20 Time Final Post

My 20 Time project was about converting regular concrete into pervious concrete. I was successful in making a slab of concrete porous by spraying it with chemicals. Gypsum and vinegar were the two chemicals that worked and I have submitted my project to Google Science Fair. Over the summer, I will continue to work on my project by finding the most effective mixtures of gypsum and vinegar for use on concrete. I will also test the structural stability of treated concrete blocks.

Gypsum I tested on the concrete in an ~1/5 solution in water

The TED Talk I gave in class about my project

I would say my talk went quite well. Although I stumbled a lot at the start, once I got on track, my speaking got smoother and I was able to articulate my thoughts in a way the audience could understand. I thought I would need my notes, but I ended up just using the images as cues. That being said, I was still very nervous beforehand because I had only written the script the night before. I also had no words in my slideshow, so there were no hints to read off of without looking down at my notes.

Even though I was more nervous before this presentation than before my "What on Earth Evolved?" Presentation, I felt this one looked more professional overall. This is because I had more true passion for what I was talking about, allowing me to walk around and look relaxed. However, I may have been unclear in some parts because during the questions, some people were asking me things that I thought I had answered while talking. Overall, this was a slight improvement from my Tiktaalik presentation, but a definite improvement from my public speaking skills at the start of the year.

Unit 9 Reflection

This unit was about life and the way it's organized. Life is organized with a system of levels from general to specific. For example, there can be multiple orders in a class, and multiple classes in a phylum. Using this method, biologists can show how closely related organisms are.

At the top, there are 3 domains. These are Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. Archaeans live in extreme environments like hydrothermal vents and are prokaryotes. Bacteria are very common and live almost everywhere, including inside of us. Eukarya comprises all the "advanced" organisms that tend to have larger cells, are often multicellular, and have specialized organelles.
There are many confusing kingdoms within Archaea and Bacteria, so we focused on Eukarya.
Within Eukarya, there are the kingdoms Animalia, Fungi, Plantae, and Protista. Animals are all heterotrophic and multicellular. Fungi are all heterotrophic but vary in terms of number of cells. They are made of filaments called hyphae that absorb nutrients out of the ground. Plants are all autotrophic and multicellular. They use chloroplasts to convert sunlight, water, and CO2 into sugar, water, and O2. Protista is the "miscellaneous" category where anything that doesn't fit well in the other three kingdoms goes.

Within Animalia, there is huge variety. Phylum porifera has all the sponges which are made of unspecialized tissue and grow in a variety of shapes. Phylum cnidaria includes jellyfish, corals, anemones, and hydras that all have stinging cnidocysts. Phylum platyhelminthes is the flatworms that have a one-way gut where food comes in through the mouth/anus and goes out the same way. Phylum mollusca includes the snails, clams, and squids which share their mantle, radula, complete coelom, and ctenidia. Phylum arthropoda has segmented organisms like spiders, ants, lobsters, and trilobites whose main features are the segmented body and appendages. Phylum echinodermata, which is actually quite closely related to chordata, contains animals with radial symmetry like sea stars, brittle stars, sea urchins, sea lillies, and sea cucumbers.

Phylum chordata started with animals like the modern day agnathans that don't even have jaws. They slowly evolved jaws and other characteristics that allowed them to become more predatory. This resulted in Chondricthyes, the cartilagenous fish, and Osteicthyes, the bony fish, being formed. Osteicthyes is divided into Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fish, and Sarcopterygii, the lobe finned fish.

My "What on Earth Evolved?" Presentation on Tiktaalik

Ancestors of modern lobe finned fish like Pandericthys gave rise to the first tetrapods. These were amphibious creatures like Tiktaalik and Icthyostega. You can learn more about how they discovered a beautiful Tiktaalik fossil at this blogpost. Soon, the sauropsids and synapsids diverged. Synapsids became modern day mammals, while sauropsids became dinosaurs, lizards & snakes, turtles, crocodilians, tuataras and birds.

I want to learn more about the classification of birds, mammals, and snakes. I want to be able to identify the majority of common snakes and lizards as well as hopefully birds. I also wonder about better ways of classifying the organisms in Protista and would like to standardize and introduce those into state standards.


