Day 14 -- Brine Shrimp Introduction

Bear with me: this is cool. 

We began a lab today involving brine shrimp. We added the shrimp into different conditions and watched them grow. Since they grow only in a specific salinity, and we had tests in multiple salt levels, it was obvious to tell in which of the conditions they were able to grow. 

We took a few of the shrimp eggs on a paintbrush and attempted to move them to a glass plate with tape. Needless to say, my shaky hands caused us to collect uneven amounts of the eggs. We were told that the exact amounts did not matter, but as we had to count the eggs individually and record the number for reference, it seemed to matter. While one plate had eggs in the twenties (thanks to Daniel's precise movements), my others ranged from 15 to 60+ eggs. 


We prepared water conditions in which the eggs were to grow, consisting of different salinity levels: 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2. Calculating the volume of the water and the necessary salt content to achieve each salinity, we combined the two to form barely-surfacing pools of salt-water. 

Placing each of the trays in their specified water tray, we could now rest assured that the shrimp eggs would do the work. We could determine the perfect salinity for brine shrimp habitation by the amount of shrimp that hatched in each condition.

Only time will tell.

Día de los Padres

Since most of the concepts were explained in the last blog post, this one will be relatively short. 

Parents were invited into the class to discuss a lab on Natural Selection. My mother, being a Biology Major, had some useful information to add to the conversation, making me feel like an idiot on the subject. We were shown two pictures of average faces side-by-side and told to write down which was the better. (Some had slight changes in width, etc.) The results revealed the personal preferences in choices for mates. Many of us preferred the female-looking face while only one or two preferred masculine traits. 

There was a discussion about the articles read the night prior. Often people prefer faces with more symmetry and masculine features than others, which promotes the process of natural selection. Unwanted traits die out with the people due to them being unwanted as a mating partner.

Day 13 -- Chris Jung and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Paleo Project

So...

Just to make matters worse, we have started the Unit 2 Paleo Project!

Daniel and I decided to do the project on a transitional fossil similar to the Archaeopteryx. As the 
"Early bird gets the worm," it is obvious that our research and development on the subject will result in the greatest website yet.

The assignment included researching a creature from prehistoric times, and "finding" a transitional
fossil between it and a close ancestor. Since we chose bird-related fossils, our task was to create a new missing link between Archaeopteryx and its close ancestor. We named the new fossil 
"Protoavis," and got started on our website. Our fake identities were Dr. John Murray and Dr. William Emerson, founding Daily Paleontology in 2013.

EDIT: This site is live, and looks incredibly professional! Follow the link here.

In class today we discussed our fates as well as Fava Beans. As they are widely used in the Eastern Hemisphere, some people have a defect at the genetic level called Glucose-6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency (G6PD), which causes bad symptoms if the beans are consumed.

There are some possible positive effects from the deficiency, however, including resistance to malaria. As malaria is common throughout the area, there is constant discussion over weather to eat the beans due to its possible negative side effects, or to do so based on the positive effects.