Basic Genetics- science

HEREDITY AND TRAITS:

What I learned about heredity is that human beings have two sets of 23 chromosomes, total would be 46, and when the parents have a child they both give their equal amount of share of chromosomes to that child, passing their genes. another thing I learned about heredity is that, most cells in our body has two sets of chromosomes, the sperm and egg only have one set, which is 23. When the sperm and egg join, they create one cell called the zingote, which has two sets of chromosomes, to the total of 46 chromosomes. I also learned about traits. There are three types of traits, Physical trait: which include hair and eye color, and the height. Behavioral trait: these include the way a person may act. And the last one, predisposition to a medical condition: this includes a risk of a disease you may get by a parent. But with these traits, non-genetic (environment) also influence our traits, also.

Science current event #2

In this article, it talks about how the Environmental Protection Agency decided to put more ethanol oil in gas tanks. They said that raising the 10 percent ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent was needed to meet requirements for more ethanol production, and that cars or trucks, from a 2001 model, was able to use the oil without any harm done to the vehicles. Shortly after, they stopped. The EPA is sure that the approval of the higher blend, will be made, but the decision of using higher blend, is disapproved by the automakers and others, which think that it will harm the cars. However, the Ethanol makers are sure that the higher blend is safe and have research to prove it. So, the "EPA, should immediately approve the ethanol blend," says Bob Dinneen, the group’s president.

My opinion about using Ethanol oil in cars or trucks is that let the EPA take its time and think everything thru, because if they make a decision in a hurry, they will never know what will happen, and if the research is wrong, they will be in really big trouble. So, the EPA, should prove the blend in more depth, and be more on the safer side, then being wrong and getting a big loss.

SOURCE: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1605773.html

science reflection.

In science, we are learning about Ecology. In Ecology I learned many new things about our environment, and we got to do fun activities. One activity that we did was dissecting an owl pellet. We dissected barn owl pellets and we had to put the bones inside the pellet together, in order to figure out what the owl ate. This helped us determine where the owl came from. As a class result, most of the groups had mice or rodents. I really enjoyed this experiment because; I liked to take the pellet apart and taking out all the bones. Also, the part where we had to put the bones together was very fun and challenging. One thing that was challenging in dissecting the owl pellet was that in my pellet, there were a lot of fragile bones, so my partner and I had to be careful not to chip them or break them.

What I learned about an owl pellet is that they can not digest bones, exoskeletons or fur, so they throw up a pellet. The process is called regurgitation. Once an owl pellet has eaten, it can not eat again until the pellet is removed from the owl, because the pellet blocks the digestive system. Also, owls have two stomachs. The first stomach is called the glandular stomach. The glandular stomach breaks down the owl’s food, since owls cannot break down themselves. The second stomach is the muscular stomach, or the gizzard. The gizzard is where the fur, bones and exoskeletons is placed and squeezes it together, to form an owl pellet. Owls eat their food whole which is another thing I learned in this activity.