Saturday, February 20, 2010

Bolsa Chica Stewards Volunteers Plant over 300 plants on the Bolsa Chica Mesa

The Tree of Life Nursery could not deliver the plants out onto the mesa for us since the ground was so wet from all the rains, so we carried the plants out by hand or in wagons and wheelbarrows. The Bolsa Chica Stewards had wonderful weather this morning as we planted, and pulled weeds away from plants put in during the last couple of months. There was a big turn out from Cerritos College students. This was the first month we were able to use the walk-bridge instead of walking on Warner Ave. This made a huge difference in safety for our volunteers.








Friday, February 19, 2010

Tinkering with Ribosomes and Protein Production

National Public Radio had a story this week about making new kinds of proteins by altering the way the ribosomes read the DNA code. As you know, ribosomes understand mRNA in groups of three bases called codons. Listen to this short report about scientists who have discovered how to get ribosomes to recognize codons made of four bases.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

El Nino and Southern California

The unusual amount of stormy weather we've been having is being caused by a condition called El Nino. El Nino is caused by a change in ocean currents. Warm ocean water is moving further north than usual. This has impacts on weather, and impacts on plants and animals.

NOAA, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines El Nino this way, "El NiƱo is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather and climate around the globe."

NOAA predicts this El Nino will extend into the Spring in the US. That means we may see more storms which is great for native plants and we will probably have a good wildflower season in our deserts.
Primrose, Baja California

However, if El Nino persists, and warmer ocean temperatures stay with us through the spring and summer, there could be serious consequences for endangered wildlife.
The brown pelican was just removed from the endangered species list. The population has recovered, but pelicans in Washington State and Oregon are starving right now because the storms keep them from feeding, and their food is moving deeper into the oceans to escape the warmer water temperatures.

The California least tern is an endangered species that nests at Bolsa Chica, and beaches in Southern California. It feeds small fish such as anchovies to its chicks. In El Nino years fewer eggs are laid because the tern's food moves deeper, or north to cooler waters.

El Nino also affects the wildlife off the coast of Ecuador along the Galapagos Islands. During the 97-98 El Nino large numbers of Galapagos penguins died as did the marine iguanas. The marine iguanas eat algae and when the water warms, the algae dies.

Marine iguanas feed on algae, and during times of food shortages can actually re-absorb their own bones to stay alive.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Summer Bio 120 review for first exam

Here are some review questions for you. Some may be similar to the daily review questions, but all will help you while you prepare for the exam.

1. A cell must maintain an imbalance of sodium ions on either side of the membrane for it to function. What process would it most likely use of the ones we discussed in class?
2. How are polar and non polar covalent bonds different?
3. What is a hydrogen bond, and why are these bonds important to life?
4. Oxygen has 8 electrons, with 6 in the outermost energy leve. Will this atom react?
5. How are ions formed?
6. A solution with a pH of 5 is how many times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 7?
7. What determines if an atom with react with another?
8. A plant cell in a hypertonic solution will under go _____________
9. An animal cell in a hypotonic solution may undergo _____________
10. A Paramecium can survive in fresh water without bursting. Why?
11. How are the mitochondria and chloroplasts similar?
12. Why do we think the mitochondria was once an independent organism?
13. Describe the plasma membrane. Include how a lipid membrane functions in a watery environment.
14. What role do the proteins in the plasma membrane play?
15. How is active transport different from diffusion and osmosis, and faciliated diffusion?
16. How is dialysis different from osmosis?
17. What affect would a hypertonic solution have on a cell?
18.How is a hypothesis different from a theory?
19.What are five characteristics of living things?
20.How are prokaryotic cells different from eukaryotics cells?
21.What can cyanobacteria do that the bacteria living in your mouth do not do?
22.How are archeae different from the bacteria living on your skin?
23.Describe briefly what organelles would be involved in making a protein and exporting it from the cell.
24.Give an example of two cell organelles working together to accomplish a task.
25.What organelle is found on the ER?
26.What is the function of lysosomes?
27.Where is the nucleolus, and what is its function?
28.What are the functions of the Golgi bodies?

Chapter 3
1. What are the building blocks of carbohydrates?
2. What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fatty acid?
3. Why is the shape of an enzyme important to the function of the enzyme?
4. At what level of complexity do proteins usually become functional?
5. What makes up a nucleotide?
6. What bond forms between amino acids as they react to form proteins?
7. How is the function of carbohydrates different in plants and animals?
8. Which of the macromolecules we discussed stores energy in the most efficient way?
9. What is the most common steroid in the body?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Just a few more questions for Botany

While there are many edible plants, humans consume only a few. What are the three most common plants in the diet, and where does each come from?

