Choppin' pork

To end off our homeostasis unit (which happens to be the most interesting unit in my entire...4 courses this semester), we got to dissect a pig! No, not the big smelly pig that goes oink oink, but the tiny, miniature fetal pig that is equally as smelly. And luckily, they did not make any oink oink sounds...LUCKILY. We got to see for ourselves, outside of any textbook or google images or powerpoint slides, the REAL LIFE model of all the organs and tissues we have learned in class, cool eh? And not to mention, cut them open and take a look inside. My team of highly experienced and educated group of expert surgeons have successfully located and isolated the lungs, liver, BRAIN, testicles, stomach, pancreas, kidneys, intestines and heart. Here are some photos...

Pre-op head-to-toe assessment of our patient

open-everything surgery!

Would you like some fries with that?

Have a heart, dissect a fetal pig.

lungs

I saw this display at the ROM, and was immediately drawn to it. The reason behind my interest in this particular symbiosis relationship between the arctic fox and the lemming was a simple one: I have a pet hamster that looks exactly like that poor lemming hanging from the mouth of its predator, the arctic fox. As it turned out, their predator-prey relationship is quite intriguing. They have what is called a boom and bust relationship, in which as the population of one species increases, the other decreases. Why is that? Imagine this: high in the Alps in the arctic, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...except for LEMMINGS! The arctic fox has finally found its (main) food source, and so he heavily depends on this abundant food source of lemmings. Since the arctic foxes are presented with an abundance of food, they start to reproduce more. Uh oh, what does it mean for the lemmings? MORE ENEMIES! That's right, so now their lives are in more danger than ever, since there are enemy fire (arctic foxes) around every corner, hungry for food. They have nowhere to hide, so they make the ultimate sacrifice...into the digestive tract of those foxes. Now what, all (but some) lemmings have died, but there are so many arctic foxes waiting to be fed. That's right - as a result, they die off from starvation. So now the lemmings are happy, since there are less predators. Being the animals that they are, they take on this opportunity to reproduce more. And just like that, the cycle continues...

Yum.

Answers to The Cove

1. Who is the main "defender" of dolphins in the documentary?
Rick O'Berry, a former dolphin trainer turned activist to save dolphins.


2. Where is the dolphin slaughter taking place?
Taiji, Japan


6. Which country indirectly runs the IWC?
Japan


9. Once these dolphins are trapped what happens to some of them first?
Some of them are selected to be shipped to all parts of the world as show dolphins. Those who do not make it are then killed for meat. 


12. What toxic substance is found in dolphin meat?
Mercury

Warning: Sharks!

From an early age, Nemo and has taught me that sharks are the ultimate villain to be feared of. They are blood-thirsty, hostile, and just plain nasty. This mindset alone is the cause to my initial indifference to such a dramatic misfortune for the sharks. Why would people want to protect such a fearful creature? However, I am not cold blooded. I simply wasn't educated. Sharkwater is a documentary with a powerful message that I've never pondered upon. I've never viewed shark fin soup more than a mere luxury dish in the Chinese culture. Of course, nobody told me anything, nor did I have enough curiosity to find out more. Finally, I get my fair share of knowledge on sharks. First, the sheer number scares me. More than 10000 sharks are killed each hour! Doesn't matter what creature it is, that's still some massive killing right there. Maybe it wouldn't have triggered my attention too much if it wasn't for that sharks aren't as bad as we thought they were. In reality, they contribute to our environment and ecosystem by preying on fishes that eat plankton, an organism that consumes carbon dioxide and in turn, releases oxygen. Obviously, we can't have all the plankton eaten, right?

Anyway, the whole shark massacre is ridiculously unnecessary. The industry catches all these sharks, take off their fins and other "useful" parts, then disregard the rest of the body back into the ocean. What's the point of shark fin soup? Nothing. It's simply a part of an outdated tradition. They serve absolutely no valid purpose, not even for taste. It's just used to texturize an ordinary soup, and bam! You've got yourself a "luxurious" bowl of "holy" soup that you can serve on important ceremonies.

I don't blame anyone for being ignorant, because I was too. We just need to get the words out there, so more people can understand the severity of this unfortunate happening. People need to be educated, that's all. I'm glad movies such as Sharkwater exists, so the world can see the other side of the story. Maybe next time, Steven Spielberg can make a sequel to Jaws, called Hands.

Clothes-pin Activity

Notes on Metabolism

• Metabolism - sum of all anabolic (building complex substances from simpler subunits) and catabolic (breaking down of complex substances) processes in a cell or organism.

Laws of Thermodynamics:

1. The total amount of energy in the universe is constant. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed but only converted from one form into another. 
2. The entropy (measure of randomness or disorder in energy or in a collection of objects) of the universe increases with any change that occurs. 

Entropy increases when:

• solid reactants become liquid or gaseous products
• liquid reactants become gaseous products
• fewer moles of reactant molecules form a greater # of moles of product molecules
• complex molecules react to form simpler molecules
• difusion

• Gibbs Free energy: energy that can do useful work; mostly stored in ATP in living cells
• In order to break bonds between the reactants, activation energy must be reached.
• Exergonic reaction: spontaneous; decrease in Gibbs free energy
• Endergonic reaction: not spontaneous; increase in Gibbs free energy
• Anabolic reactions create order out of chaos in a local area of the universe at the expense of creating a greater amount of disorder in the universe as a whole. 

Redox reaction: combination of oxidation (atom loses electrons) and reduction (atom gains electrons), often occurring in a chain reaction.

Reducing agent provides electrons and oxidizing agent takes electrons. 

• Allosteric sites are receptor sites:

Activator: stabilizes the active form of the enzyme

Inhibitor: stabilizes the inactive form of the enzyme

*Textbook p.58-77

Important for Biotech Test!

Vector Cloning

1. The same restriction enzymes are used to cut desired gene and plasmid at a specific location.

2. The ends are "sticky", as they are single strands that combine together and glued by ligase, forming phosphodiester bonds.

3. Complete digestion means there are enough REs to cut at every restriction sites; Incomplete digestion means not enough to fully cut at all the sites

4. pBluescript is an engineered plasmid with multiple pre-arranged enzyme cut sites.




PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)

5. Materials: taq polymerase (heat resistant), single-stranded DNA primer, nucleotides and ligase

6. Heating denatures DNA; cooling allows primers to base pair to their complementary strands; taq polymerase attach at each priming site and synthesize a new DNA strand.

7. The targeted fragment is produced ONLY after third cycle, then is exponentially grown.

Gel Electrophoresis

8. Shorter DNA fragments move down the gel to the positively charged anode (since DNA is negatively charged), and larger DNA fragments remain at the top.

RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism)


9. DNA fragments are cut by COMPLETE digestion by multiple REs, then undergo gel electrophoresis.

DNA Sequencing


10. DIdeoxyribo-nucleotides incompletely digest the DNA fragments, terminating the sequence at each individual nucleotide (ddATP will incompletely digest at every adenine sequence).