My "What on Earth Evolved?" presentation went extremely well. The prezi took me only about two hours to make and it looked really nice. I think the information on it was quite concise and the images helped show my point. Also, I only read through my presentation a few times beforehand in my mind, but still did amazing in class (I got more than a 100%). Because I was so passionate about this topic, I truly didn't have to do any memorization. I just used the bullet points as ideas for what to talk about and then elaborated.

For my upcoming TED talk, I will use prezi again because of its versatility and beauty. I will minimize the words on my slideshow to challenge myself to memorize all the main points. But overall, I actually think the TED talk will be easier. This is because I am going to talk about my experience with 20 Time, and talking about interesting things I've done has always been fun and easy for me. For the TED Talk, I will try to keep the confident and engaging tone that I used in my Tiktaalik presentation.

My Inner Fish

"Your Inner Fish" was a video series about evolution and how long it has taken for humans to evolve on this planet. We first watched part 1, which talks about the transition from water to land. We learned about Tiktaalik, a transitional organism that scientists think is the ancestor of all tetrapods. It also showed how the human hand evolved and its relation to structures in other tetrapods. This links back to the evolution unit and homologous structures because our palms & fingers are descended from Tiktaalik's flipper-hands. 

The second video was called "Your Inner Reptile", which was about synapsids and the transition from ancient reptiles to mammals. We learned about the ancestors of mammals and how their lifestyle involved living underground, hunting/foraging during night, hiding from dinosaurs, using whiskers as a sensory organ. It also explained the master gene "EDA" which controls all the integumentary organs including hair, nails, and glands. This relates to Unit 5 because the gene EDA causes proteins to be produced and determines the location of growth for many organs.

Q7. What was the "needle in the haystack" that they were looking for in the Canadian fossils? Why was it important?

They were looking for a transitional tetrapod fossil. The organism would have to fill the gap between lobe-finned fish and the early amphibian Icthyostega. It should have an about equal amount of fish and tetrapod characteristics to be the "needle" they are looking for. The reason it is so hard to find is because the chance of an organism from almost 400 million years ago fossilizing is very low and even if you find a specimen, the chance of it being well-preserved is miniscule. Plus, the weather is pretty harsh and they don't have much time. However, you could consider it easy to find because the team was able to narrow the location down to a relatively small area.

An extremely well fossilized Tiktaalik specimen

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tiktaalik_Chicago.JPG

Q24. How and why did hair first evolve?

We think hair first evolved as a sensory organ in early mammals. They would have been similar to modern whiskers, except the rest of the body was just covered in bare skin or scales. But that makes me wonder what did they actually have on the rest of their body? Did they just have bare skin or did they have scales? If they had bare skin, then did mutations in the EDA gene cause whiskers to spread through the rest of their body? If they had scales, then wouldn't the scales have evolved into hairs because they are both keratinous structures? Although both ideas may involve EDA, the first one says that whiskers spread through the body and became hair, while the second posits that the body scales evolved into modern fur. If this were the case, then wouldn't the theory that early synapsids had whiskers become irrelevant to the development of modern hair?

Flatworm Penis Fighting

Flatworms are organisms that are part of the phylum Platyhelminthes. Flatworms are soft-bodied sea creatures that don't have segments and are bilaterally symmetrical. They are more advanced than Cnidarians due to their digestive tract, but less advanced than Molluscs because flatworms only have a one-way gastric passage.

One really cool thing about flatworms are their penis fights. They are hermaphrodites, meaning each one produces both sperm and egg. When two flatworms find each other, they start a "penis fencing" duel. Each worm has to try and stab the other with its penis and the worm that is inseminated becomes the mother. Alternatively, both worms stab each other with their penises and inseminate one another. This process is known as bilateral sperm transfer and results in both worms giving birth. When the sperm exits the male's penis, it enters the haemocoel of the other worm. The haemocoel is a blood filled cavity in platyhelminths that works as their open circulatory system.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatworm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_fencing
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Mating_Pseudobiceros_bedfordi.png

Unit 8 Reflection

This unit was about evolution and how it occurs.  Evolution is a process where mutations that are favorable for an environment become more common. This happens because organisms with favorable mutations are more likely to reproduce. We know that natural selection has occurred if there is an overall shift in the allele frequency of a population.

 In this picture, a form of selection that favors one extreme of a trait over medial and the other extreme. For example, if large claws helped a lion survive, then directional selection could occur and make large claws a common trait.

