Pond Water

Use arrows to identify the microbes in the pond. You only need to pick 5 microbes on the picture, write their common names or phylum (group)

Daphnia, Spirogyra, Hydra, Rotifers, Amoeba

What is its size?

20 - 1200 µm

Where are they usually found in the pond?

Decaying organic matter e.g. on leaves and surface of bottom mud.

Describe one feature that makes them interesting.

Although they are common, thy are usually not found in pound samples because they are towards the bottom of the pound.

How Chlorophyll Helps Plants Make Sugar

Photosynthesis is the process by which plant life converts solar energy into high energy-yielding molecules to be used by the cells as needed. Chlorophyll plays a primary role in this process. Chlorophyll is the green pigment found most plentiful inside the leaves of plants. It is located within chloroplasts, where photosynthesis takes place. Chlorophyll absorbs light and the energy from the light is transferred directly to the electrons in the chlorophyll molecule. The energy levels of these electrons are raised. The high energy level electrons enable the plants to use low energy raw materials to produce high energy sugars.

Fermentation Recipe

Timeframe: 1-4 weeks (or more)
Special Equipment:

• Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket, one-gallon capacity or greater
• Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
• One-gallon jug filled with water (or a scrubbed and boiled rock)
• Cloth cover (like a pillowcase or towel)

Ingredients (for 1 gallon):

• 2.2680 kg cabbage
• 0.18 cup sea salt

Process:

1. Chop or grate cabbage, finely or coarsely, with or without hearts, however you like it. I love to mix green and red cabbage to end up with bright pink kraut. Place cabbage in a large bowl as you chop it.
2. Sprinkle salt on the cabbage as you go. The salt pulls water out of the cabbage (through osmosis), and this creates the brine in which the cabbage can ferment and sour without rotting. The salt also has the effect of keeping the cabbage crunchy, by inhibiting organisms and enzymes that soften it. 3 tablespoons of salt is a rough guideline for 5 pounds of cabbage. I never measure the salt; I just shake some on after I chop up each cabbage. I use more salt in summer, less in winter.
3. Add other vegetables. Grate carrots for a coleslaw-like kraut. Other vegetables I’ve added include onions, garlic, seaweed, greens, Brussels sprouts, small whole heads of cabbage, turnips, beets, and burdock roots. You can also add fruits (apples, whole or sliced, are classic), and herbs and spices (caraway seeds, dill seeds, celery seeds, and juniper berries are classic, but anything you like will work). Experiment.
4. Mix ingredients together and pack into crock. Pack just a bit into the crock at a time and tamp it down hard using your fists or any (other) sturdy kitchen implement. The tamping packs the kraut tight in the crock and helps force water out of the cabbage.
5. 5. Cover kraut with a plate or some other lid that fits snugly inside the crock. Place a clean weight (a glass jug filled with water) on the cover. This weight is to force water out of the cabbage and then keep the cabbage submerged under the brine. Cover the whole thing with a cloth to keep dust and flies out.
6. Press down on the weight to add pressure to the cabbage and help force water out of it. Continue doing this periodically (as often as you think of it, every few hours), until the brine rises above the cover. This can take up to about 24 hours, as the salt draws water out of the cabbage slowly. Some cabbage, particularly if it is old, simply contains less water. If the brine does not rise above the plate level by the next day, add enough salt water to bring the brine level above the plate. Add about a teaspoon of salt to a cup of water and stir until it’s completely dissolved.
7. Leave the crock to ferment. I generally store the crock in an unobtrusive corner of the kitchen where I won’t forget about it, but where it won’t be in anybody’s way. You could also store it in a cool basement if you want a slower fermentation that will preserve for longer.
8. Check the kraut every day or two. The volume reduces as the fermentation proceeds. Sometimes mold appears on the surface. Many books refer to this mold as “scum,” but I prefer to think of it as a bloom. Skim what you can off of the surface; it will break up and you will probably not be able to remove all of it. Don’t worry about this. It’s just a surface phenomenon, a result of contact with the air. The kraut itself is under the anaerobic protection of the brine. Rinse off the plate and the weight. Taste the kraut. Generally it starts to be tangy after a few days, and the taste gets stronger as time passes. In the cool temperatures of a cellar in winter, kraut can keep improving for months and months. In the summer or in a heated room, its life cycle is more rapid. Eventually it becomes soft and the flavor turns less pleasant.
9. Enjoy. I generally scoop out a bowl- or jarful at a time and keep it in the fridge. I start when the kraut is young and enjoy its evolving flavor over the course of a few weeks. Try the sauerkraut juice that will be left in the bowl after the kraut is eaten. Sauerkraut juice is a rare delicacy and unparalleled digestive tonic. Each time you scoop some kraut out of the crock, you have to repack it carefully. Make sure the kraut is packed tight in the crock, the surface is level, and the cover and weight are clean. Sometimes brine evaporates, so if the kraut is not submerged below brine just add salted water as necessary. Some people preserve kraut by canning and heat-processing it. This can be done; but so much of the power of sauerkraut is its aliveness that I wonder: Why kill it?
10. Develop a rhythm. I try to start a new batch before the previous batch runs out. I remove the remaining kraut from the crock, repack it with fresh salted cabbage, then pour the old kraut and its juices over the new kraut. This gives the new batch a boost with an active culture starter. 

