Evolution paper!

In my biology class we are talking about evolution. Some people might not truly understand what evolution is; I know i didn't really have a clear idea of what it is. Well evolution is the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth. To me this means that through out history scientists and others believe that living organisms have been able to develop in different ways to make themselves better suited for their environment. This is a very controversial topic do to the different beliefs of people.

There are a number of people who have made the thought of evolution what it is today in the world of science. It was not just Charles Darwin theories like may people think. Jean Baptistie Lamarack and Karl Popper are a few of the others that added to the way of thinking about evolution.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor, everything is related in someway. Darwin's theory is that the development of life is a naturalistic descent. He believed that complex creatures evolved from their simplistic ancestors naturally over time. The organism went through genetic mutations, this made the organism able to keep all the beneficial mutations because they lived through the ancestors. This process is known as Natural Selection. These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation and so on. Darwin believed that over time all the beneficial mutations accumulated made the result an entirely different organism. Darwin said "natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps."
The reason why there is a huge controversy about Charles Darwin and his theory is because Darwin popularized the theory of humans evolving from apes. Many churches were upset about this because that is not what they have ever taught. They say God made everything and everyone, and that humans are nothing like apes. Even though many people do not believe in Charles Darwin his ideas and theories are still every well known and used today in science.

Of course Darwin was not the first naturalist to come up with the idea that species change over time into new species. Jean Baptiste Lamarck is another important figure in theory of evolution. Lamarck started his scientific career as a botanist, but in 1793 he became on of the founding professors of the Musee National d'Histoire Naturelle as a expert on invertebrates. His work on classifying worms, spiders, mollusce, and other boneless creatures was far ahead of his time. While doing his work Lamarck was struck by the similarities of many of the animals he studied, and was impressed to by the burgeoning fossil record. This led to him arguing that life was not fixed, he believed that when the environment changed the organisms had to change their behavior to survive. One of his examples was if a giraffe stretched its neck for leaves a "nervous fluid" would flow into its neck and make it longer. The off springs of that giraffe would inherit the longer neck, and that the continued stretching would make the neck longer still over several generations. While that was going on the organs that the organisms stopped using would shrink.

This sort of evolution, for which Lamarck is most famous today, was only one of two mechanisms he proposed. As organisms adapted to their surroundings, nature also drove them inexorably upward from simple forms to increasingly complex ones. Lamarck also proposed that organisms were driven from simple to increasingly more complex forms.
In many ways Darwin's argument is very different from Lamarck's.











Karl Popper, one of the most popular philosophers of science. He is well known for his extreme logic and be very beneficial to theories of evolution. He coined the term Critical Rationalism to describe his philosophy. The term indicates his rejection of classical empiricism, and of the classical obsercationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it. Popper accepted psuedo-science, but did not believe they were any part of general science. Popper also didn't think that Darwinism was a testable theory.
Popper separated evolution from science and assigned it to the realm of metaphysics. According to Popper's principle of demarcation, only those theories which are open to empirical falsification are scientific. That is, unless there is a way to prove a theory wrong there is no way to prove it is right.

These scientists do not just contribute ideas and new ways of thinking with evolution theories, but were also the face of every ones research and work on evolution.


Throughout out all the research every scientist has done there are key words and main thing that are agreed on with all. Macroevolution and microevolution are two that every important to evolution. You might be wondering what they are and what they mean. Well, macroevolution is used to refer to changes in organisms which are significant enough that, over time, the newer organisms would be considered an entirely new species. Basically it means that the new organisms would be unable to mate with their ancestors, assuming they were brought together. Microevolution is a change in gene frequency within a population over time. This change is caused by four different processes: mutation, selection, gene flow and genetic drifts. The difference is largely one of approach. Microevolution is reductionist, but macroevolution is holistic. Each approach offers different insights into the evolution process. Macroevolution can be seen as the sum of long periods of microevolution, and thus the two are qualitatively identical while being quantitatively different.
Simply put, evolution is the result of changes in genetic code. The genes encode the basic characteristics a life form will have, and there is no known mechanism that would prevent small changes (microevolution) from ultimately resulting in macroevolution. While genes can vary significantly between different life forms, the basic mechanisms of operation and change in all genes are the same.






Work Cited
Allaboutscience. "Darwin's Theory Of Evolution - A Theory in Crisis." Darwin's Theory Of Evolution. Web. 18 May 2011. .

Transformation Lab

We had 4 plates that we tested. We had a controlled plate that we did not touch. I was just the plain agar. We used the LB- plain agar so we could compare and to show that even if we didn't mess with it it would still have bacteria growing in it.
The other one was LB-amp which is an antibiotic and we added the plasmid into it. The plasmid canceled the amp and as a result the bacteria grew. It was positive.
One of the other plates was LD-amp too but we did not add plasmid in it. As a result this plate did not grow at all because the amp killed it and there was no plasmid in it to block the amp from killing it. It was our only negative plate.
Out of the four plates we did have one that grew. In this plate we had LB-amp-ara. What that means is that we had LB which is agar, that is in everyone. We had amp which is the antibiotic and we had plasmid that canceled out the amp. The ara is arabinose sugar, the ara activates the genes which makes it glow under the black light.

