Dominant Trait- Sam Nelson

Dominant Trait 

-Mask the recessive trait
-Normally written with capital letter
-Can be heterozygous (Bb) or homozygous (BB)


     Dominant alleles show their effect even if the person only has one copy of the allele. For example, the gene for brown eyes is dominant, so you only need one copy of the 'brown eye' gene to have brown eyes which mask other recessive eye colors.

Codominance- "The condition that arises when both alleles in a heterozygous organism are dominant and are fully expressed in the phenotype."

Incomplete Dominance- "The condition that arises when neither allele controlling a characteristic is dominant and the aspect displayed by the organism results from the partial influence of both alleles."

Reflection- While studying genetic dominance was an easy topic to understand.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/plants-and-animals/zoology-and-veterinary-medicine/zoology-general/incomplete-dominance#1O6incompletedominance

http://www.encyclopedia.com/plants-and-animals/animals/zoology-invertebrates/dominant-gene

Energy Pyramid-Tyler Parris

Energy Pyramid

Energy Pyramid: A energy pyramid is a graphical model of energy flow in a community. The different levels represent different groups of organisms that might compose a food chain.

Producers: An organism, either a green plant or bacterium, which is part of the first level of a food chain.  It has green leaves enable the plant to take energy from the sun and make its own food.

Herbivores: A herbivore is often defined as any organism that eats only plants. By that definition, many fungi, some bacteria, many animals, about 1% of flowering plants and some protists can be considered herbivores.

Carnivores: Animals that subsist on a diet consisting only of meat are referred to as obligate carnivores. 

Top Predator: A predator residing at the top of a food chain upon which no other creatures prey

What I learned: I didn't really learn anything because we have been doing energy pyramids for a long time.

This can be used in biology to show a animals role in a food chain.

Video

Enzymes

Main Points:

• An enzyme is a large protein molecule that controls the rate of chemical reactions in living things
• Acts as a catalyst
• Function is based on shape
• Named on substrate (what enzyme reacts with) it is designed to react with
• Ending is -ASE
• Globular protein
• Specific for their substrate
• Reusable
• The enzyme will lower the activation energy causing the reaction to occur

Vocab

• Activation energy: the amount of energy required to start a reaction
• Enzyme: protein performing the reaction
• Active site: the region of the enzyme where the reaction is occurring
• Denatured: when the enzyme becomes damaged or destroyed
• Needs neutral pH and 98.6 F

Reflection:

Before we learned about enzymes in class, I already knew what enzymes were. What I did not know and what I learned is just how important enzymes are. They are used for almost all of the body's processes and are extremely useful. I thought that this objective was very simple, easy, and straightforward. Enzymes are very important to Biology, but I think that they could be used in many other technologies and machines in everyday life to speed up some of the regular everyday tasks that happen all the time.

Mitosis- Ryan Flicker

• Mitosis is when one cell divides into 2 different cells.
• Stages of Mitosis
• Interphase
• Prophase
• Metaphase
• Anaphase
• Telophase
• Cytokinesis
• Mitosis needs to follow these steps in order to get the 2 cells needed. 
• Mitosis is different from meiosis because in mitosis the cell divides twice and in meiosis the cell will go through the stages twice to create 4 cells. 
• I learned that cell division is always happening to replace nonfunctioning cells. 

Antibiotics

Antibiotics
By Jay Patel

Antibiotics are medicines that are are used to treat bacterial infections and bacterial diseases. Antibiotics are extremely powerful medicines, used to either kill bacteria or prevent them from reproducing. Used properly, they can help save lives. Antibiotics work to kill bacteria by interfering with their metabolic rates.

• Help to treat diseases caused by bacteria.
• Ineffective against viruses and viral infections.
• Not using antibiotics correctly can result in antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria change and become resistant to antibiotics.
• When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, a superbug can be formed, where no antibiotic would work on bacteria.
• Avoid drinking alcohol while taking antibiotics.
• Antibiotics work by affecting things that bacterial cells have that human cells do not have. For example, penicillin prevents certain bacteria from building cell walls. Other antibiotics dissolve just the membrane of the bacteria, while others affect protein production or DNA replication in bacteria.

What I learned from antibiotics is how bacteria can become super resistant to antibiotics to the point where they don't work anymore. I found that scary, and how our frequent use of antibiotics is building up a resistance for the bacteria, making them more resistant and harder to kill. I feel that eventually antibiotics will not work anymore, and a new method will have to be made. This can be applied outside of biology in the form of medicine, as doctors prescribe antibiotics to patients, and scientists make more antibiotics.

Citations

"Antibiotics." MedilinePlus.com, MedilinePlus, 5 Apr. 2017, medlineplus.gov/antibiotics.html.

Anderson, Leigh A. "Can you Drink Alcohol with Antibiotics?" Drugs.com, 22 Sept. 2016, www.drugs.com/article/antibiotics-and-alcohol.html.

"What is an Antibiotic?" Genetic Science Learning Center, 15 Aug. 2014, learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/microbiome/antibiotics/.

Notes from Mr. Black's class

Active Membrane Transport

Active membrane transport is the movement of molecules across a cell membrane from a region of their lower concentration to a region of their higher concentration—in the direction against some gradient or other obstructing factor (often a concentration gradient).

• The movement of particles against the concentration gradient
• Movement is from low to high concentration
• Endocytosis: Uses energy to transport molecules into the cell
• Exocytosis: Uses energy to transport molecules out of the cell

What I learned in this subject was that there is scientific reason why something must be moved with force. I surprised me however, that there was a scientific explanation, because to be completely honest with you, it seemed like to move something against a gradient was just a matter of pushing and pulling, but apparently it is something completely different. I did not already know about this subject until I learned about it in Biology Class. I thought it was very interesting though, how some things can easily move along, while others will have to be moved by force because they are against the gradient. This can be applied outside of biology in Cytology and the study of the human body.

Genetics - Dominant trait

Genetics Dominant Traits

Natalie White 

A dominant trait or a dominant allele will show up in the offspring if one of the parents has it. A dominant allele will overpower the recessive trait and show up. 

In genetics, each parent has a different genetic makeup therefore their allele may be different. The offspring of these parents will posses 1 trait from each parent. The dominant and recessive alleles decide which trait will appear in the child. FOR EXAMPLE - (hair) If 1 parent is homozygous for brown hair (dominant) and the other parent is homozygous for blonde (recessive) the child would have brown hair because it is dominate over blonde. We can tell which traits the child may have using punnett squares. 

(homozygous - same alleles - ex. BB)

(heterozygous - different alleles - ex. Bb)

Dominate and Recessive Genes/Heredity were first discovered by Gregor Mendel with his pea plant experiment. 

Reflection - I find genetics and DNA to be a very interesting unit and it is one of my favorites. I learned a lot about genetics from 7th grade science however I did learn more in depth about Co-dominate and incomplete dominance from this unit. '

Outside of Biology - Punnett squares and genetics can be used outside of science to determine possible outcome of what your children would look like. 

Study Link - Jeopardy Game

Click here for more information

References- 

"Beginner Guide To Genes, Mutations And Hybrids". Feistyhome.phpwebhosting.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 5 May 2017.