Which specimen that we have dissected so far seems most like humans? Why?

The specimen that we have dissected so far that seems most like humans is the crayfish. A crayfish has antenna and antennules that is like humans' hair. A crayfish has walking legs like humans' but the crayfish has more legs than human. The crayfish swimmerets, sternum, uropod, and telson are like humans' feet and arms because humans uses their feet and arms to swim in water. The most obvious thing that a crayfish has that is like the human are the mouth and eyes. The crayfish abdomen are like humans' body or legs.

Blog 14 Compare two of the organisms that we have dissected Discuss at least 2 similarities and 3 differences

Two different dissections that we had done so far were the grasshopper and the frog.
Similarities - Both of these animals have flexible jaws which allow them to eat their prey easily.
- Secondly, they are both great jumpers. Their legs allow both of them to travel quickly to either catch prey or escape predators.

Difference - Their skin are different though, the grasshopper has a hard shell while the frogs have slimy and slippery skin.
- The internal organs of frogs have a greater similarity to our own while a grasshopper doesn't.
- Finally the grasshopper has a lot more internal and external parts.

Blog 13 What was most interesting about this week's dissections?

We finished dissecting the crayfish this week. The crayfish was a very weird experience because it was the first time using scissors to dissect instead of a scalpel. I would say the most annoying part of the entire dissection was the small, I think the specimen were already decomposing so the smell was just terrible and it made me very nauseous. However, the actual dissection itself was very interesting. The inside of the crayfish was very complex and filled with little tiny organs everywhere, the most interesting organ was probably the green gland because I had never seen one before. I wish we could have dissected the stomach to see the teeth, that would have been very interesting. I also didn't know that crayfish were also hermaphrodites just like the worm, so that they could reproduce more. By far though, the most interesting part was the fact that you told us that they thrive in the sewers, which just completely disgusted me. I've had crayfish before, and I thought it was pretty good, but I can never look at them the same now.

Blog #10 Why is dissection an important part of a biology curriculum? Which animals and/or plants should be included in biological studies?

Dissection is an important part of biology because it offers hands on experience for the students that take part in it. It promotes the fundamentals of field biology and the basic fact that students are allowed to see the insides of an organism and understand further how the organs and such work. To be able to see the internals of an organism is a big part of the study of life because it gives a visual example of how things work inside the life form. I believe that euthanized frogs and other small animals that are abundant in nature should be able to be used in labs for dissection. Any life form that offers a good example of what living things look like on the inside, and are very abundant in nature, and can be euthanized correctly.

Blog#12 What surprised you from the worm's dissection?

The one thing that surprised me about the worm dissection was the fact that the worms had way more organs than I had initially thought there were. I also had no idea that the worm peed and produced mucous from it's skin, that part was a bit disgusting, because I am a bit of a germaphobe. I also did not expect the exterior skin to cut so easily. I was also very interested in the digestion process because all the worm eats is dirt. Apparently, worms also fertilize soil in a way somehow, which was also very interesting because of the fact that the mucous and urine is what fertilizes it. Another thing that i found was peculiar was the fact that the worm is a hermaphrodite. I never knew that worms had both male and female organs, nor did I even know how they mated. Being a hermaphrodite apparently increases birth rates and the general number of worms that can survive.

Get a picture of alternation of generations put it in your blog and explain how it relates to plants

The alternation of generations relates to plants because it is a term that is used in describing the life cycle of plants. This treats the alternation of multicellular diploid forms of plants with a multicellular haploid form as the defining characteristic.

Why is dissection an important part of a biology curriculum? Which animals and/or plants should be included in biological studies?

Dissection is important because it lets the people who want to learn about what the animal has in the inside of it or something they can't see and really want an answer about it.  I don't know if these animals/ plants are already being studied as we speak but, the animals that I think are interesting and that should be studied should be wild animals that nobody ever sees.  They should be studied since no one really knows what they inside their bodies and would be really interesting to see what they have inside their bodies. Some plants as the ones in the forest.  Their are beautiful flowers and plants in the Forest that no one has ever seen before and no one might not even know their characteristics.  They should really studied to see what they have or even if they can cure an illness.

Define the different forms of community interaction: competition, commensalism, mutualism, predation, parasitism Give an example and a picture for each

Competition:
In ecology, the interaction between two or more organisms, or groups of organisms, that use a common resource in short supply. 

Sea Anenomes compete for the territory in tide pools


Commensalism- In ecology, commensalism is a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral (there is no harm or benefit).

Barnacles attaching to scallops, not harming them. 


Mutualism- Mutualism is the way two organisms biologically interact where each individual derives a fitness benefit

A hummingbird benefitting from a flower, however the flower also benefits from it by getting pollinated.


Mutualism- In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator (an organism that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked).

Praying mantis eating a bee. 


Parasitism- A type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host.

Brood parasitism, on the egg. 

Your choice talk about something you learned or ask a question about something that is confusing you

I learned about fossils and how to measure their heads. And what type of fossils they are and what type of head they have. It was very confusing but now I get it.