Another way we can know evolution has occurred and whether two species have a common ancestor is by looking for homologous structures. These are structures like bat wings and whale fins that have different functions but came from a common ancestor's structure.

Evolution takes place over long periods of time. The earth has been around for 4.6 billion years and basic life didn't pop up until 3.8 BYA. During the Cambrian explosion, 542 MYA, most eukaryotic phylums that we are familiar with popped up. After this event, we have a mostly clear fossil record through which we can trace evolutionary paths. What is really surprising is that H. Sapiens Sapiens only evolved 200,000 years ago. This is a blink-of-an-eye ago in geologic terms, meaning that we aren't as significant as we like to think of ourselves as.

I want to learn more about the relationship between the different ways of speciation and natural selection because it is not completely clear to me yet. I'm very interested in the classification of organisms so I want to find out more about phylogenetics.

In my Unit 7 reflection, I talked about being assertive. The survey found that assertiveness is my dominant trait and aggressiveness is strong as well. In the geologic timeline project, I have been very assertive and made sure that things got done in the best & most efficient way possible.  However, I was also quite aggressive in convincing my groupmates to do what I thought was best. I was conscious of my words and actions, which allowed me to only use aggression when trying to get something done. In my next group project, I will try to be more accepting of my teammates' thoughts and ideas.

Geologic Timeline Individual Reflection

The first major event in Earth's history is its formation. The Earth formed around 4.6 billion years ago as a magma ball that was constantly being pummeled by meteors. Slowly, it cooled down and developed a carbon dioxide atmosphere that protected the surface from celestial objects. The formation is very significant because without it, there would be no place for life to develop in our solar system.
Another important event is the Great Oxygenation Event. The event occurred around 2.3 billion years ago because of the appearance of Cyanobacteria that converted carbon dioxide into oxygen. It is a vital event because it allowed aerobic organisms to evolve and all multicellular life depends on oxygen for survival.
A huge event in the history of our planet is the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution started about 200 years ago and created a shift from mostly manual, cottage-industry style companies to concentrated, urbanized factories that depended on fossil fuels for power. The event in part lead to our current global society and materialistic, unsustainable lives. If the industrial revolution didn't occur, we may not be as technologically advanced, but we also wouldn't be seeing spikes in CO2 levels, temperature fluctuations, extreme weather events, microplastics in our oceans, and colossal extinction rates.

The Earth's history stretches from 4.6 billion years ago to today. If we compressed the 13.8 billion years that the universe has existed into 365 days, all human history would take place in the last few seconds of the last day of December. Although I knew the geologic time scale very well before this, I had never come across this comparison. The comparison shows how small and insignificant we are as well as how many millions of years of evolution it has taken for us to develop.

In our short time on Earth, humans have caused extinctions, elevated CO2 levels, climate change, and plastic to become extremely common. I think that by devastating our environment, we are being unfair to both our ancestors and our descendants. We are being unfair to our ancestors by harming other species which we are actually quite closely related to and destroying the planet that they contributed so much energy to. Environmental issues are very detrimental to our descendants because they will have to live in a barren world and deal with the consequences of our materialism.

Hunger Games Lab

1. In this lab, we assigned people to certain types of feeding patterns. People with the AA genotype had to pick up food (corks) with their wrists, Aa had to use their second knuckles, and aa had to use their fingers. Each round, each individual would need to have eaten a certain amount of food to reproduce and survive. If the survive, they find a mate and flip coins to choose their baby's genotype. As the experiment goes on, favorable traits reproduce more and the allele frequency changes. The experiment simulated how natural selection occurs and put together the concepts of mendelian genetics and survival of the fittest.

2. The data shows that the knucklers were the best at capturing food. However, this is most likely a result of cheating because many of the knucklers used their entire hands rather than just their knuckles.

3. The population definitely evolved. At the start, 48% of the population had "a" alleles and 52% had "A" alleles. This was pretty even and the allele frequency was very balanced at the start. However, by the end of the 8th trial, the "a" had a staggering 70% frequency while "A" only had a frequency of 30%. If evolution is a change in allele frequency over time, then a change of this scale is definitely evidence that natural selection took place.

