Blog post #10

1. a plant that has flowers and produces seeds enclosed within a carpel. The angiosperms are a large group and include herbaceous plants, shrubs, grasses, and most trees. 

   

   The yellow thing that seem or looks like it’s cut open is called an anther which is where the meiosis takes place producing male gametophytes.

   

   This is a picture of the stigma and the carpel. The very top is called the stigma, where pollen lands and the carpel also know as pistil what produce female gametophytes.

   

   This is a picture of of the inside of an ovary and the clear, water drip look things are ovules.
2. 
   

Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My! -Sayra

Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

To begin, fertilization is when the female gamete is in the process of fusion which can be the ovum or egg and then the male gamete made in the pollen tube by the pollen grain. Everything starts of with the pollen and seed cones. The pollen cones are for the males while the seed cones are for the females. Pollen grains are made from the pollen cones. For the female, the seed cones, there are thousands of cells to be found. Pollen goes into the stigma and starts to germinate in order for the sperm to reach the egg. After the tube grows, it reaches the ovule. Lastly, double fertilization occurs and then everything is complete.

This shows the picture of the flower before the petals were taken off in order to dissect it.

The stem looking part is called the filament while the top yellow tips that are at the end of the stalk are called the anthers.

Here we see the carpel with the pointy top called the stigma and that is where the pollen grains get stuck.

This shows the ovary which has one or more ovules where the gametophytes are produced.

Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!- Jenny

       How do flowering plants reproduce? Flowering plants reproduce in a similar yet different way to how humans reproduce.

This is a picture of the flower before we dissected it. The full flower was far to large to fit into the small screen of the microscope.

This is the stamen, the male reproductive anatomy of the flower. Specifically the anther and filament. The anther is the yellow curled part near the left of the picture. This is the oval sac where meiosis takes place. During meiosis, haploid male gametophytes are produced- pollen grains (pollen). This part of the flower also releases the pollen grains. The filament is the green stem-like things near the right of the picture. This part of the flower supports the anthers.

This is part of the carpel. The bottom-most shape in the picture is called the stigma. The stigma is where pollen grains frequently land. The pollen adheres to the stigma, meaning it gets stuck to this part of the flower. The stalk of the stigma is called the style.

The left-most part of the picture is the ovary. It is part of the carpel. The ovary contains and produces the female reproductive cells. The ovary also contains the ovule. The ovule stores and carries the female reproductive cells.

The little brown organism on the top-most stalk is an aphid. I found him exploring the flower and decided to take a closer look at him.

The pictures at the top and left are "Fred," our aphid. Fred and the other aphids are insects that suck the juices from plants. Aphids can cause damage to plants because they can transfer diseases into them. So far, this little aphid has not done much, but when there are hundreds of these little insects on one plant, then the plant will start to suffer.














       This is the anatomy of the broccoli flower, and now you will learn how flowering plants like these reproduce.
       A flowering plant is often referred to as an angiosperm. The life-cycle of angiosperms begins once flowers are produced. Every flower contains the anthers and the ovary (as seen in the above pictures), and inside the anthers is where each cell undergoes meiosis. The result of meiosis is four haploid cells. Each cell will become a pollen grain. The pollen grains' nucleus will undergo a mitotic division that will result in two haploid nuclei. Once the pollen grain stops growing, it is released from the anther and is put on a stigma.
       The ovule is where the female gametophyte develops. When a single diploid cell undergoes meiosis, it results in four haploid cells. After this occurs, three of those cells will disintegrate. That one remaining cell will go through mitosis to produce eight nuclei. The embryo sac is then produced, by using the eight nuclei and the surrounding membrane. The embryo sac is the female gametophyte of an angiosperm. One of the eight nuclei that is near the base of the gametophyte, is the egg nucleus. The egg nucleus is the female gamete, and when fertilization occurs, this cell will become the zygote that grows into a new beautiful plant.

Matter of selection- Jacob

1. Which part (anatomy) or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to exhibit the most variation (greatest number of different forms)? Kales, cabbages, and Tronchuda cabbages are widely grown in northwestern and some of the forms.
2. Which part or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to show the greatest range of variation (biggest difference between one extreme and its opposite)? The sporting part, has the most variations.
3. Using the terms that follow, explain why you think there is so much variability in the domestic forms of Brassica oleracea: traits, selective breeding, artificial selection, genes, descent with modification, natural variations, mutations Traits could be: purple or green outer leaves,  Six main vegetables have been derived from this wild stock through selection,  It has been bred into a wide range of cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, etc., genes are depending on the plants parents genes, descent with modification can be associated with cabbage, mutations can include: Low linolenic acid; Brassica oleracea; fatty acid desaturase 3 (FAD3)
4. Which part (anatomy) of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to be most consistently the same in all of the examples in our garden, regardless of how extreme the differences between other parts of the same plants may be? Why do think this is so? I haven’t really look at the garden.
5. What would plant breeders have to do in order to get the body part or characteristic you described above (in your response to question #3) to become much different than it is presently? Traits could be: purple or green outer leaves