What characterizes a plant?

Between 1952 and 1992, twenty percent of all tropical and semi-tropical plants species became extinct. Why should this concern us?

What is photosynthesis?

What is a primary producer?

What elements should be part of a valid experimental design?

Botany Review Questions

Here are a host of review questions for you to prepare for the first exam
1. What are the building blocks of carbohydrates?
2. What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fatty acid?
3. Why is the shape of an enzyme important to the function of the enzyme?
4. What are the major functions of carbohydrates in plant cells?
5. Which of the macromolecules we discussed stores energy in the most efficient way?
6. What are the building blocks or subunits of proteins?
7. What kind of fatty acids are usually made in plant cells?

Here's some more questions for you to answer !

1. How are polar and non polar covalent bonds different?
2. What is a hydrogen bond, and why are these bonds important to life?
3. Oxygen has 8 electrons, with 6 in the outermost energy leve. Will this atom react?
4. How are ions formed?
5. A solution with a pH of 5 is how many times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 7?
6. What determines if an atom with react with another?

Plant Cells, and how substances get into and out of cells
1. How are the mitochondria and chloroplasts similar?
2. Why do we think the mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent organisms?
3. Describe the plasma membrane. Include how a lipid membrane functions in a watery environment.
4. What role do the proteins in the plasma membrane play?
5. How is dialysis different from osmosis?
6. What affect would a 10% salt solution have on a plant cell?
7. Describe how a protein would get out of a plant cell.
8. What are the channels from one cell to another called?
9. How do plants use the central water vacuole?
10. are prokaryotic cells different from eukaryotics cells?
11.What can cyanobacteria do that the bacteria living in your mouth do not do?
12.What organelle is found on the ER?
13.Where is the nucleolus?
14What are the functions of the Golgi bodies?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A photosynthetic animal?


We have been discussing in class differences between plant and animal cells, and that one important difference between the two is that animals do not have chloroplasts. Well, that's true of most animals anyhow.

This beautiful green leafy organism is actually a sea slug. The sea slug Elysia chlorotica consumes chloroplasts when it eats the algae Vaucheria litorea. The slug feeds on the algae, but the chloroplasts are retained in the cells of the gut. The gut in this sea slug is highly branched and the chloroplasts give it the green color. The chloroplasts in the tissue of the animal's gut continue to function in the animals without an algal cell being present. The slug lives about 10 months and can survive off the food made by the chloroplasts.

The green color also provides great camouflage. While the animal has to eat an algae to get the chloroplasts, it is intriguing that the chloroplasts can continue to function without any algal cells present as genes in the nucleus of the algae are needed for photosynthesis to occur. So where are the genes to support photosynthesis? In the nucleus of the sea slug cells! The slug gets the genes from the algae, it does not have them until the animal feeds on the algae.

Interested in looking into this gene transfer further? Click here to read a paper by Mary E. Rumpho et al. on horizontal gene transfer between the algae and the slug.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Yellowstone Animals in Winter

Winter is a very hard time for the herbivores of Yellowstone. The grasses the grazing animals depend upon are dry, dormant and less nutritious than during the rest of the year. The other problem is that they may be buried under many inches, if not feet, of snow. So food is less available, and the weather is very cold,requiring the animals that stay active in the winter to turn their fat reserves into heat to stay warm.




This bison calf has a snowy nose because it has been pushing snow out of the way to find food. Bison do migrate to lower elevations in the winter, and also leave the park. This causes problems for them as they are hunted, and rounded up and often sent to slaughter since local ranchers are concerned they may transmit a disease called brucellosis to cattle. The irony of the situation is that the cattle gave the disease to the bison in the first place.

Bison, however, are well adapted for the cold Yellowstone winters. During the winter their coat of coarse hair can be as much as two inches thick. This provides excellent insulation against the cold.

The snow does not accumulate in such deep layers around the hot springs and other thermal features so the bison there do not have to move as much snow around as the ones who winter well away from the hot springs. There are dangers, however, of life around the hot springs. Bison are huge, heavy animals. They can weigh 2,000 pounds and sometimes as they walk around the thermal features they break through the thin crust of soil and fall into the hot springs and die.



