sound and look like a dying whale.
So basically for this class we got to go to the museum (mini-not-so-cool-but-still-exciting-field-trip!)
For homework the night before we read a few chapters of Survival of the Sickest and learned about the arm bone structure that connects us to the rest of the natural world. It's described as one bone-two bones-blobs-digits, and it can be found from everything from lizards to birds to us! It has a profound meaning in evolution and our relationships to the natural world (very transcendentalist!). We got to look at Tiktaalik, who is one of the earliest examples of this arm structure, as he was literally a fish with arms (and he was pretty cute too!). He had characteristics of fish in his eyes, ribs, tail, and fin-ish appendages, but he also had the characteristics of land-dwelling creatures in his arms (who are geared for push-ups), lungs, and neck. He was a cool fish and he is such an insight to evolution! He opened up our evolutionary unit and was a great piece of history to look at.
Alright! Bye guys, talk to you more about evolution next time!
I took a break from vlogs because I've been sick recently so I sound and look like a dying whale.
So basically for this class we got to go to the museum (mini-not-so-cool-but-still-exciting-field-trip!)
For homework the night before we read a few chapters of Survival of the Sickest and learned about the arm bone structure that connects us to the rest of the natural world. It's described as one bone-two bones-blobs-digits, and it can be found from everything from lizards to birds to us! It has a profound meaning in evolution and our relationships to the natural world (very transcendentalist!). We got to look at Tiktaalik, who is one of the earliest examples of this arm structure, as he was literally a fish with arms (and he was pretty cute too!). He had characteristics of fish in his eyes, ribs, tail, and fin-ish appendages, but he also had the characteristics of land-dwelling creatures in his arms (who are geared for push-ups), lungs, and neck. He was a cool fish and he is such an insight to evolution! He opened up our evolutionary unit and was a great piece of history to look at.
Alright! Bye guys, talk to you more about evolution next time!
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