Inquiry Hour 1.1: Identifying Questions and Hypotheses

The question was, "Do monkeys and humans perceive optical illusions in the same way?". The hypothesis was that the monkeys would perceive the pictures as illusions. This is because in a similar study executed previously, the tested monkeys saw perceived the size of circles incorrectly: a purpose of the optical illusion.

The study used a type of illusion called a Delboeuf illusion. These consist of a thin circle with a large filled in dot in the center. The size of the center dots stay the same, but the thin surrounding circle's size changes. This creates the illusion that dots in smaller circles are larger than dots in bigger circles. To test whether the monkeys saw the images as an illusion, the researchers trained monkeys to use joysticks and computer monitors. Both the monkeys and humans were asked to classify dots as large or small. When they answered correctly, humans were given a written reward and monkeys were given a banana flavored pellet.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150928083116.htm

"What is consciousness?", and another 20 Questions

I really like most all of the questions in the article, especially the first few near the top. But if I had to choose one, I'd say my favorite question is, "What is consciousness?". I think this question appeals to me because we hardly know anything about our brain and nervous system. And even though we know all about the physiological processes, we are nowhere close to comprehending our ability to understand language and picturing images in our mind.
The consciousness is one of these mysterious things about the brain that I don't think anyone really understands. In reality, our body is just a means of receiving and exporting information. The brain is the real thing controlling, preparing and processing this information.
I also believe that our understanding of "what we are" has changed over time. Originally, we assumed that this body was "me", and later we were able to grasp the concept that we are actually just a lump of neurons sitting in this body's head. Soon, I think we may be able to fully comprehend the fact that our consciousness is just a bunch electrochemical messages constantly being relayed between a few billion neurons inside of our skull.
The main hypothesis on what our consciousness is, is that as we sift through so much information in our lifetime, we quickly are able to tell what is real and what is not. We learn that the things we imagine and dream are all in our mind, but the real world is something that others also perceive and that everyone knows is true.
My Big 20 Questions: 

1. What causes self-awareness?
2. Do we have biological free will from our brains?
3. What allows us to see things in our mind? What allows the mind's eye?
4. Is medical progress hindering human evolution?
5. Why are plant cells usually larger than animal cells?
6. How much energy does my phone use per minute?
7. Who will win the 2016 presidential election?
8. Because our government uses the electoral college, is the USA really a democracy?
9. How can I know that the universe didn't begin just a few minutes ago and that all my memories were implanted?
10. Is Obama and any of our federal government real? I've only seen them on TV.
11. How much longer will we continue to find and use fossil fuels?
12. Is solar power ever going to become practical?
13. When will the human race master interstellar space travel?
14. Will socialism ever become the global government norm?
15. Will humans slowly degrade mentally and physically due to our laziness and stupidity?
16. Will humans ever become a purely mental race which only interacts psychologically rather than physically?
17. If time travel is possible, then where are the visitors hiding?
18. Why does my ring finger also bend when I bend my pinky?
19. Could humans function with only 2 or 3 fingers and an opposable thumb?
20. Can gravity truly be quantized and if so will we be able to harness its potential as an energy source?

Unit 2 Reflection

The general purpose of this unit was to understand the chemistry involved in biology. Themes included understanding basic atomic structure, intermolecular forces, macromolecules, and how enzymes worked. I think I was able to understand everything in this chapter and some of my favorite parts included the macromolecules and how enzymes function. However, one part I didn't find too interesting was the pH scale. This is because I've already learned about it many times for various reasons, and some of the information seemed inaccurate.
In this unit I learned about how atoms form bonds, how biological systems use enzymes to do their work, and what causes the meniscus in a graduated cylinder. One skill I learned in this chapter was how to use data tables to make graphs in google sheets.
I think I am a better student now than at the start of this chapter, because although I knew a large portion of the content I didn't fully understand how they worked. I also wasn't aware of the extremely intricate structure of enzymes. I would like to learn more about enzymes and proteins. This is because proteins and enzymes are like microscopic biological machines that have a large potential for scientific use.

