New Heartland disease spreads in the Midwest


Hey guys and welcome back to my blog post. Today will be current events day! Yay! Mainly what the article is about is the new virus that is affecting the midwest of the USA. It's symptoms are fever and a dangerous drop in the white blood cells. Doctors are testing patients to see if they have that deadly disease. But that's not all, this is not a worldwide epidemic. Scientists are confirming that eight people had this illness. The disease was first noticed back in 2009 when two farmers came to the hospital and reported flu like symptoms. The doctors soon found out that the farmers had the Heartland virus due to the number of tests that they did. Also they found out that the virus is caused by ticks. The doctors then cured another six patients. One of them died, but the rest recovered.

The reason why I chose this article is because I wanted to show you that there is a new disease out there that can cause death. Also, did you know that ticks can spread a wide variety of diseases?


Well see ya later guys.



Link:

Midwest

                                  Cloning

             Hey guys and welcome back to my new blog post. Today we are going to be talking about cloning and how it affects life and why people still debate about this topic. First off I will explain what cloning is, cloning is the process of creating a copy of another organism by copying it's DNA. Cloning can also mean scientists genetically engineering a person duplicating it into a clone in an experiment just like the clone troopers in the pictures below. But all of that is not the same as asexual reproduction in bacteria or cell division  because that's just all reproduction stuff. the upside of cloning a person on the other hand is it can make the person have better eyesight and other physical enhancements.









                     Now I will explain what animals have been cloned. The animals that have been cloned are pigs, which a family of pigs had a member named Millie that have been cloned. The other animals that have been cloned are deer, monkeys, cows, rabbits, and other mammals. But the most well known animal that has been cloned is named Dolly the Sheep.





                    You all might be wondering about exactly what happened to Dolly once she was cloned. Dolly, like all cloned animals was put into a test tube. When she was first cloned she came from an adult cell. Part of the cells came an ewe( female sheep). Later on in her life she developed arthritis and was taken to the doctor to see if she does have arthritis. Then she died in only six years. The cloning process did prove that clones can age prematurely.








                   Cloning can bring some extinct animals back to life because the scientists can find DNA that is located in their bones. But scientists have to find DNA that has not been gone yet. Some animals that have been preserved in museums and animals preserved in ice like the wooly mammoth in the last ice age will be the perfect organisms to test out. Others can't be brought back to life.  

          
                                                                                             I'm back! roar.
  
                        Cloning is a huge conflict today in our society. But the advantages for cloning are like I said, it can make the human race stronger, have more muscle, become more intelligent, and other physical enhancements. Other advantages are that it can make other humans live longer. For example, if someone has a kidney failure, then the doctors can clone that organ and they can transplant that organ and the person will live. Cloning can also allow certain, helpful genes to be passed on one generation after another. The disadvantages are that cloning is inhumane. It can separate reproduction from human relationships. The technology today is not perfected yet so it can cause major problems in the process. The last disadvantage is that like I said, cloning can cause premature aging and can let clones be prone to diseases. In my opinion, they should stop cloning because they have no right to play god.    


Well, see ya later guys




Links:

What is cloning

Animal clones

Dolly

Extinct animals

cloning info

                     Mutations: a Natural Error

                   Hello and welcome back guys, today we are going to be talking about mutations and how it affects organisms. A quick review of what DNA is, DNA is an incredible molecule that stores all of the  genetic information and all of the body's functions. Now, what a gene is, is a basic unit of hereditary material that can be passed on to your children.






              That can be a problem however. Because genetic mutation can occur and it can cause a lot of problems. What genetic mutation is, is a perminent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. the reason why it happens is because there is an error in copying the bases.









            Luckily there is a worker that can fix that problem which is DNA repair. it's role is to repair some of the non-permanent changes to the problem.







           What's worse is that genetic mutations cause health problems. The three examples to what they caus eare disease, such as Huntington's disease , deformed appearance, such as the Elephant Man, and color blindness.


















There are some benefits for mutations as well. Evolution is the key benefit to mutation because it can develop adaptations and other things in your body like intelligence.





                 Also, mutations can occur when you aer exposed to ultraviolet radiation, or an error copying DNA during cell division.

Well, see ya later.




  Links:

Gene picture

Mutation

DNA repair picture

Mutation problems

Elephant Man

                  RNA: DNA's little sidekick

              To the Batmobile Robin! Just kidding, anyway, hey and welcome back to my geniune blog post.:) Today we are going to be talking about RNA and how it can help the body cells. First of all, what RNA( short for Ribonucleic acid) is is a very unique molecule whose roll is to act as the messenger for the organelles of the cell and DNA and controls the protein synthesis.

























RNA can be found anywhere. They can even live inside of viruses and bacteria and can be found inside every single living organisms. Like that insect for example.




