The cove questions

2. Where is the dolphin slaughter taking place (city and country?)

Taiji, Japan.

7. Why are small islands n Caribbean supporting whaling?

Japan bribes/offer them with financial support.

12. What toxic substance is found in dolphin meat?

Mercury.

15. The main character and his group to pay the fisherman the same price they get from killing the dolphin if they stop. Why do they refuse?

Because it’s their tradition. Also, because they believe that it is pest control (not sure whether its by their own volition or the government telling them so).

19. The deputy of fisheries claims that the dolphins are killed humanly. What does one of the crew members do when he says this?

The crew member shows the deputy the video that they recorded of the merciless slaughter of the dolphin. Which shocks and silences the deputy.

The jelly fish story

A few weeks ago I went on a fieldtrip to the ROM with my biology class. It was a fun trip. I got to see many interesting creatures. We even attended a lecture where the two Gairdner award winners - Adrian Bird and Robert black - both presented their work. That presentation was in the morning, and after lunch the class went to the ROM (royal Ontario museum). The rom itself was very interesting there were many animals on display. We even saw dinosaur bones. During the visite, we got divided into two groups. Mine group had the male tour guide. He told us many interesting story. The story that made me LOL the most was the jellyfish story.

Jelly fish are taking over the sea. That’s the basis of the jelly fish story. Due to climate change the temperature of the water is increasing. The warmer sea provides a better environment for the jellyfish to reproduce. The huge jellyfish number causes many problems in the marine ecosystem. The jelly fish feeds on many small organisms in the sea. This decreases food available for some of the larger predator in the sea such as the whale and shark. Also, the increase number of jelly fish is killing off the fish that we eat. This is hurting the fish industries. Thinking they’re smart fisheries decide to do something about the jellyfish. This is where the funny part occurs. In japan the fishers decided to kill the giant jellyfish that inhabits the sea by cutting them up with wires. However they did not realize that the giant jellyfish drops its eggs when it’s in distress.  When the fishers started killing the giant jellyfish, more eggs dropped on to the sea bed. In addition, with most of the fishes dead due to the jellyfish invasion, no fish are available to eat the eggs. As a result, the jellyfish number increased instead of decreased.

Sharkwater response

In the past I had watched something similar to the movie “sharkwater”, it is called “Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait”.  Gordon Ramsay goes on a similar journey like Rob Stewart did to find out the secret behind the shark hunting industries. Both of these documentaries shocked me but considering human nature’s aptitude for destruction it did not surprise me. Frankly, I believe that this sort of fishing is disgusting and should be banned. I am one of those Chinese- Canadian that don’t feel shark fin soup is part of the culture. I have personally never had shark fin soup and I probably never will.

I can understand why there are complaints filed against the Toronto’s shark fin ban because it takes away a tradition. However, when the said tradition involves the merciless killing of an endangered animal and the destruction of an ecosystem I don’t think that’s acceptable anymore. Another reason why people might complain is because by banning shark fin, you’re removing a very large industry that produces a lot of profit. However I don’t think that’s a valid reason because the profit only benefits the people involved in the industry. Also, the shark fin industry is already delving into the illegal territory so it’s not bad to ban the shark fin soup.  

Cellular Respiration Activity – Clothespins and Muscle Fatigue

Purpose: to explore the relationship between cellular respiration and muscle fatigue

Material: clothespin, timer or clock

Procedure:

1.       Hold a clothespin in the thumb and index finger of you dominant hand.

2.       Count the number of times you can open and close the clothespin in a 20 second period while holding the other fingers of the hand straight out. Make sure to squeeze quickly and completely to get the max number of squeezes for each trial.

3.       Repeat this process for 6 more 20 second periods, recording the result for each trail in a suitable table. Try not to rest you fingers between the trials.

4.       Repeat this procedure for the non-dominant hand.

5.       Prepare a suitable graph.

Experiment:

Trials\hands	Right (dominant)	Left (non-dominant)
1	105	87
2	99	92
3	92	89
4	80	89
5	79	96
6	73	92
7	102	90

Analysis:

1.       What happened to your strength as you progressed through each trial?

My strength decreased as I progressed through each trial. However during the activity I allowed my hand to rest for a bit which allowed me to gain back some strength.

2.       Describe how your hand and finger felt during the need of your trials.

My hands felt stiff and tired.

