PKU summary/ review

PKU is a rare inherited disease that causes your body to make to much phenylalanine.  The enzyme that converts phenylalanine into tyrosine becomes inhibited.  When this happens dangerous amounts of phenylalanine cancause damage to your brain tissue.  Most of you are askin what is that.  Phenyalanine is a natural substance that is a building block for protein.  This is one of the first tests you go through when you are born.  You treat PKU by going on an intense low protein diet. In the diet there is an artificial protein that contains phenyalanine.  If a child has this the artificial proteins will still allow them to grow up and live a perfectly good life.  But if your child eats too much meat, cheese, poultry, eggs and milk they could become very ill and possibly even die.  Hope you enjoyed my little summary of PKU:)

Cell Structure

Lets  start out with the cell membrane.  The cell membrane is a semi-permiable meaning that in only lets certain stuff in and out.  After this you encounter the cytoplasm.  Cytoplasm is the fluid that all the organelles are suspended in.  It also helps maintain the cell's shape. The next structure I want to talk about is the Nucleus.  The Nucleus controls the activity of the cell and houses our genes.  Inside the Nucleus is a Nucleolus.  The Nucleolus transcribes and assembles RNA.  The Nuclear membrane is a double membrane that holds in all of our genetic material.

Endoplasmic Reticulum has two parts to it, smooth and the rough.  The smooth ER synthesizes lipids and steroids, metabolizes carbohydrates and steroids, and regulates calcium concentration, drug detoxification, and attaches receptors onto cell membrane proteins.  The rough ER synthesizes proteins. 


All the other parts of the cell are vacuoles, mitochondrion's, Golgi bodies, ribosomes, lysosomes, and finally centrosomes.  Vacuoles are compartments that are filled with water that contain organic or inorganic material.  A mitochondrion generates most of the cells supply of ATP.  Golgi bodies process and package macromolecules.  Ribosomes make proteins from all of the cells amino acids.  Lysosomes contain acid that break up cellular waste and debris.  They also hydrolase enzymes.  Lastly we have centrosomes.  Centrosomes regulate cell cycle progression.  These are all of the parts of the cell and what they do.      

The Green MANchine project

Photosynthesis Dry Lab

1.    Materials: BTB,  Beaker, Water, Elodea Plant, Aquarium Snail, Lab Light.
Procedure:
1.  Put 100mL of water into the beaker and add 20 drops of BTB.
2. Add in the Aquarium snail.
3.  Repeat steps 1 and 2.
4.  Put one of these test tubes in the light and the other one in complete dark.  Let them both sit for an hour.
5. Put 100mL of water into another beaker an add 20 drops of BTB.
6. Add an Elodea Plant.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6.
8. Put one beaker in the light the other in the dark and leave both for an hour.
9. Put 100 mL of water into a different beaker and add 20 drops of BTB.
10. Add in an aquarium snail and an Elodea plant.
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10
12. Place one of the beakers in the light and the other in the dark.  Let them both stay here for one hour.
2.
1. Water plus bromothymol blue is blue-green.
Brothymol blue is a blue-green liquid which changes to a yellow color in acid and back to blue-green when returned to a neutral pH.
2. Water plus bromothymol blue plus an aquarium snail turns yellow.

 All animals respire and  Carbon dioxide in water produces carbonic acid. BTB changes colors when its pH isn't neutral anymore.

3. Water plus bromothymol blue plus elodea, an aquarium plant, is blue-green in light.

Well green plants photosynthesize in light and respire all the time.  Then carbon dioxide plus water yields sugar and oxygen when chlorophyll and sunlight are present.  Finally BTB is blue-green is when the pH is neural.

4. Water plus BTB plus a snail plus elodea is a blue-green in light and yellow when left in the dark for three hours.

Well first of all all animals respire and plants photosynthesize in sunlight.  When you take the sunlight out the plant quits taking up the carbon dioxide.  This then produces carbonic acid which changes the water to a yellow color because BTB isn't at a neural pH anymore.  

3.

1.  How much BTB was used in each different experiment?

2.  What type of aquarium snail was used?

3.  What color would it change if there were more snails then plants?

Enzyme Action Lab Graphs

Thanks for this graph Leigh.  Well in this experiment we manipulated the number of drops in each beaker.  Each beaker had 3 mL of water and hydrogen peroxide.  Then we added the yeast drops to start the enzyme reaction.  We then hooked up the beaker to the pressure gage and took these results.  When we added ten drops to the beaker we got .85 as the rate of which pressure changed.  With twenty five drops we got an atmospheric  pressure rate of .91.  Finally with forty drops  we got an atmospheric pressure rate of 1.11.

In this graph we kept the number of drops the same but changed the temperature of the beakers. Each beaker contained 3 mL of water and hydrogen peroxide as in the experiment before. We had four different beakers at 0, 25, 38, and 80 degrees Celsius.  Then we added fifteen drops of the yeast into the beakers and recorded the data with the pressure gage.  When the yeast was put into 0 degree Celsius water we had a pressure slope of .12.  When Yeast was added to 28 degree water the pressure's slope was .16.  When the water was 38 degrees the then pressure's slope was .21.  Finally when the water was 80 degrees the pressure's slope was .13.

In this graph we took out the water and added Ph 4, 7, and 10.  We put three mL of Hydrogen peroxide in each beaker.  Then we added 3 mL of Ph 4 to one, Ph 7 to another, and Ph 10 to the last.  Again we added fifteen drops to each of the beakers and recorded the results with the pressure gage.  When the Ph level in the beaker was at 4 the slope of the pressure graph was at .17.  When the Ph was at level 7 the slope of the pressure graph was .12.  Finally when the Ph was at 10 the slope of the pressure graph was at .17.