Cheese Lab Conclusion

What are the optimal conditions and curdling agents for making cheese?

CER: The best curdling agent to use is Chymosin in a hot, acidic environment. In the lab, Chymosin curdled the milk in 5 out of the 6 conditions. This shows that the milk may continue to curdle even if something happens to the machine that keeps the enzyme’s environment in check. The environment should be hot because in the lab, the hot environment produced curdling in 5 minutes for Chymosin. Also, the environment should be acidic because during testing, chymosin produced curds in 5 minutes when it was in an acid. If hot and acidic make the enzyme produce curds faster, then a hot and acidic environment would be best from a manufacturing perspective because cheese could be produced very fast.

Possible Errors: Some possible errors may result from different people’s armpits, and accidents during timing the incubation. The temperature of the underarm varies slightly from person to person and some groups didn’t even put the test tube in their armpit. The effect of this may be that the enzymes in some tubes may have been more active than others and would eventually result in inconsistencies in the time for curdling. When I ended the the 10 minute timer for one of the incubation rounds, I forgot to immediately restart it. This means that the timing of that round was slightly off. If everyone made small mistakes like these, then overall it could create a large timing difference which would skew the results. To prevent inaccuracies in time from occurring, I would alter the procedure of this experiment in 2 ways. One thing I would do is put all of the test tubes in an incubator with a steady temperature to prevent differences from underarm to underarm. Another thing I would change is the way we time. I think that the timer should run for 10 minutes, then have a 10 second pause to check for curds, and then restart its 10 minute cycle. This would prevent the humans from forgetting to restart the timer.

Practical Applications: The purpose of this experiment was to understand how different factors such as pH and temperature can affect the activity of enzymes. This relates to what I’ve learned in class because in 8th grade we learned about pH and hydronium ion concentration. This makes me think about why and how hydronium can affect enzymes. The results of this lab could be applied to making cheese at home. I have already made cheese at home many times, but only used buttermilk. Now I know that if I want the quickest outcome, I could purchase some chymosin or rennin.

	Chymosin	Rennin	Buttermilk	Milk (Control)
Acid	5	5	5
Base	20
pH Control	15	10
Cold
Hot	5	5
temp. Control	10	10

Sweetness Lab Analysis & Conclusion

How does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its sweetness?

CER: The fewer saccharides bonded together in a carbohydrate, the sweeter it is. When the sweetness numbers for the monosaccharides were averaged out, it gave a whopping 125 on our arbitrary sweetness scale. When disaccharide sweetness was averaged, it was only 35. And the average of the polysaccharides was 0. Polysaccharides had the most chained monosaccharide molecules and lowest sweetness. Monosaccharides were not chained at all and were the most sweet. This shows that as the amount of saccharide molecules in a chain decreased, the sweetness increased.

2. The larger carbohydrates such as starch can be broken up to produce a large amount of energy. This makes them good for storage. However, smaller monosaccharides and disaccharides are much more portable and can be moved around easier.

3. No. The rating varied from tester to tester. (1)This may be because the testers have a background of eating sweeter foods or less sweet foods. If they ate sweeter foods in general, then they may not think that a sample is very sweet and rate it lower. (2)Another reason is that the testers may take different amounts. The amount of carbohydrates that was ingested was not measured which means that if one tester took a large amount of sugar, they might find it sweeter and rate it high. (3)Also, results may vary because of genetics. Some people have a large number of papillae in their mouth which would give them high sensitivity to sweetness. Others may have genes which could reduce their sensation of sweet.

4. Human taste is perceived by taste buds on the tongue, soft palate, and throat. These taste buds come in small groups called papillae which look like bumps. When taste buds sense certain chemicals, they send information to the gustatory cortex where the data is interpreted as taste. This mechanism would allow taste rating to vary because the amount of papillae in a person's mouth can be different in each individual. Also, the way a person's brain interprets the taste can vary because of their genetics.

Characteristics of Life Collage