A Matter of Selection- Sayra

     The leaves are what show the most variation in the brassica oleracea family.  Even though the stems are pretty much similar, the shape and size of the leaves are what make it different.  Collard greens and Cauliflower have the same leaf shape and have a ration of about 20:22 and 11:14. Kale and cauliflower  are different because the kale's leaves are long and thin while the leaves of the cauliflower are wide and very curved. The leaves of Kale are 24cm long and 12cm wide.
     Artificial selection and selective breeding is when a person's natural curiosity makes them mix and match with a discovery of something like brassica oleracea. Different species were created by crossbreeding different plants to experiment. Modification occurs when organisms reproduce. This means that whenever a new generation is created the traits in the plants are mutated or adapted. Natural variations occur when plants mutate by themselves or die because of a new factor in its community.
     The plants have stems that are a purple and green color and also have large leaves. Some of its traits work and can adapt to the environment so there is no point of changing the color. Cauliflower and kohlrabi have yellow blossoms. Those are what attract bees and bugs are responsible for pollinating them. Since that works, no change is needed for the plant.
     If changing a characteristic is needed, plant breeders would need to find plants with the trait they want and breed it with other plants. A problem would be if the trait didn't yet exist, the plants would have to be genetically modified in order to be given the genes they want.

A Matter of Selection- Jenny

       All of the Brassica Oleracea plants in the WGHS GOLD Main Garden are different. The topic that I decided to focus on was leaf shape. After studying all the plants, I could see a variation between many of the plants that live there.
       The characteristics that are most similar between these plants are the leaf color and leaf shape. They all have a greenish quality to leaves and all have similar qualities in shape. The characteristic that are different are the shape of the plant. Each plant has a different shape to it and some are bigger than others.

 The plant to the left has oval shaped leaves. These leaves have curled edges and are a forest green color. These are simple leaves, which means that the plant only has one leaf per stem. The leaves are corrugated, and wrinkly as well.

This plant is very different yet very similar to the plant above.  These leaves (instead of being all green) are tinted with purple and green. These leaves could be considered Caerulescent, meaning that they are blue tinted.

These leaves are very different from the other leaves. These leaves are also wrinkly, but they have lots of frills. Each individual leaf has lots of parts coming out. It has a greenish purplish color, and has purple roots.

These leaves are a fuscous color. This means that it has a grayish blue color. These leaves are bumpy and narrow. The stems of this plants are a citreous color, meaning that it is yellowish. The leaves have a very bumpy texture, and are very different and similar to the platens above. 














       Because of the data collected above, you can tell that these plants are very alike and very different. This is because of many things. One of the things that changes these plants is adaptation. Adaptation is when an organism changes in order to survive in a certain environment. These plants might have also been artificially changed to be more desirable. Mutations will also affect these plants. Mutations are when the genes are changed and could result in a harmful or non-harmful way. 
       The characteristic that is the most similar is the color of the plants. All the plants have a similar color. The pictures below are all the plants in the garden. As you can see, all of the plants have a green color to them. Even though the color may be a different shade of green, they all have the same quality to them.

       In order for scientists to genetically modify the plants to get the color they want them to be, they have to breed a large population of plants. If you breed enough plants together, you will eventually end up with the desired traits that you were looking for. Because you have a large population and the right traits to breed, you can create the kind of plant or animal you want. 

GATTACA Essay- Jacob

Genetic engineering- The good and bad- you can pick out the attributes and traits of your son or daughter, but you’ll have to be rich or wealthy if you want you kid to have great genes. You can pick out their appearance , but you can’t control what they do nor their mood or attitude.

You can make your daughter or son perfect like great physical attractiveness, very intelligence, and one of the best athletic (athleticism), but it's depends on how much you invest in your child to make him or her better engineer person.

You can make your daughter or son 20/ 20 vision or blind, fast or slow, “smart” or not meeting the standard of social “smart” or in other word “normally amount”, more athleticism than the average person, etc.  You can pick the color of their hair, eyes, and body hair. But if you’re not rich nor wealthy you should just have a god’s child or an invalid. And take a chance on your genetics but they probably won’t be accept by many people.

Overall, the genetic engineering is probably not the best idea or thing to do. Like they say if it ain't broke, don't fix.