Why RNA is extremely important is because it carries genetic information from DNA and transfers it to the ribosomes. The process known as protein synthesis is very vital. Once the RNA transfers the genetic information to the ribosomes, the ribosomes start creating proteins which are vital to our growth.  




Also, a ribosome is an organelle that is made out of RNA. The main function of ribosomes are when the mRNA comes in, the ribosomes translates mRNA to a sequence of amino acids. After that, they finally produce proteins.





There are three types of RNA. messenger RNA, translator RNA, and ribosome RNA. What the messenger RNA does is it leaves the nucleus and gives the ribosome the code or the recipe to make proteins.the tRNA helps translates the codes for the mRNA when they can't understand it. rRNA is just found in the ribosomes and is what the ribosomes are made out of.

Well see ya later.










Links:
Rna picture 

Example of animal

RNA

RNA graph

ribosomes

                    DNA: Everything about you

                    Hello and welcome back to a new blog post. Today we are going to talk more about DNA and how it can help us become unique and live the way we want to live. First off I will explain what DNA is , DNA( short for deoxyribonucleic acid), is hereditary material found all over your body inside of your cells usually in the nucleus. Some are in the mitochondria. The reason why DNA is important is because without it, we wouldn't live since it contains life's functions. Also, it makes us unique.


























Speaking of DNA, there are famous people that were pioneers of the DNA exploration. Rosalind Franklin was a scientist and a biologist that was studying in a college one day building a structure of the tobacco mosaic virus until suddenly, she travelled around the world telling people about her work that led to the model of the DNA molecule. James Watson, and Francis Crick once were gathering background research about x-ray crystallography, until one day, they discovered the molecule which is DNA and started making a humungous model for it.


                                                                    
                                                                                                                                







         Self explanatory to what the picture is above, DNA looks like a twisted ladder with base pairs as the bars of the ladder. The side of the ladder is made of sugar phosphate. The nitrogen bases of the DNA molecule is cytosine, adenine, guanine, and thymine. Adenine is always connected to the hydrogen bond of thymine and guanine is always connected to cytosine.





What happens to DNA as it is being replicated before mitosis is the same thing as the process of mitosis. Although, since the chromosomes are made out of DNA,  they allow the DNA to split into two RNA, and two halves of the chromosome can be split apart during mitosis.


The interesting thing about DNA is, it can be used to investigate crime scenes.How it is used to investigate crime scenes is, the investigators can read the code of the DNA to know who it was.




Well, see ya later.




Links:

DNA picture

What is DNA

Rosalind Franklin

Watson and Crick

Nitrogen bonds

replication of DNA

DNA investigation

     Mitosis: The Key to Growth and Development

                       Hey wassup and welcome back to another geniune science blog post. today I'm going to teach you about what mitosis is and what cell division is. First off, we will talk about what mitosis is as mentioned and how it relates to cell division.LINK


 Mitosis relates to cell division because it's when cells divide and reproduce. Cell division enables living things to grow and help replace injured or dead cells. When one cell divides a new cell is replicated. Mitosis is the same thing as that. Why mitosis is important is because it helps the body grow as you get older.





clump of cells under microscope





cell division






Mitosis is a process in which it contains the following steps:

• Interphase(the beginning): when a cell begins to divide, chromosomes begin to duplicate and daughter chromatids appear.
• Prophase: the nucleus prepares for cell division and the chromosomes start to divide and replicate.
• Metaphase: the two copies of each chromosome line up like a military march and spindles begin to attach to them
• Anaphase: the chromosomes are pulled by the spindle fibers to each end of the cell. The new nuclear membrane forms on both sister chromosomes
• Telophase: two groups of chromosomes are formed and the cells divide into two by allowing the cell membrane to split into two.

What happens in cytokinesis is that the cell membrane and the rest of the cell officially split into two cells.







mitosis



I know that it is a short blog post but really, I hope you liked it and I will see you on another geniune blog post.:)
 

  

      Nothing Sees Color Like the Mantis Shrimp

mantis shrimp's vision


Hello and welcome back to another geniune blog post. Today we are going to be talking about the mantis shrimp's vision and the ridiculous amount of photoreceptors it has.  
Most mammals have two types of photoreceptors which are cells located in your eyes that convert light into electrical signals which allow the brain to see certain colors. Mammals have three photoreceptors, reptiles have four photoreceptors and butterflies have six. But the mantis shrimp has twelve photoreceptors. more suprisingly, the mantis shrimp uses an amazing vision system. Though of course they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between light yellow to dark orange because of how many photoreceptors they have, but they can easily see basic colors. The interesting fact is, unlike humans which have to have the signals go to the brain, the mantis shrimp skips that step of their vision.




 

I personally felt pretty interested in that article. I learned what a photoreceptor is and how it affects an animal's vision. The mantis shrimp's vision is what amazed me the most and I think it's vision is what makes this amazing arthropod move away from predators more easily.