20 big questions

One of the articles that interested me, was question about whether or not there were more universes. This was interesting, because if there are more universes out there, they might no abide by the same law of physics as us, and there may be advanced beings in them, and they might even be watching us. One hypothesis in this field is that If scientist are observing unexplained "dark flow" then other universes may exist.

My 20 big Questions:

1. What happens after death?
2. Are we the only planet with life on it?
3. Will humans ever solve their population problems?
4. Will humans ever solve energy problems?
5. How long will humans survive?
6. How did life start?
7. How did the big bang start?
8. Are humans just another being's experiment?
9. Do people have free will, or are their action pre-decided? 
10. Will humans ever live forever?
11. Will there ever be a "better" evolution of humans?
12. How does the human brain work?
13. Is there a god?
14. What will happen if a temperature reaches absolute zero?
15. Will any other animals evolve the way humans did?
16. Will time travel ever exist?
17. What will happen when the sun dies?
18. Will there ever be a nuclear was?
19. What would lift be life after a nuclear war?
20. Will computers ever reach a limit on how fast they can be?

Identifying Questions and Hypotheses

This study was about how a specific set of brain connections correspond to positive behavior traits. The scientists were asking if a specific set of brain connections correspond to behavioral traits, and if so, in which ways. They came up with the hypothesis that if a person has as connectome on one end of the scale, then the will show characteristics that are viewed as positive. The surveyed peoples brains with an MRI, and they viewed the connections in their brains (connectome), and found correlations.

Unit 2 Reflection

This unit, ¨Miniature Biology¨ was about the molecules that make up life. It focused on four main macro-molecules, Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

Carbohydrates, are ring and chains of rings. Their main function is energy storage. Single ring molecules are called monosaccharides, and generally taste sweet. Carbohydrates that are made up of two rings are called disaccharides. Finally polysaccharides are chains of at least three rings.

Lipids are long chains of carbon and hydrogen. Lipids are also used for energy storage. Phospholipid has hydrophyllic head, and a hydrophobic head, which allows it create a double layer in water.

Proteins are long chains of amino acids. They have many functions including supporting cell, helping cell communicate, and speeding up chemical reaction. One specific type of protein is called an enzyme, and its function is to speed up chemical reactions by lowering activation energy. It only works in a specific pH and temperature. If it goes outside of that it will denature.

Nucleic acids are a chain of neucleotide arranged into a double helix. Their primary function is to pass down information, but ATP(Adenine tri-phosphate) is used for energy transfer.

We also learned about different types of molecular bonds. One type is an ionic bond, which is when an electron gets transferred, and covalent bonds, which is when an electron is shared. There is also a hydrogen bond, which is what creates cohesion,adhesion,ad capillary action.

Cheese lab

	Time to curdle (minutes)
Curdling Agent	Chymosin	rennin	buttermilk	milk(control)
Acid	5	5
Base
pH control	15	15
Hot	5	10
Cold
Temp. Control	15	10
Avg. of controls	15	12.5

In this we asked which conditions were ideal for making cheese with enzymes. We found that the most effective conditions for making cheese were by using the curdling agent chymosin, which works best in a hot, acidic environment. Two of the curdling agents, buttermilk, and naturally occurring bacteria in milk, did not curdle in in any conditions. The other two curdling agents, rennin, and chymosin, did not curdle in basic, or cold temperatures, and curdled in under 5 minutes to curdle in an acidic environment, and under 10 minutes to curdle in a hot environment, which proves that a hot, acidic environment is ideal for curdling cheese with enzymes. Also, Chymosin is a better curdling agent than rennin because, while they both curdled in 5 minutes in an acidic environment, chymosin curdled 5 minutes faster that rennin in a hot environment. This conclusion makes sense because, chymosin is rennin that in made by fungi, and rennin is naturally found in a cow’s stomach, which is a warm, and acidic environment.

While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there may have been a few errors. One error, was that to simulate normal conditions, we put the test tube with the enzyme, and milk under our armpits, and not everybody's armpits are the same temperature. This error could have affected our data by having one curdling agent do better than another because it was in a warmer armpit. Another error was that we checked the test tubes every 5 minutes, which is very imprecise. This led to multiple tests having the same result, even though they might have been different by up to 4 minutes. To fix these errors, we should put the test tubes in lukewarm water, instead of our armpits, and checked at one minute intervals.

The purpose of this lab was the strengthen our understanding of enzymes, This lab demonstrates, a lot of stuff that we have learned in class. It show what enzymes do, and also what denaturing is, and the factors that lead to denaturation. This lab could be applied to a cheese making business that wants to find out what enzymes and and condition are most effective for cheese production.

Sweetness lab

In this lab, we asked how the structure of carbohydrates affects their taste. To test this, we the pure forms of various carbohydrates, and compared their taste. We found that monosaccharides were the sweetest carbohydrates, followed by disaccharides, which were slightly sweet, finally polysaccharides were not sweet at all. To measure this we use sucrose as a baseline of 100, and created a scale from 0 to 200, with 0 being not sweet at all, and 200 being super sweet. Our monosaccharides had an average of 140, while the disaccharides had an average of about 50, and the polysaccharides all ranked at zero. This help prove that monosaccharides are the sweetest, followed by disaccharides, and then polysaccharides. Also the highest ranked carbohydrate was Fructose, with a rank of 200, which supports our claim that monosaccharides are the sweetest carbohydrate.

This lead to my inference that the structure of carbohydrates affects the way cells use them. The simpler monosaccharides could be for when the cell needs a quick burst of energy because they are a simple ring, and can be broken down quickly. The slightly more complex disaccharides, could be for when the energy is need over a longer period of time because they are made of two rings, and will take longer to break down. Finally the polysaccharides could be used for long term energy storage because it is made up of a long chain of rings, and would take the longest to break down.

There were slight differences in the ratings different tasters gave. This could be due to many factors. One is that everybody is different, and has different opinions on how things taste. Also Different tasters spent different amounts of time between tasting different sample. Finally, Both tasters didn't take exactly the same amount of each sample.

You sense of taste is determined by your taste buds, which are scattered throughout your mouth. These taste buds each specialize in a certain basic taste(sweet, sour, bitter, etc...). Each person has a different amount of each type of taste bud in their mouth. This leads to people with more "sweet" taste buds to perceive a food to be more sweet that someone with less "sweet" taste buds would.

Carbohydrate	Type of carbohydrate	Degree of sweetness	Color	Texture	Other observations
Fructose	Monosaccharide	200	Clear Crystals	Grainy	Super sweet
Glucose	Monosaccharide	150	Clear Crystals	Grainy	sweet
Galactose	Monosaccharide	75	white	Powdery	pretty sweet
Sucrose	Disaccharide	100	white	Grainy	slightly sweet
Maltose	Disaccharide	50	tan	Hard and chunky	bitter
Lactose	Disaccharide	15	white	Powdery	slightly sweet
Starch	Polysaccharide	0	white	Powdery	tastes like flour
Cellulose	Polysaccharide	0	white	Powdery	stays on tongue

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