I photographed this bighorn sheep ram in one of the lower elevation areas of the park. Migration to lower elevations where there is less snow is a solution to the problem of winter adopted by many of the herbivores in the park.



I was very surprised to see this squirrel active early in January. Most of the squirrels hibernate during the winter, but this one was not at all sleepy it seems. It scampered across the trail in front of me, ran up into this tree, paused for a few seconds and then was on to another tree.

These cow elk form large herds with their calves and younger elk. Here they are watching the landscape from a high point to better detect their main predator, wolves.


As winter takes its toll on elk, bison, deer and other animals in Yellowstone animals such as this coyote will benefit from feeding on the carcasses of winter killed animals. They also feed on mice and voles, animals that stay active under an insulating blanket of snow.

I was surprised by the number of birds I saw during my winter trip. Many of the ducks, and this beautiful trumpeter swan, forage in the Firehole River. Water flowing from geysers, and hot springs into the river keeps it flowing year round which provides habitat for a host of birds.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Winter in Yellowstone

I just got back from Yellowstone National Park. I took a class on wolves in winter though the Yellowstone Association and spent 3 days looking for and watching wolves. We saw at least 4 or 5 different packs of wolves. Most of the time we needed binoculars or spotting scopes to observe the wolves, but we did see one wolf that was on a hillside about 100 or so yards away. The wolf howled for 15 minutes or so before moving out of sight.



Elk are the primary prey of the wolves, and we saw large herds of cows and calves. The bull elk separate themselves from the cows and form bachelor herds. If it looks cold in this photo, it was. It was below zero when I took the photo.


Coyotes are killed by wolves, but they are often found not far from wolves while hunting for rodents. Mice and voles remain active through the winter under the snow. The snow forms an insulating blanket, and protects them from the wind. It also makes it hard for the coyotes to find them except by sound.


In the winter the hot springs create a lot of mist. The mist then condenses on the trees, coating them in an icy blanket.

The water from the thermal features in the park carve channels in the snow, creating beautiful patterns as the hot water flows away from the springs and geysers.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

evolution review

1. How do biologists define evolution?

2. What is a population?

3. What islands were important to Charles Darwin's thinking on evolution?

4. Biogeography is how living things are distributed around the world. How was Darwin surprised by the the biogeography he observed on his trip around the world?

5. While fossils support the theory of evolution, we can't rely on the fossil record ever being complete. Why?

6. How does the existence of fossils support the theory of evolution?

7. How did LaMarck explain inheritance?

8. What was the hypothesis of catastrophism?

9. While the theory of evolution does not indicate humans came from chimps, it does indicate a _________________________ between chimps and humans.

10. Upon what observations did Darwin base his theory of evolution by natural selection?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Review for 4th exam

1. What are two important factors in determining what type of Biome one will find in a given area?

2. What causes the seasons here in North America?

3. What are three strategies plants have developed to survive in the cold dry,and sometimes dark conditions of the Tundra?

4. What kind of adaptations have animals developed to survive in:
A. The tundra
B. The deserts


5. What is a rain shadow, and how does it account for different plant communities occurring at the same latitude, but on opposites sides of a mountain range?

6. In what biomes does fire play an important role, and what is this role?

7. How are coniferous forests different from deciduous forests?

Population Ecology and Interactions

1. Define resource partitioning and give an example of it.

2. How is a parasite different from a parasitoid?

3. How is a parasite different from a predator?

4. How are density dependent limiting factors different from density independent limiting factors? Give examples of each.

5. Define and give examples of the following: Mutualism, Commensalism, social parasite.

6. What are common strategies predators use to capture prey, and common defenses found in prey?

7. Draw a food web that could occur in your backyard or here at Cerritos. Include all the trophic levels we discussed in class.

8. Why are there fewer members of the upper trophic levels as compared with primary consumers or the producers?

9. What is carrying capacity?

Global Warming, Ozone loss, acid rain

1. What types of gases trap heat in the atmosphere? What are the sources of these gases?

2. What are some consequences of global warming?

3. What gases contribute to acid deposition?

4. What are the sources of the gases in question 3?

5. How has the problem of acid rain been reduced in the US?

6. What are the consequences of acid deposition?

7. What causes the seasonal loss of ozone in the antarctic?

8. Where is the ozone layer and why is it important?

9. What has been done to solve the problem of ozone loss?

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Here's some questions to make those brain cells churn out the ATP!

