Questions of Life

16. What is at the bottom of the ocean?
I am interested in this question because the ocean covers 2/3 of our planet yet we know so little about what is really underneath us. There could be solutions to our problems, like diseases and peak oil, just waiting below in the form of undiscovered plants and animals.
A current hypothesis would be if 95% of the ocean is unexplored, then there should be many types of organisms that are still unknown.



20 Questions
1. When will self driving cars be put into full effect?
2. Will humans be able to stay underwater longer?
3. Will paper become obsolete?
4. Can natural disasters be prevented entirely?
5. Will global warming kill us?
6. What happens when you die?
7. What question has never been asked?
8. Will it be possible to run out of original ideas?
9. Why have chickens and penguins evolved into not being able to fly?
10. What separates consciousness and computers?
11. Are all planets and stars spherical?
12. How do anti-gravity machines work?
13. Why can't we invent human wings?
14. Can we control machinery with our mind?
15. Is there a cure to the common cold?
16. Can cells be man made?
17. How do we separate carbohydrates into a pure form?
18. How does yeast rise?
19. Does the voice inside people's head have different languages?
20. Does Mars have life on it with the discovery of water?

Identifying Questions and Hyptheses

The study is about how pigeons learn to categorize words and photographs is similar to a human child.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150204184447.htm

The question of the study was how are pigeons learning methods connection to the learning process of children. The hypothesis stated that if pigeons have a similar learning process to children, then pigeons can categorize and learn words just as fast as a child. Pigeons have been known to be smarter than average birds, even though their brains are so small. They have better eyesight than humans and have a homing instinct that can work even when blindfolded. Pigeons have been trained by the US Coast Guard and carried messages during the World Wars. They can use the main process of word learning, which is mapping between stimuli and responses. Through experiments of tests of categorizing and naming natural and human made objects, the mechanism that we use to learn may be shared with intelligent animals.

Chapter 2 Reflection

Everything in nature is made up of elements and the smallest unit of matter is an atom. Atom have protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons orbiting outside. The atomic number is how many protons and neutrons there are and the atomic mass in the mass of the nucleus. The atomic mass is weighted because of the element's isotopes which have different amounts of neutrons. Atoms that bond together are called molecules and from there can bond through covalent bonds, ionic bonds, and hydrogen bonds. An ionic bond is where an atom gains or looses an electron. A covalent bond is where electrons are shared by atoms, Compounds are formed by one or more element and their properties change significantly.
Water is a very unique substance because it is polar, meaning that it has an unequal amount of charge on its sides of oxygen and hydrogen. An example of a covalent bond is water. When water bonds with itself is
makes hydrogen bonds, which is not as strong and has a slight attraction of positive to negative charged areas.Because it is polar, it is cohesive and can bond with other water molecules. It is also adhesive and can bond with other substances making it the best solute. Water is a neutral 7 on the pH scale. pH is the measurement of H+ ions in a solution.

Macromolecules are very big molecules and is categorized into 4 groups: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. Carbohydrates are either simple or complex sugars. It can be in the form of monosaccharides, disaccharides, or polysaccharides.
Lipids are often oils, waxes, and fats. Lipids are long chains of carbon and hydrogen called fatty acids. They can be saturated(single carbon bond) or unsaturated(double- carbon bond). Proteins are made up of amino acids. Proteins can be structural proteins or enzymes. Enzymes are catalysts that can speed up a chemical reaction.  If not in the right conditions, an enzyme can denature, causing it to unravel. Enzymes lower the activation energy in a reaction. Nucleic acids are made up of monomers called nucleotides, which is sugar, phosphate, and nitrogen. They stores DNA, which are the blueprints to making proteins. These are hereditary and are passed through generations.