That is what happened when we did the experiment. The steps to doing this experiment were these.
We had two little test tubes, we labeled one - and the other +; we put those back on the rack. Next we opened up the transfer pipette making sure it is kept sterile, we used that to get 250ul of transformation solution so we could put it into the - and + test tubes. We then kept the two test tubes on ice to stay cold. We used a sterile loop to pick up a single colony of bacteria from our plate. Make sure you just gently scrap it from the top, you should not cut a cube out. After we had the bacteria on the loop we put it in to the + test tube and spin the loop between our fingers until all the colonyis dispersed in the transformation solution. Make sure there is no floating chunks in the test tube. We put that test tube back in ice and got out the - test tube. With a new sterile loop we repeated the steps for the - test tube.
Next we got a new sterile loop and put it into the plasmid DNA tube, take out a loop full of the plasmid DNA. Then we mixed this plasmid with our + test tube and placed it back on ice. Do not put plasmid DNA into - test tube. We didn't because you need something to compare it to other wise they would be the same thing. After doing this you leave the test tubes in ice for 10 mins.
We labeled out agar plates on the bottom as this: LB/amp plate this +pGLO, LB/amp/ara plate this +pGLO, LB/amp plate -pGLO and last LB plate -pGLO. Step 8 is heat shock. Place the rack of both test tubes into 42 degrees C for 50 seconds. Then place both tubes back into the ice for 2 mins. After this take out the tubes and using a new sterile pipette add 250 ul of LB nutrient broth into both the tubes. Incubate the tubes for 10 minutes at room temperature. Tap tubes to mix. Using a new sterile pipette for each tube pipette 100 ul of the transformation and controlled suspensions




I really enjoyed doing this experiment. It was a very control experiment and it was nice to see what happened when you put the plates under the black light. When we got done with the experiment is when i really understood what all the step we were doing and what all the stuff we were putting in there was. I understand the steps we took and why we had 4 plates. I understand what all the amps, ara, plasmid ld stuff did kinda, for the experiment i do. I'm going to try and learn more about what all of those do with other things.

This graph is showing the similarity of the DNA of a normal patient with the DNA of these three patients. Abby and Bob both have 97% similarity and Carol has a 58% similar to normal DNA.
Abby has GTG when the normal is GAG, she has a point mutation. Point mutation is 1 base change. The protein that she should have is GLU but she has VAL. GLU is a positive charged protein and VAL is hydrophobic.
Bob has AAG when the normal is TAG. The protein of it is STOP. The stop means that all the ones after STOP are not there, they do not existent after stop. It is called a truncation mutation.
Carol is the one that looks like it has the most problems. She has ACC when she should has ACT. The reason why everyone after that is messed up is because the T in ACT was deleted. This is called framshift mutation. It shifts everything over one because the T is missing.


Doing this project has helped me learn more about the DNA. About how T turns to U when you are finding the code for the DNA and for the protein. I understand that if your dna is missing one spot or is different in one spot that it could effect your dna in other ways and could cause disease. Not every time your DNA is different doesnt always mean you have a disease it just means you have a bigger chance of having one. 

Meiosis vs Mitosis

What is meiosis and mitosis?
Meiosis and mitosis both describes the process by which the body prepares cells to participate in either asexual or sexual reproduction to make an entire organism.

Meiosis is a special type of cell division necessary for sexually reproducing organisms. Meiosis is the production of sperm and egg cells. These cells are sex cells. Each cell has to go through the division process twice in order for the cell to end up with half the number of chromosomes. The cells pass on genetic information to the offspring. This is a form of sexual reproduction, where one organism or cells reproduces by crossing with another organism or cell. Types of organisms that reproduce sexually are; plants, animals, and insects.

Mitosis is the process by which a eukaryotic cell separates the chromosomes in its cell nucleus into two identical sets in two nuclei or two daughter cells from a parent cell. The daughter cells are identical to one another and to the original parent cell. This is a form of "Asexual" reproduction, where one organism or cell reproduces itself. Some organisms that reproduce asexually are hydra, bacteria, and single celled organisms.

The steps of meiosis are Interphase, Prophase I, Metaphase I, Anaphase I, Telophase I, Prophase II, Metaphase II, Anaphase II and Telophase II.

The steps of mitosis are Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase and Cytokinesis

what you'll wish you'd known- reflection

The article "What you'll wish you'd known" help me because i dont know what i want to do in my life yet. i dont know what college i want to go to or what i want to go for. I like this article because it says you dont need to kno now that its probably wont even stay the same when you get into college or that there are new jobs all the time constantly changing. i think this will help me now to be more relaxed about college.