 4. In this lab, there was a lot of other factors that affected results. Some people didn't have pockets which prevented them from gathering much food. Others weren't very fast at running or picking the corks up which prevented them from getting to the food. Many participants also cheated by not using their assigned phenotype, which allowed them to unfairly sway the results in their phenotype's favor.

5. If food was larger, then disruptive selection may take place. This is because the stumpies would be able to pick it up with their palms and the pinchers could grasp around the food with their long fingers. But the knucklers, whose phalanges can't stretch that far apart, would die off. If the corks were smaller, I would expect directional selection in which the knucklers and pinchers are favored due to their better dexterity.

6. Yes. If one allele had complete dominance over the other, then the pinchers might have become extremely rare. This would doom the population to being outcompeted by other species because only the inefficient knucklers would be common.

7. Natural selection is the mechanism, while evolution is the actual change that results from the shift in allele frequency.

8. The pinchers tended to mate with other pinchers because we knew that the "aa" phenotype tended to survive better. Also, the stumpies would try to mate with knucklers or pinchers because that would allow their child to be a knuckler. If mating choice was random, knucklers would easily become the majority phenotype.

9. In evolution, the population evolves. Natural selection acts on phenotypes, but as a result the genotype frequency changes. For example, if black fur helps with camouflage, then natural selection will cause the black fur trait to become common. But various genotypes can cause black fur and natural selection does not discriminate between those.

Bird Beak Lab

For part 1, I hypothesized that the tweezer beak would do extremely well because it can eat a lot of food very quickly. My hypothesis was confirmed when 40% of the bird chicks had tweezer beaks. However, I overestimated how well the tweezers would do, because the binder clip came in for a close 2nd place at 33%. Because 40% of the second generation had tweezer beaks, my claim that tweezer beaks were a very useful trait is correct.

I also hypothesized that the entire population would have tweezer beaks. This did not happen over the span of 3 years that we tested, as only 40% of the chicks received tweezer beaks. However, the trend indicates that over a longer period time, the majority of the birds would have tweezer beaks and the other alleles would only be passed on through heterozygous birds. The current evidence proves my hypothesis incorrect, but a more precise and longer experiment may support my claim.

Percentage of chicks w/ each Beak (before environmental change)

When a drought occurred and wiped out all of the seed pod plants (toothpicks), I made the claim that the scissor beaked birds may not do as well due to their reliance on the seed pods. The percentage of chicks with scissor beaks decreased by 1%, indicating the scissor beaks weren't as favorable. But the percentage is definitely within the margin of error, meaning the drought made no significant difference for the scissor beaked birds. The binder clip beaked birds made 1% less chicks as well and the spoon beaked birds made 2% more chicks. Because these changes are also within the experiment's margin of error, the seed pods weren't an important food source in the ecosystem. My hypothesis is not supported by the data, but more accurate experimentation should corroborate my claim.

One error that I am pretty sure occurred is that each person has a different skill level at picking up the food. Because some people may be better at picking up the pieces than others, the results may show something that is dependent on skill rather than beak type. To fix this problem, I would rotate the beak types to each person in the table so that everyone has 3 years with each beak type. They would then find the numbers for each beak at the end of 3 years and average them out. This would make it so that every beak's numbers are altered in the same way by each person, resulting in data that isn't influenced by a group member's skill. I also think it would be more accurate if each beak type was more specialized and dependent on a single food type. For example, the scissor beaks were supposed to be affected by the absence of toothpicks, but they survived perfectly fine. Instead of scissor beaks and toothpicks, maybe it could have been done with a magnetic beak dependent on paper clips. If the paper clips were removed, it would have a much more visible effect on the birds with magnetic beaks.

The purpose of this lab was to see how environmental changes can affect the allele frequency of a population. This relates to what we have already learned because the vodcasts talked about favorable mutations and how environmental pressures select certain traits. This selection can cause a large change in the population over time. Our experiment was quite flawed because there was no real change in part 2. However, I now can apply my knowledge of incorrect experiment execution to other contexts. This is because I now know that variation in skill level can overshadow the result the experiment is trying to get to.

