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!

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?

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

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.

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.

The H1N1 ( Swine flu) virus

The H1N1 virus. Photo from the CDC

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.

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.

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

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.

National Parks

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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

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...