Friday, august 28th, 2009

This class we went over lipids, more in retail, the kinds of lipids, what exactly hdl and ldl are, cholesterol, if its good or bad for you, phospholipids, hydrophilic and hydrophobic, and others.

Before we get into that, lets see the random facts. New people should take a look at these!!!

• Juanpiii has the participation list this week. AAAAH! Make sure he hears your participation if you want those lines next to your name.

• Ramon wants to know about the number of warnings we have before we get a groupal report. It stands at two, so if we get a third class interruption we have a report.
• Lovely.

Heres what new people need to know:

• So first things first, this is a summary that we have to do about EVERY class we have. It’s like a permanent homework so you don’t get bored. It has to be turned in at 11:59 of the day before the next class. If you get the most summaries up, you get a bonus on the exam, so make sure you do a good job on these. Even the smallest mistakes count. Oh and very important, send the summary in the message text box; do not send it as an attached file. Homework IS sent as an attached file.

• You must comment at least twice a week on the blog. It is on Facebook, so to get to comment you must add the teacher. Here’s the link for his profile: www.facebook.com/arieluvm. Once you have added him he will send you a group invite. No he’s not a stalker; it’s an invitation for the group where you will put up your comments. I put down how to use the blog on my first summary, but it didn’t get picked out, so here’s how to do it again:

• When you first log on to the blog, (http://prepauvm.blogspot.com/) go to the bottom of the screen. Find the picture of a cell, which has Biology I on top of it. Click on the “read more” icon on the bottom of the picture. After that click on the picture of the cell, and that’ll take you to where all of the summaries are.

• Homework must be sent to him via email, so knowing his email address would be very useful: ariel.uvm@gmail.com. Oh and it has to be turned in at 11:59 of the day before the next class, just like the summary. You can send this late, all the way to the night before the next class, but it will be half off. The format of how to send the homework is on the green sheet we got on the beginning of the semester, but I’m sure new people don’t have that, so here’s a link so you can print it out, just download it and print:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nyyjt4mtxw3

• Ah. Everyone has that moment when they just can’t hold it anymore. So the teacher was nice enough to let us use the bathroom once per unit. It won’t be free, of course, there needs to be a catch. The catch is that it’ll cost you 2 participation points, so make sure you have those before you even try running out.

You can get everything else you need to know on the green sheet.

Now, for the class summary.

So reminder, what is a lipid?

They’re commonly referred to as fatty acids, they really are, just fat. It’s what happens when you don’t use your carbs, they get stored up and saved on for later. Most of us don’t ever get around to using them though, haha. They are insoluble in water, just like potatoes, and the teacher gave us 3 categories:

• Sterols
• Phospholipids
• Triglycerides

They are non polar solvents, and water is, explaining why they don’t mix in water.
They have 2 sides, one hydrophobic and one hydrophilic. Phobic, meaning that it doesn’t like water, so it repels it, philic, meaning that it does like water. So why don’t they mix with water, if they have a side that really likes water? Just remember the example we saw in class




They form little circles that keep the hydrophilic side with the water and the hydrophobic side inside te circle, safe.

Anyway, more into detail with triglycerides:

• They have fatty acids, three of them, which is why they are called triglycerides.
• They have 1 glycerol (alcohol)
• The fatty acids can be saturated and unsaturated.
• Sorry to confuse you with the alcohol thing, but alcohol, actually comes from your sugar.

Cholesterol

• HDL (high density lipoproteins)
• LDL (low density lipoprotein)
• VLDL (very low density lipoprotein)

NONE OF THESE ARE BAD OR GOOD. It just depends on the amount you have on your system.

Phospholipids: I had a hard time understanding how these make up a cell membrane, and exactly what a saturated and unsaturated looks like. So take a look here. Helped me out, hope it helps you.

http://www.johnkyrk.com/

click on the 4th on the list (cell membranes)

ill make sure to look for more links like these to help everyone out.
Hope this helped ya out. :]

Fernando Lopez Almada

Monday, August 24th, 2009

This class we discussed biomolecules, specifically, carbohydrates. Woohoo. Before I get into detail about what we went over, some of things that don’t have to do with the topic that much:

· Stefanie/Stephanie, I’m sorry but I’m not sure which it is (don’t kill me) has the participation list this week. AAAH!!! So, if you want those lines next to your name, make sure she hears you participated.

