On Thursday, we were able to listen to a live presentation with Anusha Shankar who is a National Geographic Explorer that is studying animals, specifically rats and hummingbirds. She shared with us information about her work over the last few years which was really interesting to see her change in environments and animals. Currently, she is in Alaska studying rats for seasonal depression and seeing if this is similar for humans. It was interesting to see how the rats adapted to the environment that they were put in and how the environment that they were in previously affected the one that they were currently in. The first conditions that the rats were put under were the normal 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark, but when the lights were only on for a few hours you could see a substantial difference with their activity. For a lot of the rats though, they were active 12 hours after the lights turned off as if they were expected for the lights to turn back on. Rats, like humans, are more active in the day time, or when there is light, but then go to sleep once it is dark outside. 

Another study that she had done was on hummingbirds and how they utilize their energy. She traveled to Equador, which is relatively close to the equator where there are hotter temperatures. Hummingbirds spend their energy fairly quickly but can barely store it, which means that they have to eat and get energy from nectar regularly or else they can die within 2 hours. To prevent themselves from dying during the night, hummingbirds go into a sleep stage called torpor which shuts their bodies down and goes cold to preserve energy. She was able to study the birds sleeping habits with infrared light and by monitoring their bodies’ temperature from day to night. I especially found her research on hummingbirds interesting because I learned something new about hummingbirds, which is a topic I never really thought about looking at before.

To learn more about Anusha Shankar’s work with hummingbirds, you can click here.

Works Cited
Shankar, Anusha. “Why I Am Obsessed with Hummingbird Pee… and Torpor.” National Geographic Society Newsroom, 23 Feb. 2018, blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/02/06/why-i-am-obsessed-with-hummingbird-pee-and-torpor/.

YouTube, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=29&v=8ObONmJ4VU8&feature=emb_title.

As our world changes, so do the technology that we use every day. Recently in AP Biology, we have taken a look at new scientific technologies that have been developed to hopefully one-day help find the solution to diseases that we never even imagined had a possibility of being cured. Some of these technologies have the possibility to revolutionize medicine if scientists and doctors continue to work on developing and solving some of the remaining issues. But along with these many new improvements, there are some ethical issues that are brought up with each topic. Who gets to decide what’s right or wrong? Or who gets this one thing while others don’t? Regardless of what happens today, these ethical questions will always need to be analyzed in order to come up with a solution that will benefit everyone and not just a small population of people. For now, these technologies, which include gene therapy, forensic analysis, and so much more are being worked on to try and help people in the future. 

While learning about biotechnology was very interesting, it was nothing like actually performing a lab that made bacteria grow and glow. In this experiment, we used genetic engineering, which is adding a desired gene from one organism into another organism, to add a plasmid into E.coli. The plasmid contained three important genes amp^r, the gene that codes for beta-lactamase, an enzyme that breaks down ampicillin, araC, the gene that codes for a repressor protein that binds to the operator in the absence of arabinose, and the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene, that codes for GFP and makes the bacteria glow under UV light. The work was tedious as we used micropipettes to measure the exact amounts of each substance going into the tubes, and unfortunately, there was a one in one million chance that the bacteria would gain the plasmid. Luckily, we were working with many bacteria and were able to observe colonies that formed and colonies that glowed. We tested the bacteria on three different plates, one with just LB or bacteria nutrients, one with LB and ampicillin, and one with LB, ampicillin, and arabinose. The only plate that we observed to glow was the third one with LB, ampicillin, and arabinose. This is because the arabinose in the plate bound to the repressor protein that was preventing the GFP gene from being read. It was really interesting to see the outcome and overall a really fun experiment to do. Check out some of the glowing art drawings we did and you can see the difference between a plate that had glowing bacteria versus one that didn’t. 

