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

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***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