· Diana didn’t know we use Facebook for the blog. Talking of which, there is a topic up now, so if I were you I’d get right on that and comment.

· We also went over the winners of the summaries so far, which are Ariela and Eduardo. I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job with these so that’s all I need. Anyway, the differences that end up making the teacher choosing a certain summary are minimal, spelling, links, and other small things. So watch out for those.

· And thank you Johanna for clarifying for us. Making random comments complementing the teacher or about how awesome the summary idea is does not earn you participation points. :]

Anyway back to summarizing about the topic.

So first of all, what is a biomolecule?

· They are chains made mainly of carbon and hydrogen

· ENORMOUS

· Needed for life

· Produced by living organisms

· They make up living organisms

So what are the different kinds of biomolecules?

There are only 4 groups:

· Lipids

· Proteins

· Carbohydrates

· Nucleic acids

Now we go ahead and focus on a specific biomolecule group, Carbohydrates.

So what are they?

1. A biomolecule. Duh.

2. Chain of mainly carbon, hydrogen, and some oxygen

3. Also known as sugars, starch

4. Saccharides

These carbohydrates are divided in your groups. Again

1. Mono, meaning made up of a single ring

2. Di, meaning two

3. Oligo, meaning 4

4. Poly, meaning, lots.

A few terms having to do with sugars and carbohydrates:

So, carb loading, what’s that?

It’s when athletes load up on a lot of carbs, I think the term explains it well enough. The do this to stock up on all the energy they will need for their event

Sugar rush? Wooooohoooooooaaarfs;jlasjdflkjasd lfjasldkjf;aljdf dlkfj asl;dkjf as;ldkjf asldkjf!!!!!

I think you get the idea. Its when a person, not so common our age anymore, more in kids, is loaded with sugar, so they get what they call really hyper.

Sugar crash? Iiiitsssssss when yoouuu are aaaaaaallll out of sugarrrrrr.

Ssooooo you dontttt evennnn fffeeell like moooooooving.

Um, it’s when you have consumed all of the sugar you had in you, happens right after the hyperness attack of the sugar rush. Also described as a sugar hangover. Because, not that I would know of course, but they “feel the same”, only it’s with candy instead of alcohol.

Which brings me to the video we saw in class. Iron man, big competition for athletes. So we see two athletes that have completely run out of carbs to keep them going, so, they can barely keep going. It looked like it wasn’t really fun. They ended up crawling instead of running, so that gives you an idea of how bad it was. =/

Carbohydrate literally means carbon water. Sugar sounds so much yummier than carbon water

Anyway, there are two big groups of sugars

· Simple sugars:

1. Dissolve in water

2. Simplest example is the sugar on your tabletop

· Complex sugars:

1. Chains of sugar, called glucose

2. An example of this is, a potato.

3. As seen in the video, clearly they don’t dissolve in water.

So what’s the problem with México.

Why are so many people overweight?

Well, simple, almost everything we eat is high up on carbs. Tortillas, sweet bread, you name it. Before it wasn’t that bad because we had lots of walking and working with our bodies to burn it out. But now, with cars, sit-for-hours jobs, we don’t burn them out. So they get stocked up and become lipids. (We get fat)

Also, for girls, and some boys, the WORSE diet you can get is one that completely cuts you out of a food group. Maybe reducing the amount you take of a certain group is fine, but completely cutting it out, is just stupid.

Vegetarians don’t count for that. They don’t eat meat, so they don’t consume enough protein for their system, so they take pills or other supplements to make up for it.

Last but not least is Diabetes Mellitus

Very common thing to hear now a days

So what is it?

Well there are 2 types, and it’s very important you can tell them apart

· Type 1: it’s a pancreas malfunction, in which it does not make enough insulin. What is insulin? It’s the hormone that tells the cell to open up and let sugar in. so no insulin means no cell opening, which means high blood sugar levels. Too much sugar in your blood can be dangerous; it can lead to a heart attack, blindness and other horrible things. That’s if it’s high, but if its low, you can get dizziness, feelings of too much heat or cold. If it’s really low you can lose consciousness. This is the type people take insulin shots for.

· Type 2: the insulin receptors on the cell don’t work. So it’s pretty much like your cell is so used to the insulin that it doesn’t respond as well as it used to. So on this case there is plenty of insulin; only the cell won’t open up because it pretty much ignores the insulin.

