Friday march 12th, 2010

Last class, we talked about spongebob, pokèmon. a bug's life and biology stuff 8)

Mollusca..!
All molusks have like a soft-body that is like jelly-like meat. They have a shell in a specific part of their body.
-There are 7 groups, we're talking about 3 right now...
Gastropods...
In gastropods we can find animals like the snails. They have one single "foot" that they use to move. Regularly, gastropods are herbivores. They have a "radula" that is like a small tongue used to "scrape" rocks to get herbs and get feed.

Bivalva
Bivalva are the animals that have two shells, like clams. They have a muscle that gets both shells, and it can either
close it or open. They have a foot, that is what we see when we open them. Then use it to move or flee from danger.
They have a special "tissue" that they use as a net, or a filter, in which food gets stuck in there, so the bivalve eats.
Shelder and Clampearl can throw water through their foot. I dont know how can they do it, but is SUPER effective versus
the fire types and not -very effecive versus ICE types... ;B

Cephalopoda
These ones have an inner shell. They have their skin, and under the skin they have their shell. For example, the nautilus, the squid. -The squid has its shell in its "forehead" they, under the forehea they have its foot, and then, they have tentacles, used to swim or grab stuff..
The nautilus is seen as the one of the "most" dangerous hunters of the animals, because inside its shell, it has chambers, in which they contain air, and the nautilus can control the pressure inside them, so they can either go up, and down, and they are good preparing traps for preys.



Arthropods
This "phyllum" is the most nomerous in all the eukarya domain.
-We find that they share many characteristics.
*Exoskeleton
*Segmented
*jointed appendages "legs"

SPIDERS AND FRIENDS...
They are called "chelicerates"
-This because the shape of their mouths.
They have 4 pairs of legs and they divide into 2 segments.
Many examples of these ones are spiders, mites, scorpions, Horseshoe crabs
I like the wolf spider

Crustaceans and bff's
they are called decapoda
-They have a carapace, that this is that in a specific part of its "exoskeleton" they have a VERY thick part, like in
lobsters, crabs, etc.
They have a head, 2 antenae and 3 segments, "head, cephalotorax, thorax"

INSECTS AND FELLAS..
these animals hano no branched appendages.
They have jaws and 2 antenae.
*the centipede
*milipede
*Insects..
One of the processes of them is the "molting" is like their "skins"gets too old, and inside of them, they create a new "insect" so when it is time, they can come "out" of their old skin and be the same-other insect..
cool :D

Victor Correa

Monday March 8th, 2010

This class we talked about a particularily interesting kind of animalia, and they were:

· Sponges

· Cnidaria

· Platyhelmynths

· Nematode

· Annelida

Sponges (porifera)

These are nothing like the sponges you see on TV. These are completely still and unmoving, in fact they have calcium in them, so that tells you just how still they are.you may ask yourself, how do they feed then? Well its very simple. They clean water. Water rushes through them and as it does the sponge…does what a sponge does. Absorbs the nutrients it needs.

That’s just one kind of sponge though. The other kind uses flagella. 0.0 This one is not so still. It uses the flagella and spins it in order to make a whirlpool, and force or actually suck the water in.

Cnidaria (jellyfish-anemone)

These have 2 layers of skin, the outside one is used for protection, and the inner one is used for digestion.

Now you may know them as “aguamalas” but those are just one of the different species of jellyfish. Cool thing about these is that they can reproduce both sexually and asexually, one generation does it sexually and the next asexually. This is called alternance of generations. Now about the burns of these,they are caused by “nematocistos”, which are like stingers activated by a nerve when it is stimulated. Even when it dies, the trap set up will still work. Which is cool.

Not much to say about anemone. They are the house of clownfish (nemo), but actually have toxins and other stuff to trap little fish. They are stuck on the ground but can move their tentacles in order to trap its prey.

Platyhelmynths (flat worms)

These are the first to have a cephalic region, which is considered a head, a group of nerve cells.

They also have bilateral symmetry, which means they have a left and a right and a top and bottom…although they poop through their mouth.

They are turbellarians, meaning they eat microalgae

These also happen to have blood

And finally, with these come the famous tapeworms (cestoda)

Nematoda (roundworms)

These are nonsegmented worms

They are parasytic, meaning they need a host to get their nutrients from and live, they also do elephantiasis, which means they get inside of you to get what they need. These have a separate mouth and anus, which is a relief for them I imagine.

Annelida (leeches)

The last but not least are the annelid, which are divided in three different groups:

Oigochaceae, hirudinea and polychaetae

Oigocahetae consists of earth worms

Hirunidea, my preferred kind, consist of leeches…woot!, which are obviously parasitic. They can only live in fresh water though

And finally come polychaetae, which are made up of lots of chaetae, duh. These are rings, used to make the worm advance and move by contracting and expanding over and over again.

Fernando Lopez Almada

Monday March 1st, 2010

Today's class contained a lot of topics:

~ Antibiotics ~

- What's an antibiotic?

