stream quality analysis

Liver Enzyme Data

# of group	Number of disks	Time used (s)	Volume of gas produced (ml)
1	5	48.2	49
2	2	28.6	60
3	4	21.7	100
4	8	40.8	60
5	10	37.8	130

Controlled variables: temperature (room temperature); concentration of hydrogen peroxide; amount of hydrogen peroxide used (5ml of each trial); PH value: 7.

Independent variable: # of disks added to hydrogen peroxide

PCR vs. vector coloning

PCR and vector cloning are two different kinds of biotechnology. The goal of vector cloning is to produce a protein product, whereas the goal for PCR is to prepare many copies of the gene itself.
Advantages of vector cloning & disadvantages of PCR:

• The cost is relatively lower than that of PCR. PCR needs polymerase, primers, machines, and a large amount of nucleotides, which are fairly expensive.
• For PCR, if the sample DNA is contaminated, or if there is a mutation happened in the process of producing copies, all of the copies will be useless.

Advantages of PCR & advantages of vector cloning:

•  needs less work, time and skills. Typically, gene cloning experiments take 2-4 days, while PCR takes up to 4-5 hours.
• PCR can be fully automated, while gene cloning is not.

10Things You Should Know about Genetics

1. Gyrase : relieves any tension from the unwinding of the double helix.
2. Helicase: breaks the hydrogen bonds holding the two complementary parent strands together, resulting in an unzipped helix that terminates at the replication fork.
3. SS binding proteins: anneal to the newly exposed template strands, preventing them from reannealing.
4. primase: lays down RNA primers that will be used by DNA polymerase 3 as a starting point to build the new complementary strands.
5.  polymerase 3: builds the new DNA strand after primase
6. polymerase 1: replace RNA primers with appropriate  DNA
7. DNA polymerase 1 and 3 proofread by excising incorrectly paired nucleotides at the end of the complementary strand and adding the correct nucleotides.
8. leading strand: pointing to the fork
9. lagging strand: pointing away from the fork
10. the replication of the leading strand is continuous, the replication of the lagging strand is discontinuous, forming okazaki fragment.

potential science fair topics

1. Can bananas make people feel happy?
2. Will an ice cube melt faster in a cup of water or a cup of pop?
3. What kind of shape makes kites fly faster/higher?
4. Do oranges gain or lose vitamin C after being picked?
5. How long do home haircoloring products hold their colour? What are the factors that can affect the time the products hold their colour?
6.Where are the most germs in your school?
7. Does mouthwash really kill oral bacteria?

some bio vercabs

1. London force: the attraction between two rapidly fluctuating, temporary dipoles. Of significance only if atoms are very close together. Here's an animation of it

Graphic from http://www2.gasou.edu/chemdept/general/molecule/forces.htm

• The movement of electrons within the electron cloud cause temporary electron imbalances (self-polarization)
• The resultant instantaneous dipole will induce polarization in neighboring molecules
• The magnitude of self-polarization increases with increasing numbers of electrons

2.  Germ cells: The eggs and sperm are the germ cells: the reproductive cells. Each mature germ cell is haploid in that it has a single set of 23 chromosomes containing half the usual amount of DNA and half the usual number of genes.

3. alleles:

An allele is an alternative form of a gene (one member of a pair) that is located at a specific position on a specific chromosome. These DNA codings determine distinct traits that can be passed on from parents to offspring. The process by which alleles are transmitted was discovered by Gregor Mendel and formulated in what is known as Mendel's law of segregation.

4. genomes:

the ordering of genes in a haploid set of chromosomes of a particular organism; the full DNA sequence of an organism; "the human genome contains approximately three billion chemical base pairs"

5. eukaryotes:

Eukaryotes are organisms with a cell nucleus.

The basic eukaryotic cell contains the following:

1. plasma membrane
2. glycocalyx (components external to the plasma membrane)
3. cytoplasm (semifluid)
4. cytoskeleton - microfilaments and microtubules that suspend organelles, give shape, and allow motion
5. presence of characteristic membrane enclosed subcellular organelles

6. prokaryotes:

Prokaryotes are organisms without a cell nucleus, or indeed any other membrane-bound organelles, in most cases unicellular (in rare cases, multicellular).

7. cell cycles: The cell cycle is a process in which a cell grows and divides to create a copy of itself. Some organisms reproduce through the cell cycle, and in complex multicellular organisms, the cell cycle is used to allow the organism to grow, and to replace cells as they grow worn out. In animals, the whole cell cycle takes around 24 hours from start to finish. Some cells, such as skin cells, are constantly going through the cell cycle, while other cells may divide rarely, if at all; neurons, for example, don't grow and divide once they are mature.

8. Functional groups:

functional groups are specific groups of atoms within molecules that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules.

9.messenger RNA (mRNA)

A molecule of RNA that serves as a template for protein synthesis. mRNA is transcribed from a gene and then translated by ribosomes in order to manufacture a protein. Each set of three bases, called codons, specifies a certain protein in the sequence of amino acids that comprise the protein. The sequence of a strand of mRNA is based on the sequence of a complementary strand of DNA. 

10.  cleavage furrow:

A groove formed from the cell membrane in a dividing cell as the contractile ring tightens.

History of in heritance notes( Feb, 08)

T.H. Morgan:

• Genes are located on chromosomes, the two constituents of chromosomes - proteins and DNA - were the candidates for the genetic material
• scientists that time tended to believe that proteins were the genetic material

Frederick Griffith:

•  he studied Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium that causes pneumonia in mammals (R and M)
• his experiment: heat-killed S strain were mixed with live R strain bacteria and the mixture were injected into a mouse; the mouse died and the pathogenic stain could be recovered from the mouse's blood.
• Transformation: a change in genotype and phenotype due to the assimilation of a foreign substance by a cell

Further evidence that DNA was the genetic material: viruses infects a host cell and injects its DNA into the host cell to replicate.
Erwin Chargaff:

• four bases of DNA: A, T, G, C
• %A=%T; %G=%C

Watson and Crick:

• discovered the double helix structure of DNA
• their achievement was built on Rosalind Franklin's study ( She used X-ray to find the diffraction pattern of DNA structure.)
• adenine would form two hydrogen bonds only with thymine and guanine would form three hydrogen bonds only with cytosine.