Q1 Grades Reflection

I was supposed to do a reflection about my grades in Q1, more specifically my grades on my science essay, test and lab. I got all 6/6 for all 3 projects.
I am really happy with my grades for these projects. Obviously, they couldn't be better at all, because they are the maximum possible grade. However, although the grade was perfect, the projects themselves weren't totally perfect.
My strengths in my essay were that I chose a difficult topic but still wrote a full essay on it. I also met the minimum length requirement, and my essay was clear and hopefully moderately easy to understand. However, a few things that I could work on include explaining the my topic of more clearly and maybe choosing more reliable sources than Wikipedia. I recently reread my essay and realized that my explanation of my topic didn't sound as good as when I wrote it.
If I were to rewrite the essay, I would give a little more background information and try to explain my topic better.
I also think that I did well on the lab. My strengths were that we had a good data table, and my partner and I followed the lab procedure very closely. Our weaknesses were that in our lab, we used two different plants in a part of the lab where we were supposed to compare two of the same plants, and the most likely skewed our results.
My test is a little harder to reflect back on because I haven't looked over it again much. A few things I did well tat I didn't rush and I took time to fully explain things where necessary. I was one of the later people to hand in m test. Also, I think that I studied well which helped me get a good grade. However, I could have maybe studies even more so I wouldn't have missed the 2-3 questions I did miss.
Overall, I am very happy with my grades, and even though I couldn't improve in numbers, there were a few ways that I could improve in real-life performance.

Current Events #4: Bees Solve Hard Computing Problems Faster Than Supercomputers

Bees Solve Hard Computing Problems Faster Than Supercomputers
Here's something I never thought could have been possible: bees (yes, the tiny 2-3cm insects) can beat a supercomputer in solving a super-difficult problem that even some supercomputers have problems with. That problem is called the traveling salesman problem. I looked this up, and I found that the traveling salesman problem  tries to find a route between multiple cities, with the shortest possible total distance between the cities, all while only visiting each city once. The way the bees were tested is that researchers set up artificial flowers, and the bees were observed and were found to always find the shortest route between the artificial flowers. The reason that the bees have the ability to do this is that bees need a lot of energy to fly, and so by optimizing their route between flowers, they can pick up as much pollen as possible while using as little energy as possible for transportation. This seems to be some kind of evolutionary adaptation, that must really help the bee.
However, this whole post could be wrong, and could have been proved wrong by a comment on my source article. The comment stated that the bees are obviously successful at a smaller level, but that involves only 10-15 flowers, but that is also the level where supercomputers can quickly and easily solve the problem. The bees have not been tested with 100 flowers, or other high numbers like that, which a supercomputer cannot solve within the lifetime of the universe. Presumably, the bees can't handle that either. Even with their limitations, the bees are very successful for a creature of that size, and I think it's amazing how much they have going on in their little bee brains.
Sources:
Rebecca Boyle
Oct. 26, 2010
 http://gizmodo.com/5674050/bees-solv
e-hard-computing-problems-faster-than-supercomputers

Current Events 3: The Science of Prohibition, 1919-1933

The magazine/website Popular Science, also known as PopSci, recently went through its archives and featured some of its articles from the 1920s and 1930s about Prohibition. The Prohibition was a time when alcohol was banned in the USA. The Prohibition Started on January 19th, 1919 and ended on Dec. 5, 1933. During the Prohibition, people started illegally brewing their own alcoholic beverages (those brewed drinks were called moonshine), and also smuggling them from other countries. One thing that the magazine reported a few times about was how over the course of the entire prohibition, thousands of people had died while drinking bad moonshine that was poisoned with a bit of wood alcohol. I looked up wood alcohol and it turns out that wood alcohol is just a name for methanol, which can be used as an antifreeze and a fuel. Over time the bootleggers got good at producing safe-to-drink moonshine. According to Pop Sci, the Prohibition produced a new breed of chemists: the bootleggers. Whether or not they were really chemists is more debatable. Surprisingly, even real scientists got in on the alcohol action: around 1920, a scientist name John C. Olsen created solid alcohols called jellied cocktails, but I read in a Google Books version of the February 1920 Pop Sci that he didn't want to share the formula for the jellied cocktail formula or sell his jellied cocktails. The reason these were legal is that the prohibition law, (the 8th amendment) only covered liquids.