Percentage of chicks w/ each Beak (after environmental change)

Ban Plastic Microbeads! (Story of Stuff Extra Credit Summary and Reflection)

The Story of Stuff video I watched was about banning plastic microbeads that take forever to decompose and are virtually impossible to clean up. Basically, companies put these microscopic pieces of plastic into cosmetics and toiletries because consumers find their texture satisfying. And because the microbeads are so small, they can’t be filtered out of the water at treatment plants. This results in the plastic ending up in the ocean, where fish and other animals mistakenly eat it, thinking that the beads are plankton. The beads also act “as a sponge for toxins” and concentrate poisonous substances that are harmful to living things. As the microbeads travel up the trophic pyramid and reach us, biomagnification occurs causing fish that we eat to have high levels of plastics and toxins.

Again, due to their small size, cleaning up is virtually impossible so prevention is the only solution. In numerous states including California, legislators are currently in the midst of passing laws that would ban the sale of products with microbeads. This doesn’t mean we won’t be able to use shampoo anymore, it just means that companies will be forced to switch to more environmentally friendly exfoliants if they want to continue selling to the 40 million people who live here.

I really liked this video because it explained what microbeads are, what their effect is, and what the solutions are, in an organized and interesting manner. They used really nice animations and were successful at portraying the large corporations as what they are: people who only care about money. However, it would have been nice if they went more into depth about topics like biomagnification and what brand lines to avoid.

I already check labels of shampoo and soap for things like parabens, pthalates, SLS and other possible carcinogens. Now I know to also look for things that are obviously plastic like polyethylene, polypropylene, and polymethyl methacrylate. By doing this, I will be voting with my dollar for environmentally friendly products. I will also feel more safe because who knows what kind of havoc plastic will wreak when it enters your body.

Watch the video here

Take action here

Watch another video about microplastics here

Unit 7 Reflection

This unit was about ecological principles and how humans affect the environment. We learned about population ecology and how all the species in an ecosystem are dependent on one another. We also focused on how energy moves through trophic levels and explored ideas like the 10% rule and how the collapse of one level can topple the rest of the pyramid. There were many videos that were shown, such as "Bag It!", relating to how we can help save the environment and reduce human created issues like plastic in oceans.

I want to learn more about how the government interacts with the environment and how passing laws could help reduce climate change. I also want to learn about how we can increase social awareness of environmental issues and galvanize the masses into making change.

I think the Conservation Biology Project was really fun and I hope we will have similar projects in the future. It took us quite a while to decide on our topic and I was a bit aggressive in convincing my partners to go with my idea. However, we were able to assign work well and get all the notes organized into one document. We then wrote the script using ideas from the notes, but I feel like we didn't divide up the script work that well so I ended up typing most of the document. After filming a Bill-Nye style video during class, we had a number of surprises after school. Chloe discovered that some of the clips were missing, so I needed to record voice-overs and create a couple images to show while I was talking. Also, when we checked the instructions on Canvas, I noticed that we were completely missing some information. To fix this, I wrote a new portion of the script and filmed myself speaking it. Chloe then finished off the editing while Kaitlyn and I did the image citations. Overall, this project was great and because I work well under stress and late at night, I ended up finding the last-minute work quite enjoyable.

Our Conservation Biologist Project was about invasive comb jellies (Mnemiopsis Leidyi pictured above)

The survey showed that my dominant conflict style is assertive, but aggressive comes in as a close second. Although I'm already really assertive, I think I need to be less aggressive when debating with others. To combat this, I can be more conscious of what I'm saying and ensure that what I'm saying really is contributing to the conversation rather than just making the other person feel bad. I should also be more receptive to other's ideas. I actually have made the conscious effort in the past few weeks to accept other people's ideas as valid as mine. I will need to continue this behavior and put more effort into thinking about my words if I want to reduce my aggressiveness in conversation.

Unit 6 Reflection

In this unit we learned about biotechnology and genetic modification. Biotechnology is divided into four fields: agricultural, industrial, medical, and forensics. Because humans can now modify organisms in so many ways, we also learned how to make ethical decisions on biotechnological topics. To make an ethical decision, you must first understand the choices and list pros and cons. Then find a decision that fits your morals most. The core of this unit was with recombinant DNA, electrophoresis, PCR, and DNA sequencing. Recombinant DNA is when genetic material is taken from different organisms and inserted into the DNA of a target organism. Electrophoresis allows scientists to separate DNA based on strand length. Polymerase Chain Reaction creates many copies of a strand of DNA, giving scientists the ability to examine the strands much more closely. To sequence genes, there are many possible techniques. One of them involves fluorescent dyes binding to bases depending on what base it is. Computer programs then examine the pattern of fluorescent dyes, telling the scientists what the genetic code is.