Diabetes is a genetic disease. Anyone can have it, so if you have a relative who has it you should get checked out. It’s a good idea to do exercise and keep those glucose levels balanced. So even if you don’t have it, don’t think you’ll get it, or just don’t care, exercise. Its good for you and you’ll prevent getting diabetes.

Fernando Lopez Almada

Friday, august 21st

On this class we spoke about lot of thing, we saw some meanings like:

Biology: it’s the science that study life, like organism and their reproduction, evolution and physiology.

Science: its like the knowledge, and a procedure for getting results. An important complement of science is the scientific method. This consists in:

• Observation
• Question
• Hypothesis
• Experimentation
• Demonstration
• Theory or law

We saw two videos about the scientific method:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcavPAFiG14 This one explains how the scientific method is applied when someone discovered something, and wanted to make valid the theory and be published on magazines or books.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQUqV0_PTc This one also explain the scientific method but using as an example a scene of Monty Python's Holy Grail movie.

Technology: The creation of artifacts and systems to meet people's needs.

The difference between science and technology, is that technology is the application of science.

Evolution: how an organism change

Gene theory: how we change cause of the genes.

Cell theory: defines what is or not alive, and it has 3 postulates

1. All living organisms are composed of cells.
2. Every needed for life happens inside cells.
3. Every cell comes from another existing cell.

Virus: an infectious agent, that is made with dna covered by proteins.

Eduardo Lopez Ramade

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Today was the first day of school. In our first Biology I class we went through the rules, schedules, evaluation, etc.
First, we discussed the evaluation that is 50% exams, 25% homework, 5% participation, 5% glossary, 5% Facebook group and 10% blog.
Let me explain this. Like always, the exams will count 50% and that will not change.
The homework and assignments will have a value of 25% and we have to send the homework to the teacher’s e-mail before 12:00 am of the day we have class with him. Late works will only be permitted one class after. That is before 12:00 am of the second class with him and late works will count only the half of the points it normally would count.
Then, the participations will be managed by Juan Manuel. He will have a list of our names and he will be adding us a participation every time we a port something useful to the class.
Also, there is a Facebook group that the teacher is going to invite us to once we add him as a friend in Facebook. It will be like last semester’s forum. We will discuss topics and every student must comment at least two times per subject. We are going to be able to post links, videos, photos and comment in each other’s comments. It will be our coffeehouse and the person that comments and is more aware of the group will get a reward. It will not be as big as last semester’s but we don’t know yet what. We will have to be creative and in the group we will also be able to download files like the green paper that teacher gave us today.
On the day of the exam we will have to turn in a glossary about the words or topics we saw on that unit.
We will have Biology I twice a week and we will have to write a summary about every day we have class. It should be about the topics we saw on the two hours of class. We have to send the summary to the teacher’s e-mail and he will choose the best summary of each day and post it in a blog. http://prepauvm.blogspot.com The person that has more posts about his or her summaries will get a reward bigger that the reward of the Facebook group.
Other rules or notes are that this class will be on Mondays and Fridays from 9:50 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Also, the teacher said that this semester our classes will be more relaxed and more theory than last semester. We will have two warnings before a report and we have NO PERMISIONS to go out. The teacher is going to try to allow us 3 permissions per semester and we will manage them. If we enter the class before the teacher has finished taking attendance, we are allowed to stand by him and tell him to check us when he finishes. But if we enter after he has said the last name, we will have an absence.
In a totally different topic, we talked about a myth story that the teacher got by e-mail. It was about a boy that got AIDs because he ate a hamburger that had blood of someone with AIDs. We analyzed deeply this story and took out all the facts about AIDs so that next time that we hear something about AIDs we will know what myth is and what is not. We learned that first we have to get HIV to develop AIDs. Someone can be HIV positive without having any disease or bad symptoms. If you get a bad flu and don’t have good defenses to fight it then you might get AIDs. We also learned that AIDs doesn’t survive in water and it only stays alive for like 5 seconds outside the human body. It only survives in certain temperatures.
We discussed about how most chains in e-mail are fame of myth, that even news in TV are wrong. We have to think about the information we get and analyze it and research with what we know is true and what is approved with what is not.

Ariela Romo de la Ree