GATTACA Essay- Sayra

In the film, GATTACA, the quote, “Jerome was engineered with everything needed to get into Gattaca… except the desire to do so” was relevant to the film. Throughout the entire film we learn a lot from Vincent and Jerome. Ever since Vincent was young, he was jealous of his brother because he seemed to be perfect at every single thing that he did. Knowing that he only had about thirty years to live, he wanted to make the most of it by doing what he wanted to do, reach space. He was obsessed with one day being able to fly over there. Once he was older and knew everything there was to know he finally decided to apply.

Vincent was an invalid. This meant that he had less opportunities compared to the people who were valid. Everybody thought that if you had that specific trait that made you an invalid, you were never going to be as smart as the others. However, this was not true. Vincent had so much potential to get accepted. He knew everything there was to know about space and what it took to get there. Being born as an invalid took away many opportunities. Once you were an invalid, there was nothing that could every change you in order to be valid.

He was very determined to work at Gattaca and did not want to give up his dream of being in space. Soon, he was introduced to someone who was willing to give up his identity of being valid to someone else. His name was Jerome. He had a very perfect record which included things like awards and intelligence. Jerome was so good at everything that he did but that ended once his accident occurred. Now he was an alcoholic and depressed man. He was permanently on a wheel chair from his attempt of committing suicide. Vincent’s plan was to live his life as Jerome, a valid.

Jerome was capable of doing so many things. One of them was being able to work at Gattaca with no problems. His intelligence could benefit him in so many ways, starting off with work. He was perfect for the job. The quote is very relevant in this case because it shows how he was well suited for that job. Jerome had no interest whatsoever to be part of Gattaca. That meant that being valid was just going to be a waste because you can’t just tell someone what they should do, Since Vincent really had the desire to be part of it, he could make use out of his name. That quote is very important to the film by showing a problem and a solution.

As you can see, the quote, “Jerome was engineered with everything needed to get into Gattaca… except the desire to do so” is very significant in the film. We learned how important it was to be a valid. Jerome clearly had no intentions of working there and could not be forced to. Being a perfect candid did not matter for him which is why Vincent managed to take his place in order for him to make his dream come true which was going to space.

GATTACA Essay-Jenny

       The Film, GATTACA, was based upon a society that shamed people who don’t have perfect genes. The people who were born through in-vitro fertilization were respected and praised because their genes were pure. In this movie, people were disrespected for having diseases. I think that this is terrible because you cannot control your genes, the disease usually shouldn’t have any affect on your work, and it is a type of discrimination.

       If the best worker of a company is diagnosed with a disease that is not going to affect their work, then they should not be fired. When a person is born, they already have all of their genes “picked out.” A unborn person cannot control what genes that they want, so they should not be shamed with the genes they have. The worker should still be employed until they can no longer work. When the disease that this person has starts to affect their work, then they should be unemployed. The only reason that a worker should be fired for having a disease is if the sickness is contagious.

       If a worker has a sickness that is not contagious, then they should not be unemployed. If the disease is something that will affect their work, then they should be fired. Diseases like arthritis might affect someone’s work, but if the sickness is minor then the employee can still work. Other diseases that will have an affect on work are ones that can’t be present in a work system. Most diseases have some kind of medicine that can help it be cured as well. If the employee can take medicine to cure the sickness, then they can still work.

       This worker might also be experiencing Genoism as well. This type of discrimination should not be present in a workplace. Discrimination of genes should not happen because people cannot control their genes. Genes are the things that make a person, themselves. Nobody should want to change their genes because they are being discriminated. In a workplace, work should be taking place, not bullying. Genoism is something that a person cannot control, so they should not be discriminated for it.

       In the film, GATTACA, society revolves around perfection. Everyone wants to have perfect genes. If a worker has a disease in this society, it is diffucult to find work. In real life, this should never happen. If a worker has a disease, then they should be able to work because you cannot control your genes, the disease usually shouldn’t have any affect on your work, and it is a type of discrimination.

Who Wants to Live a Million Years- Jacob

1. How many generations did it take for you to finally win a game? Like 3+. Why do you think it took this long? Because they had to change to their environment. 
     What do you think this means/suggests for most real species on Earth in terms of their species's chances of long-term survival? We had to adaptation to our environment and are surroundings like they did.
2. Which initial phenotypes/phenotype combinations did you select and why? The camouflaged, long hair, and tall because long hair if it gets cold, tall incase of a predator and camouflage in case it gets cold.
    Which starting/initial combinations seemed to allow you to continue/survive the longest (win the most games)? The camouflaged, long hair, and tall. Why do you think this was so? Because long hair if it gets cold, tall incase of a predator and camouflage in case it gets cold.
3. Do you think this population of theoretical creatures would be greatly affected by genetic drift? The population does matter in the game 
   What evidence of drift did you see as you played the game (simulation)? predators came and when, fruit grow, volcanos exploded, disease spread, cold wether, hot wether.
4. Which alleles/phenotypes seemed to be dominant and which seemed to be recessive? How could you tell? Tall, hair and non camouflage because when in put one of those factors in it usually replace the short, no hair, and camouflage ones.
5. Match the environments/situations/conditions below with their corresponding adaptations

