CENTRIOLE CAMPAIGN 2012

Election season is just leaving us, so what is this? Another campaign? WHAT IS THIS?! My friends, it is an election for presidency of the cell. 

My candidate has a lot to offer on this campaign. Let me introduce centriole. In a basic cell, there are hardly ever just one centriole, there are a number of centrioles. Centrioles make up called centrosomes. These are located close to the cell's nucleus. Centrosomes are made up of two centrioles which are orientated at right angles with each other and are embedded in a mass of amorphous material containing more than 100 different proteins. Centrosome is also duplicated during the S phase of the cell cycle.
Just before mitosis, the two centrosomes move apart until they are on opposite sides of the nucleus. As mitosis proceeds, microtubles grow out from each centrosome with their plus ends growing towards the metaphase plase. These clusters are called spindle fibers.
Spindle fibers have three main jobs. Some spindles attach to one kinetochore of a dyad with those growing from the opposite centrosome binding to the other kinetochore of that dyad. Others bind to the arms of the chromosomes. The rest continue growing from the two centrosomes until they extend between each other in a region of overlap.

I feel like that's a lot of information right now, I will include more later on in this campaign, but all of these functions are extremely important in the cell function.
If you would to read more into centrosomes and centrioles here's a link to check out: http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/C/Centrioles.html
Here's another if you'd like a visual: http://www.cellsalive.com/cells/cell_model.htm

Self-Healing Plastic 'Skin' Points Way to New Prosthetics

Basically, researches in California may have found a new prosthetic version of our skin. It's a flexible, electrically conductive, and self healing polymer. It's actually really cool. 

This polymer is a result from a miniboom in "epidermal electronics" which is the production of circuits thin and flexible enough to be attached to skin or to provide sensory for prosthetic limbs. The problem with what they were making is that the silicon they were using was brittle so they had other researchers do some investigating.

Chemists were more interested in self healing polymers that would repair itself when a scientists applied heat, shone a light, or held the edges together.

Both of these technologies were combined into created this fake skin by Chemical Engineer Zhenan Bao of Sanford University and explored this concept. A big problem they ran into was all the self-healing had low bulk electrical conductivities and would have rendered the use of electrical sensors. To fix this, they added nickel atoms into the polymer. Essentially creating a prosthetic skin. Super cool.

Here's a link if you would like to read more: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/self-healing-plastic-skin-points.html

AP Biology

This class has proven to be a challenge. I'm definitely going to have to step up my work ethic and work on my time mangement in this class. All in all, I need to make school a major priority. Otherwise, this class in itself has been fun. I enjoy being in class and being part of the dicussion.
I just had a major reality check and realized that I need to do more out of school work, going more indepth about the reading, doing the extra credit reading guides, printing out all the resources that Landry has given me and doing more research, this class is a big priority for me. But I love Biology, so it'll be worth the extra work.

Homecoming 2012

Let me begin by explaining that I'm new to the highschool this year. I attended Sparta Schools all my life up until my eighth grade summer. My parents were newly divorced and my mom had moved to Rockford. My dad left to do service in the military so I made the decision to move to Rockford Public Schools that year and that's where I've been the last three years. I decided this year, even though it was my senior year to move back so I could live with my dad. So this homecoming was entirely different from what I'm used to.
At Rockford, basically, the school does an hour long pep assembly similar to what Sparta does here. The only difference being that the games involved in the assmembly don't take all day and there's no real class rivalry. The game on the other hand is far more hyped and is insane to attend. Where at Sparta the crowd is relatively small, Rockford's football games in general are on the verge of over 5,000 people in attendence. Also, for the homecoming court concept, voting is the same, because of the immense size, the assembly for meeting the court is taken place in the auditorium and only the senior class attends. The assembly is recorded and broadcasted to the rest of the school, including to the Freshman building. Rockford isn't as enthusiastic for Spirit Week as well, I've never seen that many people dress up stupid for school spirit. It's been different. I appreciate schoolwide meeting of homecoming court and the level of insanity that was Sparta Homecoming.
I haven't yet quite wrapped my head around the concept of Mock Rock or the floats or the parade or the absolute insanity of that day. It was fully interesting and I still don't know how to feel about the situation. I suppose my perspective is more objective.
Granted, I enjoyed it for the most part but it's still hard to wrap my mind around.

Overexploitation of Natural Resources: Human Stupidity

First, let me explain what overexploitation of natural resources is. It occurs from unsustainable harvesting of nature’s valuable resources. Some examples of nature’s resources would include water, land, plants, and animals. In English, we use too many of nature’s resources.
We, as a race, overexploit many resources. One major resource we can’t go without is water. The number of depleted aquifers continues to grow and water will become scare in many parts of the world. Like it already isn’t.  Industry, farming, and producing energy both require large amounts of water which leads to overexploitation of water resources in various parts of the world.
Cutting down forests or deforestation is another form of overexploiting. Especially in circumstances where trees are cut down will not be used for reforestation reasons but for different purposes. Developing countries use wood for heating and cooking purposes which leads to no control over the deforestation. This, obviously, has a very negative impact on the ecosystem involved. Animals losing shelters, endangering the plant population.
As a society of a fully developed country, we require heavy amounts of fossil fuels taken from the earth. We are using far more fossil fuels than there is to last us an extended amount of time. It doesn’t help that the burning of these fuels add chemicals to the atmosphere and break down the ozone layer which protects us from the sun.
Our reproductive rate that is growing at an increased rate is the main reason for the ongoing overexploitation of resources. More people mean more people to take care of. This is why it’s very difficult to achieve adequate natural resource management. Many people don’t realize that  going against nature actually means going against ourselves and our future here on planet Earth.
What we can do to help prevent this from happening is sustainable management of nature’s most valuable resources and embarking on some actions that could, in the long run, help save the planet. Most people could recycle and reuse some common household items. You could carpool to work or school and think ahead when you buy things from the grocery store. Reuse water bottles, prevent plastic from going into the environment; send it to a recycling plant. There are obviously a lot of ways to prevent the degree of overexploitation that is at now from growing, just by doing little things.
Recycle. Recycle. Recycle.
 
A Video to Watch on Overexploitation of Natural Resources:

Resources:

http://ecological-problems.blogspot.com/2012/05/overexploitation-of-natural-resources.html

http://redzonep.blogspot.com/2009/02/overexploitation-of-natural-resources.html

Woo!

In AP Bio, I'm definitely looking forward to this class. Especially when we talk about Evolution and things like that. It's crazy, I actually love this class already. There's a lot of extra work, but I love it. I must be a workalcholic or something. I dunno, I'm least looking forward to the DNA pieces because I was never good at that type of thing. I mean, yeah, I will probably understand it better now, but still. Was a challenge before, will be again.
In other news, my health is looking good, and I have a job interview tomorrow at Russ'. I'm super excited. Toodles.

A Little Bit About Me

Hey, my name is Genna. And this is my blog for my AP Biology class. I really, really like music. I'm also super interested in the medical field and getting involved. I love hanging out with my friends and having a good time. I actually just moved back to Sparta after being away for three years. I like running. I have a car that I call Rusty Trusty, it's a 1990 Suburu Legacy. I know, awesome. I'm really looking to get into
Aquinas. I hope to get into the medical field in some way in the near future. Whether it's nursing or something else, I'm excited to work with people and make a difference somehow.
I am taking AP Bio to challenge myself, and to experience the college work load and expectations. I'm excited for this class. It gives me a chance to go beyond my own expectations and in the end, ultimately get a college credit and never have to take Biology again. Plus, this class will help me gain better study habits as well.