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Showing posts from February, 2017

Living Organisms and Cycles 2/19/17

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Image: Wikipedia Summary: The energy pyramid shows how energy moves from one living organism to another. Each time you move up the pyramid only 10 percent of energy transfers. For example, grass makes its own food and has 100% of its energy. A rabbit hops along a munches on the grass. The rabbit has 10% of the grasses energy. A hungry fox comes and eats the rabbit. The fox then has 1% of the grasses energy. Producers are living organisms that make their own food, such as plants. On the other hand consumers are living organism that consume other living organisms to survive. Humans lie atop the energy pyramid with plants at the bottom. Plant are the foundation of the pyramid because they do not need to consume other living organisms. As you may notice, the pyramid gets a smaller area at each level as you go higher. This is because there needs to be a larger amount of plants and less predators. Everything above plants needs it to survive and so on until the top. Nothing really eats

Superhero Genetics Project Blog 2/11/17

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Image: My Project Summary: A genotype is a combination of alleles while the phenotype is the trait seen based on the genotype. Each parent only passes on one gene each. Each gene distributes itself randomly. Gregor Mendel figured out that genes we passed down in ratios. For example, when two hybrids are crossed the child will have three out of four chance to show the dominant gene and one out of four chance to show the recessive gene. A mutation is a change in genetic material, to be more specific a nucleic acid. They are completely random and can be helpful, harmful, or neutral. When creating a GMO you need to insert a new piece of DNA. A new gene can be placed in a bacteria called a plasmid. The plasmid is cut with a restriction enzyme and after the DNA is placed it is stitched up with a DNA lisage. Backward-Looking: How much did you know about the subject before we started? I did not know anything about the topic before we started this project except what the sixth

Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Timeless 2/5/17

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Image: immortal-jellyfish.com Summary: Timeless, my superhero, has the powers of the immortal jellyfish. The immortal jellyfish can turn into any stage f maturity when it wishes. It does this because all its cells are like stem cells which can become any cell. For example, a nerve cell can become a skin cell. This entire unit covered genetics which is a very complex topic. DNA are made up of four letters and are the blueprint of your cells, while genes are the directions to make proteins. Chromosomes are small units that hold your genes. A trait is a characteristic and an allele is one of two or more forms of a trait. A genotype is a combination of alleles and a phenotype is the trait seen based on the genotype. A mutation is a change in genetic material and can be caused by and external or internal factor. A GMO is when DNA is added to an organism to combine species that would not naturally occur. S&EP-Models: Going back and finishing up my superhero work that I hadn't