This unit had some very interesting information, although while writing this reflection I did need to go back and check on some stuff in the vodcasts. This means that I need to study from the bioethics and technologies of biotechnology vodcasts to prepare for the test.

One thing I really loved in this unit was the labs. Unlike other labs I have done in school where the results are predictable and uninteresting, the candy electrophoresis lab and pGLO lab had amazing results. In the electrophoresis lab all of our dyes matched the standard ones, but another group that extracted a green dye saw it separate into its blue and yellow parts (http://rpbioloblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/candy-electrophoresis-lab-conclusion.html). Our plate of fluorescent bacteria from the pGLO lab had one of the highest colony counts in the class and it was cool seeing the E. Coli glowing in one petri dish but not in others. (http://rpbioloblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/pglo-lab-conclusion.html)

I would love to experiment with other traits and inserting them into E. Coli bacteria. I wonder whether adding too many extra genes for protein creation will cause the bacteria to be unable to complete its basic life processes. In other words, will adding enough genes kill the bacterium.

I have failed to keep up to one of my new years goals while I have partially followed the other. At the start of the new year, I pledged to work on my textbook notes throughout the unit so I wouldn't have too much work on the day before it is due (aka today). I did not go through with this promise, probably due to the fact that I did not remind myself enough. Now on, I will set a weekly reminder on my phone to work on my textbook notes. I also said I will study 3 times a week for math to get at least 90%. Although I do not have specific study sessions, whenever I do my math homework I also go over all of my notes from that day and from the rest of the module.

Recombinant DNA where we used restriction enzymes to insert the insulin gene into a plasmid

http://rpbioloblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/recombinant-dna-lab.html

Candy electrophoresis lab where we extracted dye from candies to compare them to 4 standard dyes by using electrophoresis

http://rpbioloblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/candy-electrophoresis-lab-conclusion.html

pGLO lab where we made E. Coli bacteria absorb plasmids containing the GFP gene.

http://rpbioloblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/pglo-lab-conclusion.html

pGLO Lab Conclusion

1.

2. Our new bacteria have ampicillin resistance and they glow under ultraviolet light.

3. Since we have around 200 bacteria in our amp/ara/LB plate, and 150 in our amp/ara plate, and all of these took in the GFP gene, there must be at least 350 bacteria that took in the GFP gene. If the absorption rate is around 1 in 3, then there were probably around 1000 bacteria in the 100 microliter solution.

4. The purpose of arabinose is to activate the GFP gene and serve as a method of controlling the glow. If the arabinose is not present, bacteria will not produce GFP even if they have the gene.

5. GFP can be used to track the spread of bacteria with a certain trait. They are also an easy way to indicate whether an organism is genetically modified or not. GFP can be used to track the movements of certain cancers like osteosarcoma in dogs.

6. Another use of genetic engineering is to increase crop yield without spending large periods of time on breeding the perfect plant. Genetic engineering may be extremely important in the future with humanity's rising population and need for quick access to food.

The amp/ara/LB plate with bacteria fluorescing under UV light

Candy Electrophoresis Lab Conclusion

Although none of our dyes traveled in the wrong direction or mixed colors, there were some minor differences between the reference dyes and the ones we were testing. For example, our red and orange were darker than the reference colors, whereas the reference dyes for blue and yellow were darker than ours. However, I think this can be attributed to the amount of dye we extracted from the candy. I did not find any major variance between the distance traveled by reference and test.

I think that citrus red 2 will migrate similar to the blue 1, carminic acid will go about as far as our red 40, fast green FCF should go about as far as yellow 6, and betanin will be about the same distance as yellow 5. This is my hypothesis because although they aren't the same colors and size of molecules, the order of dyes that we tested, yellow 5, yellow 6, red, blue will correspond to betanin, fast green FCF, carminic acid, and citrus red 2. In other words, although the chemicals won't go as far as the dyes (due to their size), they should order up in the way specified above.

Dog food manufacturers probably put food coloring in the dog food to entice the dogs to eat it. Most dog food does not consist of things that a dog would naturally be fed, so to get the dog to eat up, they need to use artificial flavoring, coloring and smells.