Compare and contrast two biomes describe them in detail include pictures of plants and animals you are liklely to see

Tropical Rain Forest

In the Western Hemisphere, the tropical rain forest reaches its fullest development in the jungles of Central and South America.

• The trees are very tall and of a great variety of species.
• One rarely finds two trees of the same species growing close to one another.
• The vegetation is so dense that little light reaches the forest floor.
• Most of the plants are evergreen, not deciduous.
• The branches of the trees are festooned with vines and epiphytes (see the photo taken in the Luquillo National Forest of Puerto Rico).

Taiga

The taiga is named after the biome in Russia.

• It is a land dominated by conifers, especially spruces and firs.
• It is dotted with lakes, bogs, and marshes.
• It is populated by an even more limited variety of plants and animals than is the temperate deciduous forest.
• In North America, the moose is such a typical member that it has led to the name: "spruce-moose" biome.
• Before the long, snowy winter sets in, many of the mammals hibernate, and many of the birds migrate south.
• Although the long days of summer permit plants to grow luxuriantly, net productivity is low.

The two biomes have different weathers, animals, and plants.  In the taiga biome their is bears, moose, fox. In the tropical rain forest their is leopards, toucans, monkeys. What the biomes have in common is that they both have animals and plants.

Blog #6 Which level of a food pyramid is the most important? Support your answer

What is most important on the food pyramid is the fruits vegetables and milk. Because fruit and vegetables are good for you and healthy. Milk helps your bones grow and get stronger.

There have been 5 major extinction events throughout history, are humans impacting the 6th? Why or why not?

I think humans could be instinct because every living organism can. And also we have found fossils of humans, like teeth, the head, an arm. So humans could be instinct cause they are a living organism.

Describe the three types of selection: directional, stabilizing and disruptive and give an example of each

A directional selection is a mode of natural selection in which a single phenotype is favored, causing the allele frequency to continuously shift in one direction. Under directional selection, the advantageous allele increase in frequency independently of its dominance relative to other alleles; that is, even if the advantageous allele is recessive, it will eventually become fixed. It stands in contrast to balancing selection where selection may favor multiple alleles, and is the same as purifying selection which removes deleterious mutations from a population. For example smaller individuals and will, if the character is inherited, produce a decrease in average body size. 

A stabilizing selection is a type of natural selection in which genetic diversity decreases as the population stabilizes on a particular trait value. Stabilizing selection commonly uses negative selection to select against extreme values of the character. A example of this is human birth weight. Babies of low weight lose heat more quickly and get ill from infectious disease more easily, whereas babies of large body weight are more difficult to deliver through the pelvis.

A disruptive selection is changes in population genetics in which extreme values for a trait are favored over intermediate values. The variance of the trait increases and the population is divided into two distinct groups. The evolutionary process is believed to be the driving force behind sympatric speciation. For example if rabbits were put into an area that had very dark black rocks as well as very white colored stone, the rabbits with black fur would be able to hide from predators amongst the black rocks and the white furred rabbits would be able to hide in the white rocks, but the gray furred rabbits would stand out in both of the habitats and would suffer greater predation.

Explain what microevolution is? What are the three ways that variation occurs?

Microevolution refers to any evolutionary change below the level of species. It also refers to changes in the frequency within a population or a species of its alleles (alternative genes). Mutations alter the order of bases in the nucleotides of DNA. Mutations are likely to be rare and most mutations are probably harmful, but in some instances the new alleles can be favored by natural selection independent assortment (recombination of chromosomes that occurs during sexual reproduction) and the Crossing over that happens during meiosis.

Why is fossil record hard to interpret?

Ever since and before Darwin's time, evolutionists have repeatedly insisted that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor as a result of a purely natural process of adaption to changing circumstances. So in lieu of the existence of any present proof for evolution, Darwin said that the only evidence of it would come from examining the fossil record. Thus if evolution did occur, one would expect to find a gradual series of fossils embedded in the rocks, from simple "almost life" chemicals,  to one-celled creatures, then two-celled creatures, on and on with greater complexity until you have the sponges and algae, the chordates and the trilobites and all of the invertebrates, then the vertebrates appearing animals with backbones, these last including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and man. That is only the Animal Kingdom; there is still the Plant Kingdom to be considered, with grapes and giant sequoia trees, carrots and flowers, potatoes and lawn grass, all of which supposedly evolved from the same common ancestor, according to evolutionists. Darwin stated that many of the great scientists of his time held the fossil record up as evidence against evolution, not for it.

Why evolution is a theory?

The theory of evolution was developed by Charles Darwin, an amateur English naturalist, in the 19th century. He proposed that all of the millions of species of organisms present today, including humans, evolved slowly over billions of years, from a common ancestor by way of natural selection. This idea said that the individuals best adapted to their habitat passed on their traits to their offspring. Over time these advantageous qualities accumulated and transformed the individual into a species entirely different from its ancestors. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification". That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival - a process known as "natural selection." These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. 

Last Blog Of Semester

My favorite activity was aerobics because im going to lose weight. My least favorite was Math because that class is so borning and the teacher doesn't teach that good. One thing I would change is for me to do all of my work.