1. What are the differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration, and which is more efficient?

2. What are NAD+ and FAD used for?

3. What are the three steps in aerobic respiration, and where does each occur?

4. During which step of cellular respiration is the most ATP made?

5. During aerobic respiration, how many ATPs are made from one molecule of glucose in most cells?

6. What is the role of oxygen in aerobic respiration?

7. Describe how the ATP is made during chemiosmosis

8. What is produced by your muscle cells if there is not enough oxygen available at the end of glycolysis for aerobic respiration to continue?

9. Yeasts do a kind of anaerobic respiration called ____________, and produce ___________ and _________ along with 2 ATP

10. What are the important end products of the Citric Acid Cycle, and what happens to each of these products?



Here are the photosynthesis questions for review:

1. Which colors of light are most strongly absorbed by chlorophyll?
2. How is oxygen released during photosynthesis?
3. Why is water needed in photosynthesis?
4. What are the products of the light dependent reactions?
5. What is made in the light independent reactions?
6. What is the role of RUBP in photosynthesis?
7. What kind of plants use PEP and what advantage does it give them?
8. How are CAM plants different from others in the way they do photosynthesis?
9. What kind of organisms can do photosynthesis?
10. Where inside the chloroplast do the light dependent reactions happen?

More Review Questions about Plants:
1. Compare and contrast the movement of water and food in plants. Include in your answer what kinds of tissues and processes are involved in both.

2. Xylem is functional when dead at maturity while phloem is functional only when alive. Why?

3. In phloem, what is the role of the companion cell?

4. What is the difference between xylem in flowering plants and the xylem found in gymnosperms?

5. What is cohesion of water, and how is this different from adhesion?

6. What part of the root absorbs water?

7. What is the function of the anther in the flower?

8. Which of the following is where one would find ovules?
A. in an anther
B. in the ovary
C. in the stigma
D. in the style

9. Ovules are
A. eggs
B. spores that will become pollen
C. spores that will become eggs
D. immature seeds
E. pollen grains

10. In double fertilization the first sperm fertilizes the egg and the second
A. dies
B. is only used if the first sperm cell dies
C. fertilizes another egg
D. fertilizes a haploid endosperm mother cell to make diploid endosperm
E. fertilizes a diploid ( n+n) endosperm mother cell to make triploid endosperm

11. What is the function of fruit?

12. Microspores become
A. the embryo sac
B. the mature male gametophyte
C. pollen grains
D. all of the above
E. only B and C above

Saturday, October 17, 2009

340 Native Plants in the Ground and Watered Today!

Thanks to everyone who came out today!


We planted over 340 native plants including bladder pod, coastal sagebrush, buckwheat, and black sage today. We also saw some wildlife up close...

This gopher snake may have been the owner of the snake skin we found while working. We also saw lizards, and ground squirrels. The weather was really pleasant for working. It turned out to be cool, not as hot as I had thought it would be! Later in the morning a think layer of fog rolled in as well.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Mitosis and Meiosis Review

1. If a cell has 8 chromosomes and does mitosis, how many cells will be made, and how many chromosomes will each cell have?

2. If a cell has 8 chromosomes and does meiosis to make sperm cells, how many cells will be made, and how many chromosomes will each cell have?

3. Mitosis creates cells which are ________, while meiosis makes cells which are _____.

4. What are homologous chromosomes?

5. What are sister chromatids?

6. What is crossing over, and during which process, (mitosis or meiosis) does it occur?

DNA Review

Here are some review questions about DNA from the lecture today.

1. Describe the structure of the DNA molecule

2. If the sequence of bases on one stand of the molecule is AAC TGC CCG, what is the sequence on the complemetary strand?

3. During DNA replication, what enzyme breaks the hydrogen bonds between the base pairs, and what enzyme matches up nucleotides to the existing ones on the parent strand of DNA?

4. Why is this type of replication called Semi Conservative?

5. How is RNA different from DNA?

6. The production of messenger RNA from DNA is called ________, and this happens in the __________ of the cell.

7. The parts of the mRNA molecules which are edited out before RNA reaches the cytoplasm are called __________

8. mRNA gets a cap and a tail prior to being read by the ribosome. What is the function of the cap and tail?