Microscope Lab organism video

Lipids Concept Map

Carbohydrate Concept Map

1st Quarter Self Analysis

Well this experience so far has been a whole lot different than the intro class.  The thing that i had the hardest time understanding was the standard based grading system.  Finally i get it now.  Another thing i had a little trouble understanding was  biochemistry.  Some of the organization of molecules still don't make sense but most do.  The standard that i had the most trouble with was self analysis.  I guess i just don't like talking about what i learned or maybe i just didn't know what i learned.  It would help if i forgot about for wheelers for an hour an actually really focused.

This quarter i learned a lot about the complex stuff of molecules.  How they're aligned, how many of each element do they have, and wether it has a positive or negative charge to the ion.  I didn't even know before this class that there were different types of sugars or that water was the universal solvent.  This is just the top of the surface on what i've learned this quarter.  I hope that i will learn and understand even more next quarter.

Water Article Review

http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/dead-simple-way-to-see-atomic-structure/
Well this was pretty confusing the first time I read it but the second time it made sense.  The main point of the article was that theyy have found a way to see waters atomic structure.  Graphene was placed on the surface and island like structures popped up which was water.  They relized that the graphene sheets hugged the water molecules so tightly that it revealed their delicate atomic structure.  With this technique the researchers revealed new details on how water covers surfaces since water is every where.  To do this technique you must preform it on a flat suface or else you will have imperfections.  Scientists are trying to further the resolution of this technique so they could study anti-bodies and other protiens.  This is what I learned from the review article.

Carbohydrates Lab

 This is our lineup of the carbohydrates we used.

 Caryn is holding our dissaccharide after adding iodine.

 This is one of our Polysaccharides double bubble bubble gum.

 Another lineup of carbohydrates.

Ground Skittles in a simple water solution.                  

Adding benedict's solution to our skittles and our bubble gum beakers.  Then putting each beaker into boiling water to see how the carbohydrates react to then benedict's solution.

Acids and Bases

Well this lab I really enjoyed.  It taught me a lot about how anti-acids work.  well first i learned what qualified as a base, acid and a neutral.  Anything from 1-6 on the pH scale is an acid.  7 is neutral on the pH scale.  8-14 on this same scale is known as a base.  Something becomes an acid when it has more negative parts than positive.  Something becomes a base when the positive parts outnumber the negative parts.  A base is when the number of parts are equal to each other.  Water starts off having no charge.  Then a H2O molecule takes a H from another H2O.  This makes it H30+ and OH-.  Anti-acids are made up of carbon.  Anti-acids work by taking the hydrogen atoms from the stomach acid and then makes a molecule using the hydrogen.  These elements bond so well because of the distance they are from each other on the periodical table.  Hydrogen is in column 1 while Carbon is in 14.  This is what i've learned from this lab.  

Tums and Such

This is our lab write up.

properties of water

Well as many of you know, water has very many properties.  For now i just like to focus on its physical properties.  Water has four of these, adhesion, cohesion, surface tension, and specific heat.  Cohesion is when all of the positively charged hydrogen molecules are bonded to the negatively charged oxygen molecules.  This allows the water to defy gravity in some situations.  An example of this is trees.  The water molecules travel all the way from the base to the leaves.   Another example was in our lab.  We tried to cut the water with the toothpick but the molecules stuck to each other instead of the toothpick or the wax paper.   Adhesion is when water(a liquid) is bonded to a solid.  This is also how a tree gets water to its leaves.  The water molecules stick to the tubules in a tree.  Another example of adhesion was in our last lab.  The water traveled down the string because the molecules stuck to it.  Surface tension is the amount of force it takes to break the bonds of water molecules.   Some objects have enough mass to break through the bonds but others can literally walk on top of water.  My example of surface tension is the childhood game of red rover.  The linked hands are the bonds of water molecules.  The other team sends a person or a water drop to try and break the bond.  If this person's mass is great they will break this bond.  If it is of lesser mass then they will not break the bond, instead they will become apart of it.  This also reminds me of the previous lab. The penny just kept collecting water drops.  At first the bonds were very strong, but after every drop they became weaker until finally all the bonds broke and the water overflowed onto the table.  This is also cohesion.  The last property i would like to talk about is Specific Heat.  Specific Heat is the amount of heat it takes to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius.  Water has a high specific heat because it is designed to easily bond together.  When water is heated most of the energy is used to break the bonds of the molecules first instead of being used to heat the molecules.  Water is able to withstand numerous heat changes.  This describes why earth's climates vary so much.  This is what i have learned from the lab and the properties of water videos.          

Well these past days we have been going over Standard 4.  In Standard 4 you are supposed to carry out scientific investigations to solve problems, formulate hypotheses, and designed controlled experiments.  By using the clinical trials site, I have learned how to design a good clinical study.  First of all you need to figure out what disease to test.  Then you need to select a group of volunteers with this disease.  Good trials are double-blind which means the patient doesn't know what he is taking and the doctor doesn't know what drug he gave him.  After all the easy stuff you need to determine a testing period.  At the end of this period you will know who took the pill or who took the placebo.  If people got better they took the right pill.  If they stayed the same, they either didn't take the pill or your pill didn't work.  This is the knowledge that i have gained over the past days.

This is my blog, its cool i know it is!