I found all of these stories interesting, because they show how desperately Americans wanted alcohol, and the crazy things they would invent or risk in order to get it. The prohibition was finally cancelled for a number of reasons, one of them being increased violence because of the smuggling, but I think that it was an interesting period in history.
Sources:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/archive-gallery-secret-science-behind-prohibition
http://bit.ly/dsxsMs

Current Events 2 - Deleting "Homer Simpson Gene" Creates Super Smart Mice

Deleting "Homer Simpson Gene" Creates Super Smart Mice

Adrian 7A

September 29

Scientists from Emory University have made a pretty surprising discovery: There was a gene in mouse brains, when deleted, makes the mice smarter. The mice with the gene removed remembered objects and navigated around mazes than mice with the gene intact. The article I read called the gene-removed mice "Mensa mice," and I did some researching on that topic, and it turns out that Mensa is a club for people/geniuses with very high IQs. The gene the scientists deleted is the RGS14 gene, which is located in the CA2 region of the Hippocampus. (great naming, right?) The hippocampus is the part of the brain that deals with learning, and although scientists know a lot about the hippocampus, the CA2 region is  almost unknown.

It seems surprising that the brain has things in it that make it dumber, and not smarter. You would think it would have gotten deleted during evolution, or maybe it has some hidden purpose. This scenario is similar to a story that made news in the tech world recently, that there was a leaked image that showed  that Intel would be putting fully capable processors in laptops but limiting their functionality, and to unlock full performance and functionality, users would have to buy a card with a special code for $50. Maybe in the future, students will routinely have an operation at a young age to remove the gene, and all students would be smarter. It's hard to see where this is going.
Sources: http://gizmodo.com/5642016/deleting-homer-simpson-gene-creates-super-smart-mice

Questions from Mr. Watts's Presentation

When does reproduction occur?

It occurs when the organism finds a place to give birth where the newborns have food and are safe.

How did this presentation help tie in everything we have learned?

 It showed how organisms survive in an eco system with adaptations and how they interact.

What interactions between these animals did you notice? (For example, think about these various forms of interactions that you have been studying for your project: producers, consumers, decomposers, predation, commensalism, parasitism, mutualism)
There is Why do animals migrate? (What is occurring within their environment that triggers this response?)

They need to always have food and a suitable environment. If the environment loses its food for the winter or gets too cold, then the organism must migrate. What adaptations did the animals exhibit in the polar region? (For example: body shape, appendages, wing span, food, coloration, stream-lined bodies, teeth, beaks, blubber, fur, group formations, hooks on tentacles, etc...)

What adaptations did the animals exhibit?

Some animals had thick fur or blubber to protect from cold. One of the birds had an extremely large wingspan to help it fly better. What various (breeding) mating rituals do species have?

As far as I know, many species always come back to a certain spot for breeding. How did this presentation provide examples of what we have been studying?

Mr. Watts showed us what adaptations animals had to survive, how they interacted with other organisms, and what heir ecosystem was and when they went there/what they did there, all of which are things that we are studying.
What are you wondering about now?

I think that it would be interesting to have a similar presentation to this, except for a completely different biome, for example a desert.

When Plants Cry for Help, Predator Bugs Answer

When Plants Cry for Help, Predator Bugs Answer

Plants have a big perpetual problem: they need to protect themselves from pest, but they can move a centimeter. So how do they do it? In the case of the wild tobacco plant (Nicotiana attenuata), when a caterpiller start eating them, they can release compounds that attract predator bugs too eat the caterpillars. Those compounds are called Green leaf Volatiles, also known as GLVs. GLVs are also found in freshly mowed grass. When a caterpillar eats the plant,  its saliva causes changes in the GLVs that the tobacco plant releases, then attracting predators. This information was found out recently in a study done by a science institute in Amsterdam.
I find this amusing, that even in nature without humans, plants have a way to "tattle tell," and in nature the punishment for being caught is death. I always thought that plants where dumb, defenseless organisms, but I guess that this proves me wrong. I wonder if this system could ever fail, possibly if the tobacco plant doesn't have enough of a specific type of GLV that attracts predators.

Sources
"When Plants Cry for Help, Predator Bugs Answer." EurekAlert! - Science News. 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Sept. 2010. .

Survival

    In the video that we watched in class, I learned that animals make certain adaptations to help them survive in a sometimes difficult-to-survive-in environment, some frogs can freeze themselves to hibernate through the winter.



In this video, although it is aimed at younger students, it shows that all animals make adaptations. For example, a turtles, feet are webbed to help push him through the water. Other adaptations that animals make that I got from out class video included using bright color's on a frog's body to indicate poison in its body, and using camouflage to hide oneself from a predator. Another adaptation is drinking water from fog in areas where there are no lakes, seas or rivers.

What did I learn?
I learned that when an environment that an organisms lives in isn't ideal, over a long time the organisms can adapt itself of the environment to mike life more livable.
What was interesting?
I found it interesting how complex and clever the adaptations can be. For example, the snapper turtle has a tongue that looks like a worm to lure food into its mouth. I wouldn't have thought of that.