(a) cold conditions; more hair, short, and fat (b) hot conditions; tall, no hair and skinny  (c) new large predator on the scene; fast, camouflaged  (d) new tall food source taller

6. How would you improve this simulation to more realistically represent natural selection and biological evolution? Discuss at least three improvements. I would have added different environments, more than one species and different able they provide.

Who Wants to Live a Million Years?: Analysis of a Natural Selection Simulation- Sayra

1. How many generations did it take for you to finally win a game? Why do you think it took this  long? What do you think this means/suggests for most real species on Earth in terms of their species's chances of long-term survival?

-It took me about three generations before I could actually win this game but probably because I had to figure out what was suitable for each event. It is similar as the real world because we have to adapt to the changes in things like the weather.

2. Which initial phenotypes/phenotype combinations did you select and why?Which starting/initial combinations seemed to allow you to continue/survive the longest (win the most games)? Why do you think this was so?

-At first I selected any random combinations because I did not know what to do. Then I picked the ones that were furry and had long necks because they seemed to be working. Their necks allowed them to get food while the fur kept them warm in certain situations.

3. Do you think this population of theoretical creatures would be greatly affected by genetic drift? What evidence of drift did you see as you played the game (simulation)?

-Yes because they had a change in the frequency of a gene variant. I saw how the weather went from hot to cold and learned what it took to keep them alive.

4. Which alleles/phenotypes seemed to be dominant and which seemed to be recessive? How could you tell?

-The dominant ones seemed to be the fur and brown skin. The recessive ones seemed to be the stripes and red skin. I could tell because the dominant ones appeared more than the traits that are recessive.

5. Match the environments/situations/conditions below with their corresponding adaptations:

(a) cold conditions; Furry,fat, and short (b) hot conditions; Tall with no fur (c) new large predator on the scene; Long legs and stripes (d) new tall food source; Long legs and long necks

6. How would you improve this simulation to more realistically represent natural selection and biological evolution? Discuss at least three improvements.

- I would add human interactions but I’ll have them in different regions and have less natural disasters happen in order to improve this stimulation and represent natural selection and biological evolution.

Who Wants to Live a Million Years: Analysis of a Natural Selection Simulation- Jenny

       In the game, Who Wants to Live a Million Years, it takes many generations to survive. After two tries, my animals survived for a million years.  As more obstacles and challenges appear, the animals must mate with animals that have desirable qualities that will help them survive. In this game, about 4-7 generations pass by, each with a new obstacle. The animals will survive if they have adaptations that will help conquer these challenges. In real life, when challenges appear it is difficult to mate with someone with desirable qualities because of Natural Selection.

       When you chose your specimen in the beginning of the game, you had to be careful. I had originally just chosen simple animals with little diversity. I mostly had short animals with stripes. To have your species survive, you have to chose animals that have adaptations that will survive through everything. When I chose my specimen, I chose animals that had all the characteristics that would help them survive. The animals had to be able to keep warm, cool, to reach tall plants for food, to be camouflage, and to be agile. 

       Fake animals, like the ones in this game, are susceptible to genetic drift. Genetic drift is a shift in allele frequencies population due to random events or chance. These animals go through genetic drift such as weather. When the temperature dropped to freezing temperatures, the animals had to adapt quickly or they would die. In this situation, they adapted by growing longer fur. 

       It was difficult to tell which genes were recessive or dominant. The longer and fuzzier fur appeared very often, which would lead to it being most likely a dominant gene. The stripes that were used as camouflage, would most likely be a recessive gene because it didn't appear as often as the other traits. 

       The different obstacles each had their own trait that would help the animals adapt. When the weather got cold, the animals had to adapt by growing long fur. The animals had to have short hair or no hair at all when it got hot; and when a predator appeared, they had to be able to camouflage and run fast (stripes and long legs). When a new tall food source appeared, the animals had to have long necks and legs to be able to reach it. 

       To make this situation more realistic, I would have had more situations. I would also have more than one situation happening at the same time. More situations that you could add could be humans, predation, and lack of water or resources. There could also be more types of animals. Instead of being limited to the certain animals, there should more options. They should also get rid of the life preservers that you could use if you were dying. In real life, you don't have the option of using "life preservers," you have to make do with what you have.