How Fermentation Cooks Food:

The critical ingredients for the fermentation process are:

Salt (sea salt)
Lack of oxygen
Cool temperature

Salting the food preserves the food and protects it from bacteria, so it doesn't spoil before it ferments ( use sea salt). Once the food is salted it needs to be kept in a cool place with minimal oxygen. Fermentation involves the breaking down of complex organic substances into simpler ones. The electrons are then passed to an organic molecule such as pyruvic acid. This results in the formation of a waste product that is excreted from the cell. Waste products formed , the substances vital to our utilization of fermentation. During lactic acid fermentation, the electrons released during glycolysis are passed to pyruvic acid to form two molecules of lactic acid. Fermentation preserves food because the bacterial growth reduces the pH of the food to a range where pathogenic and many spoilage organisms won't grow.

Osmosis Jones

How is the movie OSMOSIS JONES like your immune system?
- the animated film Osmosis Jones will find entertaining. However, the conversion of the immune system in a simple bacteria-busting COP is really an understatement. It would be better if antibody were treated as heroes (or heroines), because they constantly fight bacteria, viruses and micro-organisms to ensure that all systems of the body functioning at its peak. Without your healthy white blood cells, there is a chance that even the simple cold virus can be murder.

Similarities
-Osmosis Jones is like the blood cells in our body.  When viruses/ diseases come in, white blood cells are the ones that come to fend them off.
-The brain; or "mayor of the city" is the control system which alert the entire body. Their T.v. network is like your nerves that send signals to the entire body and tells it what is happening, it informs the cells to take action and kill the virus.
-The movie shows how the body takes action when something is detected in the body. when the egg was eaten or the oyster, the body tried to get rid of it by its defense. in this case, it was vomit and saliva came to get rid of the germs from the egg.
-All the parts of the body in the movie have the same functions as ones in real life

Differences 
-It is different because i don't think there would a city where the people; "cells" have their own personalities because cells do what they are assigned to. Also, i think the fact that there is only one virus is different.
-The situations in the movie are different from those in our real lives because our immune system cells are not shaped like humans, and neither are the rest of our cells
-There are no bacteria in our body holding parties and conferences, and our immune systems do not shoot down invaders
-It is highly unlikely that a cold pill will be able to fight off a deadly virus

Positive Effects of Fungi

Fungi use the decomposition process for food and, in the process, return nutrients to the soil, benefiting other living things. Fungi are the basis of many important medicines. The discovery of the antibiotic properties of the fungus penicillin changed medical history, reducing formerly serious infections such as strep to little more than minor nuisances. Some cancer drugs and the anti-rejection drug cyclosporin, which is used in organ transplant patients, come from fungi. Fermentation is another way fungi break down organic matter. In the fermentation process, yeasts break down sugars and produce a waste product. In the case of grain and grapes, the waste product is alcohol. Fermentation is also used to produce cheese. In industrial settings, fermentation also produces ethanol (alcohol used as fuel), various acids and biological detergents. Many species of mushrooms are edible and provide a food source for humans and animals. Yeast also is used in baking to make bread rise. In essence, fungi is used by nature as a natual recycler as well as many other useful features by people.