Along with learning about technology and doing experiments, we were able to listen listen to the guest speaker, Mana Anver, who worked in a lab that was using CRISPR on zebrafish to determine the right medication for a type of disease. It was really interesting to hear about her experience that what work she did in a lab and how CRISPR and Cas9 were used to essentially “break” the zebra fishes genes in order to mimic Dravet Syndrome in humans. CRISPR-Cas9 comes from bacteria and can be used to knock out or edit sequences in our genome that are causing bad mutations, like diseases. By mimicking this syndrome, she was able to run tests on which drugs were had the best results and had the least side effects. 

Overall, this unit was filled with so much fascinating information that will hopefully one day be able to help people in the future. 

Works Cited
YouTube, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKbrwPL3wXE.

Have you ever had a dream? Well like Rapunzel’s song “I Have a Dream” in the Disney movie Tangled, she shows that all people have different kinds of dreams. While Rapunzel’s dream wasn’t so ambitious, there are people out there that do have dreams that are seemingly impossible to achieve. One person that accomplishes her dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida after countless tries and at the age of 64 is Diana Nyad. Although after turning 60, she was told by every doctor and physical trainer that she went to that her dream was impossible. Regardless of this, she decided that she was not going to give up on her dream and was going to finally accomplish swimming from Cuba to Florida on her 5th attempt. In her TedTalk in 2013, she describes the difficulties she had faced: hallucinations, jellyfish, sharks, seasickness, and much more. But she also talks about the amazing team hat she had that helped her to conquer the journey and her to achieve her goal. Despite everything that she went through and the hardships that she was facing closer to the end of the swim, she shows the necessity of having a positive, open mind with the mantras she states to herself to help her push and finish her 100-mile journey.

A dream of mine, although may seem like many peoples, is to just get into a good college. Although it seems like a lot of people’s dreams in high school, it is also something that I am awaiting. I have had a lot of pressure to get into a good college since middle school and even to do well in high school because of my siblings. Especially since I have to follow behind my brother, I have been expected to do as well as him in everything. It is very difficult especially since he was star athlete, valedictorian that took 4 APs or honors classes each year. I have always felt that I need to compare myself to him which has really brought my self-esteem down in school. Even though my parents tell me that we are different people and that I shouldn’t compare myself to him, I still feel like I need to because they expect me to do as well as he did. After college, I don’t know what I want to do career-wise,  but I hope I can figure that out and will work hard to achieve that. I think that Diana Nyad’s story is truly amazing and inspiring. Despite the four other times that she was unable to accomplish her dream, she never gave up and had the support of her team and best friend which helped her to finish her journey. Her story has inspired me to never give up and work for what I want regardless of what anyone tells me.

Works Cited
Nyad, Diana. “Never, Ever Give Up.” TED, http://www.ted.com/talks/diana_nyad_never_ever_give_up#t-729328.

These past 5 months in AP Biology has been rocky, challenging, and rewarding all at once. Learning new content or advancing knowledge on previous topics at a deeper level and at a faster pace can be difficult. Because of the fast pace of the class, some topics were much more difficult to understand. Luckily with the help of my teammates and teacher, I was able to grasp the essential topics that are covered in this course. Some topics that first semester that we went into depth include properties of water, cell signaling, photosynthesis, cell respiration, and much more. Along which these topics, we also looked at how everything in biology is connected to each other. We did labs, projects, blog posts, and other interactive things to help us build these connections and understand the difficult material. Overall, I think that class time on hard topics was really crucial for me to help me grasp what we were learning and will hopefully be useful this next semester. 

We not only learned more advanced topics in biology, but we also explored our use of technology by creating a digital portfolio for blog posts and creating different types of videos like stop-motion animation. This digital portfolio allows me to share my experience with what we learn, do, and watch in class and reflect on how these things help me to make connections and understand what we are learning. I am also able to share with the audience my interest in biology and more about me. I am also able to share some pictures from the places that I have traveled during this year. 

Overall I think that the last semester has been really rewarding and I am looking forward to what the new year has in store for us. I am excited to learn more in AP biology and see where this course takes my teammates and me.