Origin of life summary

Life first began billions of years when Earth as we know it was called "Black Earth", molten lava covered the entire surface of earth and created rocks and minerals. These minerals consisted of natures building blocks consisting of granite, quartz, and many other types of rock. These minerals contain molecules that when water was first created with the lingering elements of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor. Earth slowly transitioned from the black Earth to the grey almost blue Earth. The idea of early earth water cycle was recreated with scientist Stanley Miller, his experiment showcased how Earth's limited resources created the 20 organic molecules. His experiment consisted of  a flask of water simulating water and another flask with the gases of earth earth (ammonia and methane) with an electric spark that simulated lightning that breaks down the gas and water molecules, creating amino acids that associate with making proteins. By recreating organic molecules, scientists now have the answers to how life began, The combination of these minerals, organic molecules, and oxygen, planet Earth has now become the green planet with living plants, animals, and humans,

hot zone/ emerging disease

In the "Hot Zone" we learned about the precautions to take during an epidemic. With the Ebola outbreak in Liberia scientists were unsure of the causes of the disease, however an outbreak has the ability to wipe out 90% of the country's population according to Gene Johnson. Ebola is a severe virus that causes an individual to have symptoms of a fever, sore throat, and headaches. Two to three weeks later, the individual will essentially vomit until their death. When we first obtain knowledge of a deadly disease, international transportation is barricaded so the outbreak is kept to a minimum and scientists are able to locate the causes of the disease. Ebola is not curable but it is treatable and since the sudden outbreak in 2016, we are able to suppress the emergence of this virus through proper disposal of infected bodies.

Spirit Week January 2017

monday stuffed animal day:

Reflection 1/4/17

Today in the lab we did a virtual activity called "What did T. rex taste like" and "The Evolution of Flight in Birds". Out of these two activities I found "What did T. rex taste like" activity the most interesting because of its in depth logic. Prior to this activity I had no idea what a cladogram was and through the series of slides, i was able to understand how animals that we would normally not consider similar due to the basic general characteristics. I liked how the cladogram made deeper connections of the similarities different animals share. The cladogram shows distinct relations with common ancestors as well as common ancestors that can be dug up hundreds of years ago. 

CE Energy

How Fermentation Gives Us Beer, Wine, Cheese—and Cancer

Article by: Bret Stetka

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-fermentation-gives-us-beer-wine-cheese-and-cancer/

A group of lab scientists in the University of California, San Diego have discovered that the cost of oxygen-based metabolism is very expensive even though it is the best source of energy production. There is a ton of evidence that claim that the fermentation that occurs within the mitochondria is causing the rapid growth rate of tumor cells, or cancer cells. We can suppress the growth of these tumor cells when they are transplanted with normal cells; however, the downside is that there is a high possibility that the tumor cells will completely infect all the regular cells and they will all become tumor cells. Cancer cells originated when oxygen was added to the atmosphere along with the addition of fermentation. We might be able to slow down the rapid growth rate of these cancer cells by altering metabolism, which interferes with fermentation in the mitochondria. This idea of treatment will target cancer cells because cancer cells rely more on respiration as a source of energy than normal cells do. What separates this new idea of treatment and the traditional style of treatment is that the regular cancer treatment is to interfere with the cell signalling pathways but now the idea is to slow down the rate of fermentation.

Fermentation in cancer cells relate to cells because we recently learned about fermentation in the food we eat, the transfer of energy from food that we get and the fermentation in our very own body which is changing the amount of energy the defective mitochondria cells obtain will definitely give a helping hand to what we are learning.

This article is cutting edge because it is giving other scientists and the general public a new idea that could possibly cure cancer. As we know, most cancer in our modern day is only treatable, this new idea gives hope to all fighters that the money invested in cancer will soon have results.

In this article, i learned that tumor cells rapidly grow through fermentation, I previously thought that tumor cells attacked normal cells to infect them and the reason to that is through fermentation and fermentation in our cells are continuous so slowing the rate down is a possible idea of curing cancer.

I picked this article because I wanted to get more in depth with fermentation since my group and I have fermented pizza dough which, was an interesting project for me. I wanted to learn more about what else fermentation does to our body and to find that it is in our cells fermenting almost 24/7 is mind blowing.

cell communication

There are 3 ways of cell communication, no distance, short distance, and long distance. In a "No Distance" communication, to make a  signal transfer from one cell to another, we use the antigen presenting cell, when one cell sends signals to others.

 Local "Short Distance" signal is when you have multiple neurons connected to each other. The message is traveled in one direction until it reaches another neuron so neuron A and neuron B will release chemicals known as neurotransmitters that will allow the neuron signal cross acting kind of like a bridge. The bridge can have the option to block signals or allow them to pass.


 However, with "Long Distance" cell communication, a cell uses hormones to send signals to not only one cell but as many cells as possible. A growth hormone is an example of long distance cell communications, as the body grows growth hormone is spread throughout the body to every different muscles so they could receive the signals to tell them to grow
 

1st current event

Can erythrocytes release biologically active NO?

Peter M. Benz

Ingrid Fleming

(http://biosignaling.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12964-016-0143-0)

http://biosignaling.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12964-016-0145-y

To start this off we first must know what a erythrocytes is and that is the red blood cell itself that transfers oxygen and carbon dioxide to form tissues in the human body. NO is endothelial nitric oxide and is essentially neural activity. Nitric Oxide (NO) is claimed to be the dependent variable in regulation of cell function along with erythrocytes. There is a hypothesis that claims that erythrocytes also play a role in platelet inhibition by generating or release of NO or NO-carriers. The Erythrocytes will activate in the platelets will extend the bleeding rate in mammals who are anemia independent in platelet count. Which means that the bleeding defects could possibly have a connection with an impaired platelet activation. It is unsure how Erythrocytes contribute to platelet activation but we can infer that it might be due to the activation of ADP-P2Y, a receptor pathway that moves the elevated platelet radials and interaction with the endothelium. 3 different people have came up with possible reasons why there might be no active NO released by erythrocytes; However, there is still a doubt to all these hypothesis, which is “NO from erythrocytes come from the fact that Hb is an avid scavenger of NO”.

This study relates to class because the erythrocytes are signal molecules that functions within the cell cycle. We can connect the transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide within the cell to cell communication.

This research is cutting edge because scientists are trying to find out if erythrocytes will release nitric oxide in platelet activation

In this article I learned that nitric oxide is generated in endothelial cells, which is whole process in its own that I have never learned before

I picked this article because in class we have been talking about cell communication and I thought that I could maybe learn something through this article since it correlates with cell communication and sure enough I did