Virtual Epidemic

Healthy,Carrier,Sick,Dead,Immune
399,1,0,0,0

To make an epidemic with a very similar profile to the current Foot and Mouth outbreak, try the 25x30 map with probabilities 20,30,80,0,0. To explore the fine balance between containment and breakout, try the UK map with 10,20,100,0,0 in the probabilities. A very slightly smaller percentage of Carrier-to-Sick (say 15) is much more dangerous! This assumes all sick animals are killed immediately.

Healthy,Carrier,Sick,Dead,Immune

89,71,92,115,33

To make an epidemic with a very similar profile to the current Foot and Mouth outbreak, try the 25x30 map with probabilities 20,30,80,0,0. To explore the fine balance between containment and breakout, try the UK map with 10,20,100,0,0 in the probabilities. A very slightly smaller percentage of Carrier-to-Sick (say 15) is much more dangerous! This assumes all sick animals are killed immediately.

An epidemic is destructive when it is highly contagious and somewhat strong. The reason for this is because the disease can be spread to more people, yet if it is too strong, it will kill its host too quickly to substantialy spread. However, the disease must still retain some strength, to ensure its resistance against any form of treatment, and also be gradually lethal to effectively kill large amounts of population when it has spread through a good number of people.

Hot Zone

What fascinated me the most about hot zone was the Ebola virus. It is extremely scary how deadly this virus is. You can be infected with four to five particles of the virus because of its rapid multiplying rate. The symptoms of the virus were all extremely disgusting. Some symptoms include dry heaves, black vomit, eyes weeping blood, organs liquifying, kidney failure, etc.  In less than a week, you will most likely die if you have the virus. In addition to having a 50% mortality rate, is is also highly contagious. Another thing that surprised me was that such a disease like this was nearly unknown to the general population. Seeing as how there is no cure for this virus, it was shocking and ridiculously ironic because of the careless way many people were handling this hot agent. Above all however, what makes the hot zone really terrifying is the fact how this virus actually exists in reality, with all the recorded events being true incidents.

How a Vaccination Can Stop a Virus

By putting a weakened form of the disease into your body, your immune system develops antibodies to that particular disease. So if you are ever exposed to the actual disease, your body is already prepared and knows how to fight it. That's why some people have reactions to vaccines, the immune system recognizes the vaccine as a foreign lethal substance as well as a potential health threat.

Cell Movement

Diffusion is the process by which molecules spread from areas of high concentratiion, to areas of low concentration.
e.g: Oxygen molecules diffuse across cell membranes into cells, and carbon dioxide molecules diffuse out. Both compounds cross the phospholipid bilayer.

 Facilitated Diffusion-
Facilitated diffusion is when a molecule cannot just passively diffuse across a membrane; however, it requires a protein "carrier" and energy in the form of ATP to move across the membrane.
e.g: Glucose, sodium ions and choride ions are just a few examples of molecules and ions that must efficently get across the plasma membrane but to which the lipid bilayer of the membrane is virtually impermeable. Their transport must therefore be "facilitated" by proteins that span the membrane and provide an alternative route or bypass.

Active Transport-
Active transport is the movement of a substance against its concentration gradient (from low to high concentration). In all cells, this is usually concerned with accumulating high concentrations of molecules that the cell needs, such as ions, glucose, and amino acids. The process uses chemical energy, such as from ATP.
e.g: Sugar molecules go into a cell. It cannot pass right through like water and oxygen so it uses active transport.

Osmosis-
Osmosis is the movement of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration, aiming to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.
e.g: Osmosis occurs on your hands in the bath. When you're in the shower too long, your hands and fingers become wrinkly.