It's a substance that kills bacteria.

*Diseases caused by bacteria are called infections.

Antibiotics work by destroying the junction between two molecules which compose the bacteria's cell wall.

Those two molecules are called:

1. NAM

2. NAG

Antibiotics are made for an specific type of bacteria. Wide Spectrum antibiotic is a special antibiotic which destroys every bacteria it makes contact with; it's used when doctors are not sure of what bacterium caused the infection.

~ Eukarya Domain ~

- Animalia

- Plantae

- Fungi

- Protista: Any eukaryote that is not an animal, plant or fungus; in other words, those organisms which don't fit in any of the other categories.

The Protista kingdom is composed by three main phylums & their own classes:

1. Algae

a) Red

b) Green

c) Brown

d) Yellow

e) Dinoflagellates

2. Protozoans

a) Sarcodias

b) Flagellates

c) Cilliates

d) Sporozoans

3. Molds

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***Algae***

[ Dinoflagellates ]

- Two flagella

- Cell wall

- One flagellum covers the cell wall, while the other one works as propellant

- Most of them live in the sea, and they're food for other organisms

- Some of them are bioluminescent

- They cause the red tide

- Red tide happens when they reproduce excessively; & the sea gets a red-ish color

[ Red ]

- Most of them are marine

- They're in tropical zones

- Multicellular

- Red color (duh)

- They absorb light & it filters to the deepest zones of the sea

- They contain chlorophyll

- They're food for heterotrophs

- They form calcium depots

- They contribute to form reefs

[ Green ]

- It has that color because of a & b chlorophyll

- They live in fresh water

- They produce oxygen

- It can either be unicellular or multicellular

[ Brown ]

- They're found on the sea & seashores

- They're used to make cheese, cream & cosmetics

[ Yellow ]

- They're also known as golden algae

- They have that color because of a pigment called fucoxanthin

- They contribute to photosynthesis

***Protozoans***

[ Flagellates ]

- One or many flagella

- They live in freshwater, salt water & wet soil

- They can live in symbiosis

- Some of them are parasites

- They're from the group "Filum sarcomastigophora"

[ Sarcodias ]

- Similar to amoeba

- They live in freshwater & salt water

- For feeding they surround the microorganism & form a vacuole

- They're known for having beautiful shapes

[ Cilliates ]

- They're the most complex because of their structure

- They move because of cilia

- There's the presence of a frame & a micronucleus

- The frame controls the cell's functions & the micronucleus its reproduction

- They have a contractile vacuole to eliminate water excess

[ Sporozoans ]

- They're infectious spores

- They're transmitted from one organism to another

Jorge Dominguez

Viernes 26 de febrero del 2010

We saw the last of virus by knowing of a few diseases caused by them. Along with the type of virus, symptoms, and type of nucleic acid the virus had.

Also, we saw of vaccines. A way of protections against viral diseases, it basically involves applying the virus itself so that the immunological system can prepare itself and be capable of protecting the body from future attacks. There are three types of vaccines. One involves just letting in pieces of the virus. Other involves inserting an inactive virus. And the last, involves inserting a virus, that though it can still act, it's been weakened to minimize problems.

Finished with that, we moved into bacteria. Bacteria compose two of the three domains of classified organisms: Eubacteria and Archaeobacteria. The Archaeobacteria are composed of the primitive bacteria, who had been living longer than the rest of the organisms. This is due to being able to survive in the extreme conditions the Earth was all those years ago. Mainly, there are the thermophyles, who live in very hot places; acydophyles, who live in very acid places; methanogenic, who live in places with lack of oxygen; and halophyles, who live in very salty places. Fortunetly, since they can't adapt to conditions not as extreme, it's guaranteed they can't really do much outside of them, which means that if they were the source of deseases, they can't affect other living organisms since or else they die before having the chance. So, archaeobacteria are harmless, or rather, aren't able to harm us in any way if they could.

The Eubacteria are more recent, and also the most common kind of bacteria. These can cause diseases on other living organisms. There are many of these. The structure of a bacteria is, being a cell basically, that of DNA covered in citoplasm, and also contains ribosomes. Like plant cells, they have a cell wall, and for movement they contain flagellum to do the task. One fact of bacteria is that if they ever find themselves low on resoursces, they would cut their flagellum, cover themselves with an extra outer cover called Endospore, and basically, go into 'hibernate', so to speak. They won't 'wake up' until conditions and resources return to normal. How long they can last like this is not entirely sure. But, there has been bacteria like this found in the ancient Egyptian pyramids that were able to 'revive'. Which means they are capable of lasting for a few thousand years at most.

Last, we saw a few differences between the two groups. First, eurobacteria have clycerol and fatty acids in the membrane. Their wall have proteins and carbs, while their RNA is unique in itself. On the other hand, archaeobacteria have glycerol and hydrocarbons in the membrane, glycoproteins in their wall, and their RNA is eukaryote-like.

Juan Manuel Aguirre