3.       What factors might cause you to get more squeezes (to have less fatigue)?

Factors are focusing my mind on other things, consuming things that may give me energy and the amount of rest I had previously

4.       Were your results different for the dominant and the non –dominant hand? Explain why they would be different.

Yes, they are different. This is because we tend to use the dominant hand more than the non-dominant hand. As result, the dominant hand is more adjusted to performing labour.

5.       Your muscles would probably recover after 10 minutes of rest to operate at the original squeeze rate. Explain why.

The reason we feel the fatigue is due to the build-up of lactic acid. Thus is we rest 10minute. We allow to lactic acid to be removed.

20 points from section 1.3 to 1.4

1.       Energy is the ability to do work. Work is the transfer of energy from one body to another. Metabolism is the sum of all anabolic and catabolic process in a cell or organism

2.       First law of thermodynamic – the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. Energy cannot be created or destroyed but only converted from one form into another.

3.       Kinetic energy is the energy possessed by moving object. Potential energy is the energy stored by virtue of an object’s position within an attractive or repulsive force field.

4.       Bond energy is the minimum energy required to break one mole of bond between two species of atom.

5.       To show the change in potential energy that take place during a chemical reaction one would need a potential energy diagram.

6.       Activation energy is the difference between the potential energy level of the transition state and the potential energy of reacting molecules.

7.       Transition state in a chemical reaction is a temporary condition in which bonds within reactants are breaking and the bonds between products are forming.

8.       Exothermic reaction results in a net amount of energy released, while endothermic reaction results in a net amount of energy absorbed. An example of exothermic reaction is combustion.

9.       Entropy is a measure of the randomness or disorder in energy or in a collection of object.

10.   Exothermic reactions that increase in entropy occur spontaneously at all temperature. If it decreases in entropy, the reaction only occurs spontaneously at low temperature. Endothermic reaction that increases entropy only occurs spontaneously in high temperature and if it doesn’t increase entropy it will only occur with a net input of energy.

11.   Free energy is energy that can do useful work.

12.   The second law of thermodynamics – the entropy of the universe increases with any change that occurs.

13.   Exergonic reaction is a chemical reaction in which the energy of the product is less than the energy if the reactant. This is related to exothermic reaction. Endergonic reaction is a chemical reaction in which the energy of the product is more that the energy of the reactant. This is related to Endothermic reaction

14.   Metabolic reactions are reversible. When reversible reaction reaches equilibrium they become a dead cell.

15.   ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the primary source of free energy in living cell.

16.   Redox reaction is a chemical reaction involving oxidation (atom loses one or more electron) and reduction (gaining one or more electron). The substance that loses an electron is called reducing agent while the substance that gains an electron is called an oxidizing agent.

17.   Enzymes are used to catalyze a reaction. Substrates are the reactant that an enzyme acts on when it catalyzes chemical reaction. Active site is the location where the substrate binds to an enzyme. The interaction between the substrate and the amino acids causes the protein to change its shape. This is known as the induced-fit model.

18.   Enzyme requires cofactor or coenzymes to work properly.

19.   Enzyme inhibitors are used to control enzyme activity. Enzyme activities can also be controlled by allosteric regulation. Feedback inhibition is a method of metabolic control in which product formed later in a sequence of reaction allosterically inhibits an enzyme that catalyzes a reaction occurring earlier in the process.

20.   There are many commercial and industrial use of enzyme such as using proteases to coagulate milk for the manufacture of cheese.

Things to know for biotech quiz

REs

-used to cut DNA fragment from a sequence.

-Sticky and blunt are the two type of cuts that REs can cut.

Vector Cloning

-target gene is inserted into a recombinant DNA and reinserted back into the bacterium where transformation occurs.

PCR

-Taq polymerase is used because of its ability to survive in heat.

-target sequence is obtained at the 3^rd cycle

Gel electrophoresis

-used to locate desired gene base on DNA fragment size.

-DNA is negatively charged and the larger fragment stays on the top while the smaller fragment travels further.

RFLP

-used to detect certain differences in DNA sequence.

DNA sequencing

-adds 0.01% of ddNTP to create fragment of different length.

-used to determine the DNA sequence.

Comparing PCR

PCR vs Vector cloning

VS

Similarity – Both uses gel electrophoresis to locate the desired gene.  

