reflection

Plot reflection

            Our group has never been so unorganized; our group is forgetting to do jobs and forgetting to bring certain materials. Jake and I went back out to the plot on Sunday to complete the jobs that were ignored on the actual plot day. What has changed at the plot site is that there is an extra half inch of leaf litter on the ground; also there were many dead trees and plants. Even though there was substantial rainfall we did not find any mushrooms. To improve our group I feel we should make a plan the day before we go out, perhaps switch jobs around, and we could hold each other more responsible. My personal goal for this semesters plot time is to help others finish their jobs. Our plot has some issues, but I am sure that our group will overcome the problems.

Is poverty genetic?

Jade’s Harvard identification photo

My scientist is Jade D’alpoim Guesdes. She is currently a candidate for a PhD at Harvard Universities’ Anthropology department. I choose my scientist due to the fact that she had just published a paper within the last month on an issue that I was interested in. Her latest paper was a critique on is poverty passed down by the generations. The title of the piece is “is poverty our genes?” Jade is a very interesting scientist researching social tough topics.

By reading d’Aloin Guedes’s thoughts on the casual link between the degree of genetic heterogeneity, I have decided that there is no such link, due to the fact that the original paper misused scientific terminology, had factual errors, and their theory was flawed with robust data. I also found out about how assuming conclusions in the scientific community, leads to colleagues bashing in your work. Another thing that was interesting was how harshly the critique was on Asharaf and Galors work calling it: “false and undesirable” (77). She used their textual evidence against them, which made the reading very entertaining. d’Aloin Guedes is a interesting scientist on the upward swing.

If I had the chance to ask my scientist questions about their thoughts, I would ask the following

·         How can you be certain there is no correlation between diversity and economic prosperitities?

·         Do you feel remorse for destroying another’s work, and credibility?

·         Why did you decide to critique Asharef and Galor’s work?

·         What makes you better informed than Asharef and Galor who wrote the original paper?

·         You made a point to talk about political repercussions; do you actually feel that their research could be used in a negative way?

A brief memoir of carbon molecule

Memoir of Carl Carbon

12/4/12

            In the brief time I have been part of life about 13,000 years I have seen many things as I started out in the mountains of India as part of a tea leaf a glucose molecule.  I lived this luxurious life for 100 years until I was plucked and put into a stew. This led me to a new life where I was digested by a human and was split away from my companions. I was then thrown around in a small structure called a mitochondrion. After this ordeal I made sure that I would be removed from such a terrible place. To get out of the body I was thrown out allowing me to breathe of relief. I spent the next 10,000 years roaming the planet looking to be a glucose in a tea leaf. It was not until 1,000 years to this day that I had this privilege. The process was not as kind to the protons as I had remembered.  Getting thrown around the chloroplast was not exciting. I moved from the stroma to the Calvin cycle where I was bonded with a new group of companions that I would spend the next 500 years with becoming the most valued tea leaf of all time.  Where I sat in a vacuole waiting to be used for energy I was never called. One day a man walked up our mountain in Nepal and plucked the leaf I was contained in. He then must have noticed how valuable our leaf was and then dried us out. We have now sat on shelves for 500 years waiting to be used so we may continue our life as carbon molecules, yet this has not happened so I wait staring at the membrane of my dried out vacuole.

Into The forest of suburbia

Summary
   Our Plot group made our way into the wet and frigid wilderness in hopes of better understanding the biodiversity, In western North Carolina. As we approached our plot site we noticed changes to our site, from the fact that our trees had lost its leaves to the leaf litter that had piled up in turn of the missing leaves. Our plot also contained many other new objects found in the list below.Our plot site overall was fairly consistent from our last visit. All of the small trees either stayed the same height or died 2 trees died tree 5 and 15 were both maples. which leads to ask the question, was it pure coincidence or did it have to do with the type of tree they were? overall our plot remained significantly unchanged and is in a healthy position for thr up coming winter months.

Newly noticed things                                               

• A type of moss that contains seeds.
• a new type of mushroom.
• the upperside of our large trees bark is falling off turning black.
• All leaves have fallen off creating large amounts of leaf litter
• our branches were facing the lake

What we could have done better
   Our group could have stayed on task better, less goofing around. Our group would highly benefit from a structured plan of once we get out there this is what were going to do. We should have spent more time observing during silent observation time.

Cells R Us a Brief introduction to Ribosomes

 

Mark Broeffle

10/26/12

Cells r us

Ribosomes are tiny organelles that link amino acids into proteins.  A ribosome is found on the rough endoplasmic reticulum of a cell there are approximately fifteen thousand in each cell. A ribosome is about 25 nm in diameter when blown up to four hundred time scale it is one millimeter in diameter. Ribosomes are found in both plants and animals and in plants as well. They are found in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The ribosome is made of two main parts the binding sites on the bottom which is used to link the acids, and the large subunit above.

The Breakdown

Mark Broeffle

10/13/12

Our group consisted of Ali, JB, and myself overall we did a fair job in our lab, but we could have stayed more focused. The question we were tasked with was. Is the enzyme that breaks down hydrogen peroxide in to water and oxygen found in both plants and animals? To tackle the question our group took three items a potato, an orange, and beef liver. With our test subjects, we cut them up into 1 gram pieces and then filled the test tube with 10 grams of hydrogen peroxide. Our results showed that the enzyme was found in both, but not in all items. With the liver it bubbled at such a large rate that it overflowed the test tube revealing that the enzyme was present. The potato did react to the hydrogen peroxide showing that the plants also contain the enzyme. The orange on the other side of the spectrum did not react which lead us to the conclusion that the enzyme is found in both plants and animals but is not found in all organisms. Our group over all was fairly well behaved. Our one big issue was that we ended up talking a lot about different things then just biology. Jb was like our group leader making sure things got done especially with the power point that we presented. Ali also worked very hard, but he does like to talk to Xavier and Luis. Our group managed the task and finished on time. I am without major concern about how our group managed our time or acted well preforming.

Our own little peice of Ashevegas

Mark Broeffle

Monthly plot reflection

 Honors bio

10/5/12

               As we approached our plot site, our group began to organize our utensils and stake the 11 ft radius. Once marked off we found ourselves in a virtual bubble with four sizeable trees, many vines, mushrooms, and a plethora of small trees. The member that did the most work was Austin (Leader), Helping out with other jobs such as the arborists flagging trees. The photographer X-Man did a fantastic job quickly getting the photos taken. Allowing for other jobs to be taken care of. Our naturalist and I (Arborist) worked together flagging measuring and deciding what type of tree each one is. 

               Our plot is laid out on the side of the old rowing lake, on a large slant. Our plot also contains a downed tree toward the water, a large ditch where the tree roots stood, many hanging vines that wrap around the four large trees, and many small trees. My big question I would like to figure out is how much will the small trees grow and how many more will sprout. The most important observation I made was that the plot is surrounded by human interference with a highway half a mile away and  drainage tubes 20 yards from it make this plot a perfect way to see how much humans actually change the nature around them.