oliviae -- Blogmeister

Q1: How do cells divide? If a cell splits in half to become two cells how are both those able to work?

A1: The cell's chromosomes duplicate themselves, then both of them move to opposite cell walls. The cell elongates and it's plasma membrane grows inward, then the cell splits! The cell divides and creates two sister cells. Those sister cells are able to work because the mother cell gives them everything they need to produce and survive.

Q2: Write a brief description of what is happening at each of the seven stages of cell division starting with Interphase.

A2: 1. Interphase- This is the longest part of the complete cell cycle. The cell is very active while the DNA replicates, centrioles divide, and proteins are being made.

2. Prophase- During the first stage of mitosis, the nucleolus fades and replicated (copied) DNA and associated proteins, also called the chromatin, condenses into the chromosomes. Each one of these chromosomes has two chromatids, and all of those chromatids have the same genetic information. The microtubules of the cytoskeleton also disassemble.

3. Prometaphase- the nuclear envelope collapses in this stage so there is no longer a recognizable nucleus. Some spindle fibers connect to chromosomes, but others elongate and and overlap each other at the cell center.

4. Metaphase- Tension applied by the spindle fibers aligns all chromosomes in one plane at the center of the cell.

5. Anaphase- Spindle fibers shorten, the kinetochores separate, and the daughter chromosomes, also called chromatids, are pulled apart and begin moving to the cell poles.

6. Telophase- The daughter chromosomes arrive at the poles and the spindle fibers that have pulled them apart disappear.

7. Cytokinesis- the spindle fibers that didn't attach themselves to chromosomes start breaking down until only a small portion of the overlap is left. Also in this region, a contractile ring finally separates the cell into two sister cells. Microtubules in both of those cells then reorganize themselves into a new cytoskeleton for the return of cell interphase.

When I first started this project I thought that there was major differences between plant and animal cells. I was soo wrong! Even thought they look and work different, they have many, many similarities! The only part that animal cells have that plant cells don't are centriole! Also, the only things that plant cells have that animal cells don't are chloroplasts and cell walls! The many things that plant and animal cells have in common are: nucleus, nucleolus, cytolsol, centrosome, golgi, lysomes, peroxisome, secretory vesicles, cell membrane, mitochondrion, vacuole, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, rough endoplasmic reticulum, and ribosomes! Even though they all have the same components, they do different things depending on which cell they live in!

This week my class has been studying Parimecium to see if they displayed signs of living, and this is what we found!

I also made a video about amoebae!

Leave a comment about what you think!

All this week in science we have been doing a facinating experiment! My groups question was how different liquids effected how big the polyacrylate crystals, also know as orbies, grew. We had five liquids, water, hydrogen peroxide, sugar water, salt water, and dirt water. We observed that over a period of 48 hours, the hydrogen peroxide orbies were the biggest with a pixel length of 670, and the salt water the smallest with a pixel length of 318.5. Plain water had a measurement of 645.4 pixels, sugar water had a measurement of 634.8 pixels, and finally, dirt water with a measurement of 620.3 pixels. Some inaccuracies that could have occurred are any orbies over 640 pixels could have been a few pixels off in length, because we couldn't fit them completely under the microscope. I understood that orbies expand in water, but I didn't understand why that the orbies were so much smaller than the others. Why were the salt water orbies so much smaller than the other orbies?

This year our science class did an experiment about living things and their environments. Each team had five vials each, all of them filled with one of three unknown liquids. Then, each of us added a sprinkle of substance A to vial A, substance B to vial B, etc all the way up to D. Then, we checked on the substance and recorded it's changes after ten minutes, 48 hours and ten minutes after the 48 hour mark. We looked the substances under a microscope and were shocked at what we found.
In vial A, there wasn't much happening. In vial B, the water was just really clouded with chunks of gunky looking things. In vial C, the little orbs grew huge and they were really squishy, and easy to accidentally crumble...oops. In vial D, the little seed-looking things sprouted! In vial E, it was really wierd. When we looked at it without any magnification, it just looked like red floating sand, but when we magnified it 60x, we found out what it really was! Brine shrimp!! At first we were confused because we only saw black dots, (which we later figured out was the eggs) but after we moved the microscope to a different part of the sample, we saw the creatures! It was really interesting!
Afterwards, our teacher told us what was in the vials! Material A was red sand, material B was yeast, material C was polyacryate, also known as orbies, material D was radish seeds, and material D was the brine shrimp. We also found out what our liquid was! My groups liquid was just plain water. Then, we compared our results to other groups and they were very surprising!
One of the other liquids were salt water, but nothing was living in their vials! This wasn't very surprising for the first 4 materials, but it was really weird that the brine shrimp didn't hatch/live in this liquid because a brine shrimps natural environment in in salt water! When we compared our results to the last liquid, sugar water, it was exactly the same results as ours.
I learned that environment greatly impacts if a thing can live or not! I also learned that even if a thing looks like it's not living, it still could be, like when a seed hibernates and waits for the right environment before sprouting!

To be actually be alive you have to be able to do certain things. Some of those things are being able to grow, being able to breathe and being able to move without any help from something else. To be alive you also have to be able to metabolize food and reproduce, but you also have to be able to die. These are the factors of a living thing!

People bicker about if global warming is happening, if it's man-made, if there's something we can do. To me, global warming is happening, and we can do something. I have no idea about the whole man-made idea, but I think we are contributing to it. But, we can all help to reduce global warming by recycling, carpooling, changing your lightbulbs to more energy efficient ones and making sure lights aren't on when you leave a room. All of these help our planet, and make it easier to slow down or stop global warming before it's too late.

1. I have two adorable baby goats, named Emma and Zoe, that I love more than anything!

2. The only time I have ever been out of the US was when I went to Canada and I was really little.

3. My name means olive tree, but I despise olives with a passion. They are disgusting!

4. I love food with a passion!

5. Instead of having braces, I used invisalign. It was awesome.

6. After high school, I really want to go to the EATM
program in Moorpark, California. It looks really interesting!

7. I think Hawaii would be a fun place to live!

Here is a movie my team made about the African Biome!