In my food I found the artificial dyes red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, and blue 1. I also found 2 natural dyes in cereal: annato extract color, and turmeric extract color. I found most of these dyes in cereals and sauces. It surprised me that I found the exact same dyes that we tested in the lab. I then searched the dyes up and learned that they are four of the seven permitted food colorings in the US.

The 2 factors that control the distance the dye travels is the dye's size, and how long you leave the gel in the electrophoresis box. In addition, I also think that the overall charge of the dye must also play a part in the direction it travels.

The force that moves the dye through the gel is the electromagnetic force. It is propagated through the current, caused by the voltage difference from the red cathode to the black one.

The reason why smaller dyes travel farther than large molecules of dye is because of the porous nature of the gel. Because the dye is inserted into the wells, they travel through the gel rather than on top. Thus, smaller dye molecules find it easier to navigate the cave-like environment found inside the gel.

Because DNA molecules of this size are so much larger than the dyes, I expect them not to travel as far. For this reason, it is necessary to leave the electrophoresis going for longer to see a difference in the distance traveled by each molecule of DNA.

After only a couple minutes of electrophoresis

The entire apparatus

The gel as removed. References are red-blue on left, test dyes are red-blue on right.

Recombinant DNA Lab

Process: To produce recombinant DNA, you first need a plasmid that has some antibiotic resistance. Our plasmid was resistant to ampicillin. This plasmid is cut open by a restriction enzyme which also cuts the insulin gene out of another piece of DNA. For us finding an enzyme that did all of this was quite tedious, and unfortunately, the one that worked was the last one to try.This insulin gene that was chopped out and some of its surrounding code are inserted into the plasmid and stuck together by using the enzyme ligase. This plasmid with the insulin gene and antibiotic resistance is then inserted into a bacteria. This bacteria then replicates and passes the antibiotic resistance on to all of its offspring. Ampicillin can then be added to the petri dish to kill off all the bacteria that don't have antibiotic resistance, thus leaving only the bacteria that produce insulin.

1. In my petri dish I would only use antibiotics that I know the plasmid carried resistance for. Otherwise, I might kill off the bacteria that have the insulin gene too. I also won't use antibiotics that all the bacteria in the species are resistant too, because that wouldn't refine the types of bacteria in the dish.

2. Restriction enzymes are enzymes that cut open DNA when they read a certain sequence. They work by cutting in patterns that create "sticky ends". I used HIND III because it cut extremely close to the insulin gene on both sides, as well as cut open my plasmid in one place.

3. If my enzyme cut the plasmid in 2 locations, then once the insulin gene is inserted in, I would be left with a string of DNA rather than a loop. However, I think that if ligase is introduced, the plasmid will reconnect to itself and everything would proceed as normal.

4. This process is important in our daily lives, because bacteria are extremely useful factories for protein. Although right now the only well-known use for bacteria-produced protein is insulin, I am sure in the future, we will be using bacteria as factories for all types of materials.

5. This process could eventually actually be used for bacteria to convert things like plastic and feces into usable fuel or other goods. For example, we would first have to engineer an enzyme for the digestion of plastics. We may then have to convert this into a genetic code. The code could be produced by various DNA "printer" technologies that are being innovated today. This gene will then be spliced by a restriction enzyme that also splices open a plasmid. The process will then be repeated except with an enzyme for the construction of propane or another fuel. Once all the necessary plasmids are inserted into bacteria, we could essentially feed the colony our plastic waste, and fill our cars or propane tanks out of the other side.

The plasmid with insulin gene and ampicillin resistance

New Year's Goals

In the second semester of biology this year, I want to make sure I turn in all of my textbook notes and turn in my lab conclusions on time. These are the only things that I lost points on last semester, but they still had a major effect on my grade. To ensure that the textbook notes are completed on time, I will start working on them at the start of the unit rather than waiting till the last minute. Also, instead of completing the majority of my lab conclusions at home, I will use my computer time in class more wisely.

Last semester I did much better than I expected in math, but my grade could still be better. This semester I want to ensure I get at least ninety percent in Algebra 2 Honors. I will study three times a week after school every week rather than just studying on the last two nights before a test or quiz. I may also try studying with friends I have in the class.