Endocytosis-

Endocytosis is a process by which cells absorb molecules (such as proteins) by engulfing them. It is used by all cells of the body because most substances important to them are large polar molecules that cannot pass through the hydrophobic plasma or cell membrane.
e.g: Leucocytes, neutrophils, and monocytes can engulf foreign substances like bacteria.

Comparison of 3 Different Types of Cells

Neuron Cell:

Animal Cell:

Plant Cell:

All are similar since they are eukaryotes. They also contain a nucleus with genetic information. However, some parts of them are different. Plant cells have and cell walls chloroplasts while the others don't. Neurons have a synapse and axon to keep itself connected. Animal cells have centrioles for only animals and humans. They are also shaped differently.

Scanning Light Microscope Vs. Scanning Electron Microscope

Bullet AntCompound Light Microscope:

Scanning Electron Microscope:

Pro: You can see the ant clearly. You can even see the small parts such as the eyes and its structure, the hairs, and its antennae, etc.

Con: The scanning microscope shows a more clearer image and it can zoom in more and show vivid details.

Cockroach:
Compound Light Microscope:

Scanning Electron Microscope:

Pro: You can see many minor and small details on both microscopes such as the hairs and structure.

Con: But with the compound light microscope you can see closer and have a more vivid detail on the image.

Fruit Fly

Compound Light Microscope:

Scanning Electron:

Pro:You can see the details on the fruit fly you can not see with your naked eye, you can see how the structure of the head and eyes.

Con:With the scanning electron you can see the fruit fly as well as the compound light, but you can still see details as of the whole head.

Honey Bee

Compound Light Microscope:

Scanning Electron Microscope:

Pro: Both microscopes you can see the honey bee’s antennas and the hairs on their faces.
Con: With the compound light microscope you can see a clearer and more vivid view of the bee’s body while with the scanning you can’t see as well.

Gecko's Feet

Compound Light Microscope:

Scanning Electron Microscope:

Pro: You can see the size of the fingers/ feet, and the structure of the fingers and how it looks.

Con: With the scanning electron you can see deeper and closer into the gecko’s feet while with compound light you can see the color and structure but not as close up as scanning.

5 Major Nutrients

1. Vitamins

Vitamins are organic molecules that help regulate body processes often working with enzymes. They are able to to help the metabolic enzymes responsible for processing carbohydrates, fats and protein from food and putting the resulting compounds to work. Specific vitamins have different specific functions.



2. Minerals

Minerals are inorganic compounds that the body needs in small amounts. Minerals are required to activate thousands of enzyme reactions within the body. Different minerals have different functions such as acid-base balance, bone and tooth formation, body water balance, etc.




3. Lipids

Lipids, or fat, are formed from fatty acids and glycerol. Your body needs certain fatty acids to produce cell membranes, myelin sheaths, and certain hormones. They also help absorb fat-soluble vitamins. Extra fat is stored which protects body organs and insulate the body.




4. Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy for the body. The main function of carbohydrates is to provide energy for the body, especially the brain and the nervous system. Amylase, an enzyme, helps break down carbohydrates into glucose which is used for energy by the body.




5. Proteins

Proteins have a lot of roles in the body. They supply raw materials for growth and repair of structures such as skin and muscle. They have regulatory and transport functions. They are polymers of amino acids.

Scientific Method Wordle

Objective- the goal that needs to be reached
Hypothesis- a logical guess about the natural world
Variable- a factor that changes in order to test a hypothesis
Control- a standard against which other conditions can be compared in a scientific experiment
Procedure- the steps and course of action that is taken to achieve a result
qualitative data- data that describes characteristics such as color, texture, etc
quantitative data- data that describes characteristics relating to numbers such as measures 5 inches
observation- act of observing and recording data
theory- a concept about the natural world that is supported by a lot of data
conclusion- result of experiment or research
possible errors- errors that may have been made during experiment
scientific method- a method of investigation involving observation and theory to test scientific hypotheses

Personal Wordle