9. If the DNA strand being copied had this sequence: ACT GGC ATA CTA what would the sequence of the mRNA be?

10. The function of transfer RNA is ?

11. What is the name of the enzyme that produces RNA from DNA?

12. If the sequence of DNA is the same in your body cells, why are all cells not the same?

13. The DNA in you, an earthworm, and a fungus is the same. So why are you a human and not an earthworm?

14. What is an anti-codon and where is it found?

15. The protein synthesis process that occurs at the ribosome is called _____________

16. What is a stop codon?

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Coastal Clean Up Day at Bolsa Chica


Thanks to all who came out today to water and weed out non-native plants. There were so many people we were done in record time!




Thursday, September 3, 2009

Review for 1st Exam Bio 120

Hi Folks,
These questions appear elsewhere on the blog, but I have brought them up in a current post so they are easy to find.

1. A cell must maintain an imbalance of sodium ions on either side of the membrane for it to function. What process would it most likely use of the ones we discussed in class?
2. How are polar and non polar covalent bonds different?
3. What is a hydrogen bond, and why are these bonds important to life?
4. Oxygen has 8 electrons, with 6 in the outermost energy leve. Will this atom react?
5. How are ions formed?
6. A solution with a pH of 5 is how many times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 7?
7. What determines if an atom with react with another?
8. A plant cell in a hypertonic solution will under go _____________
9. An animal cell in a hypotonic solution may undergo _____________
10. A Paramecium can survive in fresh water without bursting. Why?
11. How are the mitochondria and chloroplasts similar?
12. Why do we think the mitochondria was once an independent organism?
13. Describe the plasma membrane. Include how a lipid membrane functions in a watery environment.
14. What role do the proteins in the plasma membrane play?
15. How is active transport different from diffusion and osmosis, and faciliated diffusion?
16. How is dialysis different from osmosis?
17. What affect would a hypertonic solution have on a cell?
18.How is a hypothesis different from a theory?
19.What are five characteristics of living things?
20.How are prokaryotic cells different from eukaryotics cells?
21.What can cyanobacteria do that the bacteria living in your mouth do not do?
22.How are archebacteria different from the bacteria living on your skin?
23.Describe briefly what organelles would be involved in making a protein and exporting it from the cell.
24.Give an example of two cell organelles working together to accomplish a task.
25.What organelle is found on the ER?
26.What is the function of lysosomes?
27.Where is the nucleolus, and what is its function?
28.What are the functions of the Golgi bodies?

Chapter 3
1. What are the building blocks of carbohydrates?
2. What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fatty acid?
3. Why is the shape of an enzyme important to the function of the enzyme?
4. At what level of complexity do proteins usually become functional?
5. What makes up a nucleotide?
6. What bond forms between amino acids as they react to form proteins?
7. How is the function of carbohydrates different in plants and animals?
8. What is the name of the carbohydrate human cells use to store glucose?
9. Which of the macromolecules we discussed stores energy in the most efficient way?
10. What is the most common steroid in the body?

Sunday, August 16, 2009

New type of Malaria vaccine in the works

Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Walter Reed, and the Institute of Primate Research in Kenya are developing an innovative vaccine against malaria. Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite (Genus Plasmodium) that invades the liver and red blood cells. The disease kills about one million people world wide each year and there are over 245 million people infected world wide.

The parasite spends part of its life cycle in humans, and part of its life in mosquitoes, and is spread from human to human via a mosquito bite from the female Anopheles mosquito.

Rather than preventing the transmission of the parasite from mosquito to humans, this vaccine prevents the transmission from human back to the mosquito. The vaccine won't help someone who is already infected, but could stop the spread of the disease through a community if the parasite can't get from infected humans back into the mosquito.

The researchers used genetically modified bacteria to make proteins found on the parasite during different stages of its sexual development, and then injected those into mice. The mice made antibodies against these proteins. The binding of the antibodies to the proteins on the parasite, stopped the parasite from reproducing.

After the mice received a booster shot transmission was reduced from mice to mosquitos by 98%.


You can read the entire article here

Saturday, May 30, 2009

One of my weaknesses

I just love Cnidarians-the entire Phylum. I saw this video on PZ Meyer's Pharyngula blog and had to share this with you. It was shot at the fabulous Monterey Bay Aquarium by Eugenia Loli-Queru

Drifters of the deep from Eugenia Loli-Queru on Vimeo.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Polar Bears and Global Warming

Want to hear a polar bear breathing? Take a listen here.

National Public Radio had a story this morning about the polar bear monitoring that scientists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service are conducting. Take a listen to hear about the trouble these giant bears are having as the sea ice they depend on melts during the summer.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The H1N1 ( Swine flu) virus

The H1N1 virus. Photo from the CDC


Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Want to know about the flu?