They both are used to create huge quantities of DNA.

Difference –Vector cloning uses plasmid, bacteria, ands REs. PCR uses Taq polymerase, dNTP, ddNTP.

Vector cloning involves multiple steps and is not as quick as PCR.

PCR creates lot of DNA sequence, while Vector cloning creates modified bacteria containing the genes to create the desired proteins.

PCR  vs DNA sequence

VS

Similarity – both uses gel electrophoresis to identify the fragments.

Both uses dNTP to create large quantity of DNA sequence.

Both uses heating and cooling.

Difference – PCR tries to create a lot of the target sequence. DNA sequence tries to determine the sequence of ATGC.

DNA sequence uses small amount of ddNTP to create DNA fragment of different length, While PCR only uses dNTP to create complete fragment.

10 things to remember

1. Frederick Griffith discovers DNA contains the genetic information through his experiment with the phenomenon he dubbed as ‘Transformation’.

2. Watson and crick discovered the DNA structure – the double helix- with the help of Rosalind’s x-ray of DNA.

3. Nucleotide are made of phosphate (negatively charged), Sugar (DNA lack one oxygen), and Nitrogenous base. Nucleoside doesn’t have phosphate.

4. A%=T%, G%=C%. A and G are purines. T and C are pyrimidine.

5. All new strand of RNA or DNA are made from 5’ --> 3’.

6. Transcription beings from the 5’ TATA 3’ box and ends with the AAUAA sequence on the RNA.

7. RNA mod #1: 5’ G cap + 3’ poly a tail protects the mRNA.

8. RNA mod #2: RNA splicing cuts out the intron with spliceosome to make sure there’s no mutation.

9. Translation beings with 5’ AUG 3’, reads codons and ends with UAA, UAG, UGA.

10. Enzymes are very important.

-Polymerase I: Proof reads the new DNA strand and replaces RNA with DNA nucleotide. (DNA replication)

-Polymerase II: Binds to TFs, untwist the double helix, reads the template strand and grabs RNA nucleotides to form pre mRNA. (Transcription)

-Polymerase III: elongate the new DNA strand by grabbing DNA nucleotides. (DNA replication)

-Primase: Makes primer to initiate elongation. (DNA replication)

-Ligase: joins gaps between Okazaki fragments. (DNA replication)

-TFs: binds to the promoter region at the initiation. (Transcription)

-Helicase: untwist DNA and splits DNA into single strand. (DNA replication)

-SSBP: stabilise single strand DNA. (DNA replication)

-Gyrase: release tension made by Helicase by splitting the DNA. (DNA replication)

-Spliceosone: cuts the introns out of the mRNA. (Transcription)

Reflection: Deaf by design

Deaf by design is a very interesting article about deaf parents and their quest for a deaf baby. The deaf community being closely knit keeps them quite isolated from the outside world. They often reply on one another for support. And out of fear of not knowing how to raise their child to be a ‘hearing’, or having a negative opinion of the ‘hearing’ society. Those thoughts would lead them to make the decision of having a deaf child. Some deaf parents would even abort a healthy baby just to have a deaf one.

Through this study, it addresses the issue of should we be selecting for traits. My subjective view on this topic is quite hypocritical because I believe that it is okay to allow people to select for traits as long as the trait being selected is socially considered ‘good’. For example, I believe it is okay to abort baby with deaf hearing but you cannot abort baby if they are perfectly healthy. The reason for this is because I believe being deaf is a disability. Being deaf removes one’s ability to hear clearly and being able to hear doesn’t prevent one from learning things deaf people learn.  Also, I believe sign language is just another language that becomes an advantage for one to have just as any other language. Objectively I understand that we have to be fair. So if someone can abort because of a ‘bad’ trait we should be able to abort because of a ‘good’ trait especially when ‘bad’ and ‘good’ are such loose words.

Another problem that arises from this is what is considered good and what is considered bad. Suppose we decide to put regulation on this issue. Drawing the line between what is acceptable for abortion and what isn’t is quite difficult. I cannot say where the line should be draw because of my limited knowledge in the field; however I do believe that there should be a line.

My final opinion on this topic is that we should have minimum regulation on this issue. The regulation should be enough to prevent everyone from selecting for traits. This should be done to prevent the lost of genetic variation amongst the population. Genetic variation is very important to the survival of our species.