Cheese Lab Conclusion

At the beginning we were asked the question “what are the optimal conditions and curdling agents for making cheese?” After collecting information and experimenting, we found that curds showed up the fastest and most prominently in the chymosin tube with the most heat and acid. We conclude this because both the acidic chymosin and hot chymosin both only took 5 minutes to curdle. This is the same time as the acidic and hot renin, but in our collection of information we learned that chymosin is simply a more concentrated form of renin and should be faster by default. This shows that the acidic and hot chymosin are the best because it takes the least amount of time to make cheese and less time means less energy to produce cheese.

While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to lack of attention to detail.

One of our errors was that we forgot to add chymosin and were already 2 minutes into incubation. This major error could have affected the time of formations of the curds because the milk would have already been warm, speeding up the curdling process. To prevent this, next time we should add everything at the same time and follow the directions more carefully. Another error would be the temperature of armpits during incubation. The article of clothing could affect the temperature and rate of curdling. If someone wears a jacket versus a t-shirt then the armpit temperatures would be different.This could have changed the timing of how fast the cheese curdled. In future experiments, I would recommend choosing people in the group with similar shirt materials and everyone who has a jacket should take it off to neutralize the temperatures.

This lab was done to demonstrate how different conditions can affect  enzymes and their chemical reactions.From this lab I learned how enzyme conditions can make a drastic difference on a reaction which helps me understand the concept of how we need to keep our bodies at a certain temperature and pH range. Based on my experience from this lab, I know how to suggest which conditions an enzyme works best in by evaluating where is it naturally found.

	Time to Curdle (minutes)
Curdling Agent:	Chymosin	Renin	Buttermilk	Milk (control)
Acid	5	5	5
Base	20
pH control	15	10
Cold
Hot	5	5
Temp. Control	10	10

Sweetness Lab Analysis

The question was asked as to how the structure of a carbohydrate affect its sweetness. After sampling the simplest form of different carbohydrates, our group found that the fewer the saccharides, the sweeter taste. This is because the sweetness is a side effect of of having a simple structure. Carbohydrates come in three forms: monosaccharide, disaccharide, and polysaccharide. The top three sweetest carbohydrates were fructose (monosaccharide), surcose (disaccharide), and glucose (monosaccharide). Starch and cellulose, the two polysaccharides that we tasted, were at the very bottom of the order of sweetness because both lacked equal amounts of flavor and were rated 0 out of 200 on the scale. Neither of the polysaccharides were the exact  oppisite of the sweetest monosaccharide, which rated a 200. This shows that a saccharide with one or two rings would be more likely to be sweet where as a polysaccharide would taste bitter.
      The structure could affect how it is used because the monosaccharides have only one ring so they are easy to break down or store as energy. Polysaccharides can have many rings so they are stonger and would be used as structures or walls in a cell. No, not all testers were given the same rating. One reason could be because each person has a different taste palette and are better at getting flavors. Another reason could be that a person has a different range of sweetness and has never had any sugar. This person would rate anything a tiny bit sweet very high and the same would be true for the opposite ranges. The last reason is that people have different tastes in foods and it is the same for sugar. The things that they like would be sweeter then the things they didn't like. Humans use taste buds on their tongue to detect flavor. Their sense of taste could be better or worse with different people. The brain interprets the sensation of the flavor on the tongue and then the brain decides what to distinguish the flavor as using past experiences. Everyone's brain works differently and are not the same.

Carbohydrate	Type of carbohydrate	Degree of Sweetness (Scale of 0-200)	Color	Texture	Other Observations
Sucrose	disaccharide	100	white	granular	powdered sugar
Glucose	monosaccharide	60	clear	fine	hawaiian bread
Fructose	monosaccharide	200	white	fine	candy
Galactose	monosaccharide	20	brown	chunk	melts in mouth
Maltose	disaccharide	40	white	clumpy	honey bunches of oats
Lactose	disaccharide	30	white	fine	milk
Starch	polysaccharide	0	white	powder	potato
Cellulose	polysaccharide	0	white	powder	bland

What is Biology? Collage