Want to know how flu gets named, its ecology, how it evolves, or is trasmitted?
Check the fluwiki here.

Swine flu cases continue to rise

The CDC now reports 91 confirmed cases of swine flu in the US including 14 in California. Most likely, cases will continue to rise over the next few days and weeks.

The World Health Organization has raised raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5 which means the organization thinks a pandemic is imminent. You can take a look at the WHO's definitions of the different levels here

Remember, frequent hand washing and the use of hand sanitizers will help reduce your chances of getting sick.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Swine flu update

The CDC is now reporting 64 cases of the swine flu in the US.

Here are recommendations from the CDC's website

What You Can Do to Stay Healthy


There are everyday actions people can take to stay healthy.

  • Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
  • Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
  • Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.

Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

  • Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people.
  • If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Swine flu update

Here are the most recent numbers of laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu in the US as reported on the CDCs website


California 7 cases
Kansas 2 cases
New York City 28 cases
Ohio 1 case
Texas 2 cases
TOTAL COUNT 40 cases

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Swine flu

Why is this influenza virus called the swine flu? Its called swine flu because one of the proteins on the surface of the virus is most similar to those found on viruses that affect pigs. However this one is infecting people, not pigs. You can not get this flu from eating pork. It is spread from one person to another. The symptoms include high fever, aches, coughing and congestion.

There are anti-viral drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza that can combat this virus, and they are most effective if you start treatment early. So if you develop symptoms you need to get treated as soon as possible, and avoid contact with other people.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), twenty cases have been reported in the US including people from California, New York, and Ohio. Only one person was sick enough to be hospitalized. Canada has also recently reported a case. No one in the US has died of the disease as of yet, but over 80 people in Mexico have died.

One of the best ways to avoid infection is to frequently wash your hands. If you are sick, don't go to work, or come to school!

You have also probably heard the word "pandemic" in the news reports about this virus. The word pandemic comes from the Greek words for "all people", and is a disease that spreads across a large area, or even the world.

There are alot of blogs, and news organizations covering this right now. Here are a few links you can check for more information.

Here is the CDC's website on swine flu. It will be updated at least once a day.

Tara Smith is a Professor of Epidemiology and blogs about causes and evolution of diseases on her blog Aetiology

The editors of Effect Measure are public health scientists.

Friday, April 24, 2009

National Parks

PBS is broadcasting a new series this fall about our National Parks. Where have you been?

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Surprise , Surprise , Surprise


The New York Times is reporting that a group called the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group that spent millions of dollars advertising that global warming was not was not "well understood", ignored their own scientists. Why? Because the scientists told them the truth-what they didn't want to hear. So while this group,which was made up of oil,coal,and car companies, was involved in advertisement and lobbying to convince folks their emissions were not to blame for global warming, their scientists were telling them just the opposite.

Here's a quote from the article taken from an internal report written by their scientists:
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

At the same time the group was sponsoring advertisements that stated "the role of greenhouse gases in climate change was not well understood." Riiiight....

This reminds me of the executives of the tobacco industry claiming they didn't know nicotine was addictive....

Take a look at the article here

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

New Discovery in Seal Evolution


photo by Alex Tirabasso/Canadian Museum of Natural History

A newly describe fossil from the arctic sheds new light on seal evolution. The fossilized remains of Pujilla darwini indicate the animal walked on land,and had webbed feet, but not flippers. The early seal is estimated to be 23 million years old, and is the oldest fossil found yet of seal ancestors.

The species name honors Charles Darwin who predicted that marine mammals would be found to have evolved from land animals. It also appears that this early seal ancestor lived in fresh water, which is something Darwin had also predicted.


Read more about this discovery here

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Bolsa Chica Project- Video 3

Earth Day at Bolsa Chica

April 18th was a great day for community involvement, and a great day at Bolsa Chica.
Jim Sugra has done yet another great video about Bolsa Chica. Take a look. Are you in the video?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Earth Day Celebration at Bolsa Chica

Wow! We had over 300 volunteers out at Bolsa Chica today to help plant native plants, and participate in a beach clean up.



Thanks so much to everyone who helped at Bolsa Chica this planting season. Believe it or not, we put in 1,000 native plants today alone! It was a warm sunny day, just beautiful!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History Washington D.C.

