Bueno Guys!
How’s Everyone Summer Going? Fantastic I Hope.
This is the fourth week of the Biocuration program and so far I am as happy as a computer geek at the Apple Factory. ^_^. This Monday, we had a lab activity about natural selection which led into a lecture about Evolution. The lab was like a typical lab for a high school biology course. Except that in this one I was with a group of people that I actually like and we made it fun while learning. So a background of the lab is basically that one population of organisms had different traits. Over time through various generations those organisms started to become one species via natural selection.
This objective of the game was to have the most food in your stomach (cup) so you can reproduce/survive for the next round. In the first round there were 3 knives, 1 fork, and 1 spoon. Nicole put the food on the table and we all had to gather it and rush to put it in our cups due to the fact that there was a time limit; t got really competitive. Me and Kamal basically bomb rushed each other to get to our cups. I though developed a strategy. I placed my cup closer to me so I could easily and efficiently put food in my “stomach”.The food we had to pick up with our utensils were soybeans and rice. From the first round we learned that spoons can pick up rice very efficiently while knives struggled with the task; this is because spoons are shaped like an oval which makes it easy to scoop things, which will be ideal for rice, while knives are long and pointy which would be ideal for ripping things. In the case of gathering rice to put into a cup a spoon would be ideal. This small lesson basically taught us Darwin’s principle which is ” Natural Selection: The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring”
After the lab we had a short lecture on Evolution. I learned that phenotypes controlled by your genes, the environment you live, and your diet. Diseases such as progeria which effect multiple areas of the body are caused by only one gene. This fact was weird to me because previously I thought that each gene dealt with a certain section of your body; like there is a gene for your eyes, skin complexion, etc. I also learned that many Europeans contain 3-4% of neanderthal in their DNA. Meaning that during sometime our species mated with their species.
WEDNESDAY <3
On Wednesday Kyle and I spent our day at the anatomy lab with Lauren. We learned how to use the 3d scanner and we were able to take a 3d scan of a cat’s scapula it took thirty minutes for the scanner to scan the cat’s scapula. While waiting for the scan to load me and Kyle converse with Lauren she is a very cool person and she is highly intelligent. After the cat scapula was done scanning we had to reposition it so the scanner can get as much information as possible. After about 3 hours we were able to have 3 different scans of the cat’s scapula in various positions. We then meshed the photos together so we can have an accurate scan of the scapula in a software program called “Mesh Lab”. After that we sent the photos to ourselves so we can convert them into PDF’s. When we got back to the lab everyone individually talked to Nicole about their final projects. *SPOILER ALERT. Well Not Really*. My final project will focus on a specific bone that is in the bat, cat, hornbill, and human skeleton. I will compare and contrast the function of this bone. I’m also gonna have really cool pictures, some music, and perhaps an animation. <3
Well Guys That Was My Week In Review.
Quite Exciting huh?
Our final projects are coming up soon so stay tuned!
