A little update from Saul about our class pet, a praying mantis:
"The mantis shed twice once a couple weeks ago getting small wings then Again a couple days ago giving it full sized wings its leg bent while it was coming out of its skin you can see it in one of the photos."
Thanks to Saul and Jose for taking such good care of the Mantis this summer. Enjoy the pics.
Our friendly praying mantis grows larger every day...must be all of those yummy worms.
This week, you will read about the journey from a sperm and an egg to you.. and all of the other organisms out there. How are we different from simpler animals like sea coral or jellyfish? Why are some organisms so similar during development, but others are very different? You will read about some crazy experiments and the answers to these questions in Chapter 6.
In Chapter 7, you will read about how bodies are built, and some of the special materials used to build them. In Chapter 8, you will explore the amazing world of the sense of smell, and find out some very interesting similarities between us and other animals. Finally, in Chapter 9, you'll explore something pretty rare for paleontologists to find, the eye. You'll discover the secrets of the eye's evolution as well as the trick to make eyes (more weird science experiments.)
Enjoy your reading. After reading these chapters (6-9), post or email your response to the assignment questions.
a. Shubin describes special patches of tissue in organisms called, "Organizers." Describe the structure and function about organizers and tell the story of one science experiment that led to greater understanding about these key features.
b. Chapter 7 describes an interesting experiment by Martin Boraas. Summarize the theories that arose from this experiment. Comment on anything new you learned in this chapter.
c. Compare and contrast the olfactory genes of fish and humans. Why does Shubin say our genes are leftover and so different from those of a fish?
d. Shubin says paleontologist's rarely find eyes, because they don't make good fossil materials. What is worth knowing about the eye, for someone interested in the story of evolution? Tell what you think are the two most important concepts from this chapter.
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| Interested in knowing more about the Eye's Evolution? Check out the Scientific American Article here. |
a. These organizers tell us specifically the parts in different sections. Or we could see them as different types of genes.These "organizers" were discovered by a scientist named Hilde Mangold. She died tragically when the gasoline stove in her kitchen caught fire before her thesis could even be published.
ReplyDeleteb.They took an alga that is
normally single-celled and let it live in the lab for over a thousand
generations. Then they introduced a predator: a single-celled creature with a flagellum that engulfs other microbes to ingest
them. In less than two hundred generations, the alga responded by becoming a clump of hundreds of cells; over time, the number of cells dropped until there were only eight in each clump.Eight turned out to be the optimum because it made clumps large enough to avoid being eaten but small enough so that each cell could pick up light to survive. The most surprising thing happened when the predator was removed: the algae continued to reproduce and form individuals with eight cells. In short, a simple version of a multicellular form had arisen from a no-body.
c. The difference between the olfactory genes of a human being to the olfactory genes of a fish is that we depend on it more than fish. Dr. Shubin says that our genes are leftover because, even though we need them, they are not completely necessary.
d. Important facts about the eye, for me, are that the role of the eye is to capture light in a way that it can be carried to the brain for processing as an image and that they are like little cameras.
A. These three layers became know as the germ layers. They are the Ectoderm, endoderm, and the Mesoderm. The Ectoderm forms much of the outer parts of the body like skin and the nervous system. The Endoderm is the inside layer which forms many inner structures of the body like digestive tract and numbers of glands associated within it. The Mesoderm is the middle layer tissue in between the guts and the skin, including much of our skeleton and muscles. This tissue all together became known as the organizer because it contained all this information. Spemann experiment led to a better understanding. The salamander embryo sphere was sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Spemann lopped off a tiny piece of tissue(organizer), smaller than a pin head, from One part of the embryo grafted it onto the embryo of another species. The result of this was two creatures with heads developing healthy.
ReplyDeleteB. The experiment that Martin Boraas did was to show how predators could about bodies. He took algae and let it live in the lab for a very long time then introduced a predator and the algae grew. When the predator was taken off the algae keep growing.
C. Fish genes have water based receptors in their neurons and mammals and reptiles have air based neurons. Humans use 3% of these odor genes and three hundred are useless do to mutations. Dr. Shubin says that our says that our genes are leftover and so different from those of a fish because we evolved and we now depend on our vision than we do our sense of smell.
D. For someone interested in the story of eye evolution is on how did it evolve when the rest of our bodies evolved and why is it that our eye balls are circular. The most important Concept from this chapter is how your eyes change in different lighting and why they might of evolved to color . External changes happen for us to have color sight.
A. their are 3 layer of the organizer, the 3 layers are call germ layer. their are the ectoderm, endoderm, and the mesoderm. ectoderm form much of the skin and nervous system. endoderm is the inside that form the digestive tract and the glands. Mesoderm is middle layer between the gut, the skin, as well as the skeleton, and the muscles. together they are the organizer, that consisted with information. Spemann experiment was on the salamander embryo. Spemann got off a piece of tissue and injected to another embryo. soon the embryo had created 2 healthy heads.
ReplyDeleteB. Martin Boraas took algae and grew in the lab. than he would introduced a predator to see what would happen. the algae act normal when the predator came in to contact with. after the predator was remove from the algae it kept growing.
C. olfactory genes are needed more in humans than fish. Dr. Shubin say that our genes that are left over are not needed as much as before, but we can't live without them either.
D. that eyes need the light in order to function right and better, because without light our eye are useless to see. And the main idea I think was that light change what we see and by color we add more detail to a object.