Spring break usually finds me camping somewhere in southern Utah, miles away from any large city. Not this year however, I took my grand-daughter to Washington D.C. Washington besides the obvious political attractions has the Smithsonian Museums. My favorite ( surprise, surprise) is the museum of Natural History, (although the Air and Space Museum is really cool too.)

Wow! What a Museum! T-Rex! These dinosaurs were big animals! Although I have read recently a hypothesis that suggests they were more scavengers than hunters. The hypothesis is they were big and scary looking to frighten the actual hunters away from the kills, so T-Rex could eat the kills of the other animals in peace.


ooohhhh... from a big dinosaur to a little one.... Archaeopteryx is a transitional form between reptiles and birds. Do birds have bones in their tails? Nope. Do they have teeth in jaws? Nope. Do they have claws on their wings? Nope. (Well one species still does, but only as chicks>) So they why is this fossil a bird? Look at the impression of the feathers. Birds have feathers. This fossil also has a "wishbone" just like chickens and turkeys.


This lovely fossil is of an Ammonite. Ammonites are related to modern day Mollusks like the nautilus, squid and octopus. They were a very diverse group of animals during the Cretaceous Period 144-65 million years ago. They are about 10,000 different species that have been identified.


So what's this lumpy looking fossil? It's one of the first trees! This is a fossil of a plant called Eospermatopteris. These trees grew to a height of about 40 feet. This early tree is about 345 million years old.




This tree is about 100 years old. The cherry trees near the Jefferson Memorial were in full bloom, and just beautiful when we first arrived. It rained a couple days later and the trees lost a lot of their blossoms.

Cherry trees near the Washington Monument

Trees in full bloom around the tidal basin



Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Review Exam 3

Here's some questions to make those brain cells churn out the ATP!

1. What are the differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration, and which is more efficient?

2. What are NAD+ and FAD used for?

3. What are the three steps in aerobic respiration, and where does each occur?

4. During which setop of cellular respiration is the most ATP made?

5. During aerobic respiration, how many ATPs are made from one molecule of glucose in most cells?

6. What is the role of oxygen in aerobic respiration?

7. Describe how the ATP is made during chemiosmosis

8. What is produced by your muscle cells if there is not enough oxygen available at the end of glycolysis for aerobic respiration to continue?
9. Yeasts do a kind of anaerobic respiration called ____________, and produce ___________ and _________ along with 2 ATP

10. What are the important end products of the Citric Acid Cycle, and what happens to each of these products?



Here are the photosynthesis questions for review:

1. Which colors of light are most strongly absorbed by chlorophyll?
2. How is oxygen released during photosynthesis?
3. Why is water needed in photosynthesis?
4. What are the products of the light dependent reactions?
5. What is made in the light independent reactions?
6. What is the role of RUBP in photosynthesis?
7. What kind of plants use PEP and what advantage does it give them?
8. How are CAM plants different from others in the way they do photosynthesis?
9. What kind of organisms can do photosynthesis?
10. Where inside the cholorplast do the light dependent reactions happen?

More Review Questions about Plants:
1. Compare and contrast the movement of water and food in plants. Include in your answer what kinds of tissues and processes are involved in both.

2. Xylem is functional when dead at maturity while phloem is functional only when alive. Why?

3. In phloem, what is the role of the companion cell?

4. What is the difference between xylem in flowering plants and the xylem found in gymnosperms?

5. What is cohesion of water, and how is this different from adhesion?

6. What part of the root absorbs water?

7. What is the function of the anther in the flower?

8. Which of the following is where one would find ovules?
A. in an anther
B. in the ovary
C. in the stigma
D. in the style

9. Ovules are
A. eggs
B. spores that will become pollen
C. spores that will become eggs
D. immature seeds
E. pollen grains

10. In double fertilization the first sperm fertilizes the egg and the second
A. dies
B. is only used if the first sperm cell dies
C. fertilizes another egg
D. fertilizes a haploid endosperm mother cell to make diploid endosperm
E. fertilizes a diploid ( n+n) endosperm mother cell to make triploid endosperm

11. What is the function of fruit?

12. Microspores become
A. the embryo sac
B. the mature male gametophyte
C. pollen grains
D. all of the above
E. only B and C above

Friday, March 13, 2009

Bolsa Chica and the heartbreak of ORA-83

Bolsa Chica is home to an archeological site of National significance. Part of it was destroyed by the development of the housing at on the Bolsa Chica Mesa, but part of it can still be saved. Please watch the video to find out more...