Enzyme LAB

     In our lab with enzymes, we tested the pressure of each test tube.  We test three different types, we first tested the concentration, then we tested temperature, last we test the Ph. Water and Peroxide was put in each test tube so when we got to the Ph part it would change with Buffer, so it would mess up the whole lab.  Yeast was put in to the test tubes to produce enzymes.
      As I noticed on the concentration part the more drops of yeast you put in the test tube the faster the reaction would occur, the more pressure it had.  In the temperature we tested hot, cold and room.  The enzymes wouldn't produce much pressure in the cold test tube.  Enzymes don't like the cold. Its kinda like when your sick.  The hotter the test tube got the more enzymes being produced, enzymes like the temperature to be hotter than cold.  The last testing we did was the Ph of each testing.  The pink buffer had a Ph of 4, the yellow had a Ph of 7, and the blue buffer had a Ph of 10.  In our results the high the Ph the higher about of pressure and enzymes.
    This lab was very interesting.  We tested three different types of environments that enzymes would react in.  Each lab was very different.  We tested concentration, the temperature, and the Ph.  Each result was different as you can tell from the three graphs below.

This is our temperature graph, as you can tell enzymes work better when its hotter.

This is our Ph level one, the high the ph the faster enzymes work.  The ph 4 and ph 7 are very close to each other.  But the ph 10 was way higher than ph 4 and ph 7.

This was the test we did with just peroxide and water.  We noticed the more yeast you put the more enzymes would react.

Plant Cell Structure

Plants are very important to life.  Some questions people ask are what make up the structure of a cell.  There are many parts that make up a cell structure. Now we are going to break down the parts of a cell structure.

The Cell Wall-  The plant cell wall is a remarkable structure.  It provides the the most significant difference between plant cells and other eukaryotic cells.  This is the outside of the plants structure. It protects the stuff inside of the cell. The cell wall is made up of three layers, which is showed in the picture to the left.






Cell Membrane-  What makes the membrane so special is the presence of different proteins on the surface, that are used for various functions such as cell surface receptors, enzymes, antigens, and transporters.  The cell membrane is very important to the cell because it lets things in and out of the cell.  If bad stuff tries to enter the cell its suppose to not let it in.




Cytoplasm-  Cytoplasm is basically the substance that fills the cell. It is a jelly-like material that is eighty percent water and usually clear in color. It is more like a  thick gel than a watery substance, but it mixes when shaken or stirred. Cytoplasm, which can also be referred to as cytosol, means cell substance.  Cytoplasm is the type of food for the cell.





This is how cytoplasm looks like in real life, it looks more thick than watery.











                                                 

                                                         Vacuole-   The vacuole is used only in plant cells.  It is responsible for maintaining the shape and structure of the cell.  Plant cells don't increase in size by expanding the cytoplasm, rather they increase the size of their vacuoles.  The vacuole is a large vesicle which is also used to store nutrients, metabolites, and waste products.

Nucleus-  The nucleus is the center part of the cell.  It kinda works like the brain.  The nucleus has the DNA which gives each cell a different characteristic. The nucleus is the most obvious organelle in any eukaryotic cell.

Chloroplast- Chloroplasts are specialized organelles found in all higher plant cells.  These organelles contain the plant cell's chlorophyll, which gives the plant the green color.  They have a double membrane. 

Mitochondria-  Mitochondria provides the energy a cell needs to move divide, move, produce secretory, they are the power centers of the cell.

Ribosomes-  Ribosomes are organelles that consist RNA and DNA proteins. They are responsible for assembling of the cell.  There are millions of ribosomes in a plant cell.

Golgi Body-   The Golgi Body is a membrane- bound structure with a simple single membrane.  They are important because they package macromolecules for transport some where else in a cell.  These are very important. 

The parts above show most of the parts in a cell. When you put all these structures together and more you get a complete cell structure.

Microscope Skills

    After working with a microscope I understand how to use one.  Microscope are used to zoom in or see things that aren't visible to the human eye.  The microscope shows detailed characteristics. When I was looking in the microscope i examined my hair, saliva, pond water, and soap water.  The pond water was really interesting because there were little protists moving around in the water.  There is no way I could of seen them with out a microscope.  It was very cool.  Soap water looked really cool too.  It should up like in black and white under a microscope.  Microscopes are used in many labs all around the world.  They are used to help see things that are not visible to the human eye, now I know why they are important and I know how to work one.  The picture below shows all the parts of the microscope.

Diffusion and Osmosis Lab

     In our labs we saw diffusion and osmosis occur. Diffusion can occur in any substances like dye, iodine, and many other liquid and gas substances.  Diffusion is when a substance spreads or moves around an area.       For example if you spray and bottle of perfume it takes awhile for the person across the room to smell  the substance, the person next to you will smell it fast. The reason why the person can smell the perfume has to do with diffusion and the substance moving and spreading out.  On the other hand osmosis is a type of diffusion.  The only difference is that osmosis only occurs in water.
      We put four substance in Dialysis Tubing and measured the weight of each tube in grams.  We measured each tube before we put it in the water, after the tube has been in the water for an hour, and the next day.  We got three different times of measurements.  The four substances we put in the Dialysis Tubes were sodium acetate, antacid tablets, corn syrup, and sodium bicarbonate.  In the graph below it shows the weight of each bag and we observed if diffusion occurred.  We set up this experiment as a group.  We measured each tube in grams.  Diffusion and osmosis occurred in each testing tube.  The graph below shows are results from our lab.

Cell Membrane Structure

     Cells are composed of two distinctive environments.  The two distinctive environments are Hydrophilic aqueous cytoplasm and hydrophobic lipid membranes.  There are three members of the lipids family that i have learned, the three members are fats, phospholipids, and steroids.

     The structure of lipids are made up of 16 to 18 carbons.  Lipids are hydrophobic, that means that they don't like water.  Lipids do many things in organisms, they are components of wax, pigments, steroid hormones, and cell membranes.  Phospholipids are very important function in cell membranes.  Fats are synthesized from two different classes of molecules.  Fatty acids are 16 to 22 carbons long.  Fatty acids can be two types: saturated or unsaturated.  Saturated fatty acids have no carbon-carbon double bond, which is more healthier than unsaturated fatty acids.  Unsaturated fatty acids are sticky and lumpy, which crowd you body and their not healthy.  "Kinks"  are what the carbon-carbon double bonds are called.  The double carbon bonds are not to healthy for you.
    Phospholipids contain only two fatty acids attached to a glycerol head.  The phosphate is the head of the phospholipids.  3 carbons make up a glycerol.  One carbon is attached to the phosphate.  The other two carbons are attached to fatty acids.  The  fatty acids attached to the other two carbon could be saturated fatty acids or unsaturated fatty acids.  These are the simples functions of a cell membrane structure.
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Carbohydrates: FAILED TEST =(

I failed my carbohydrate test, but after my concept map I understood them more.  Monosaccharides are simple sugar bonds.  For example Glucose is a monosaccharide.  If there are six carbon atoms joined together its called a hexose. Two monosaccharides joined together are disaccharides.  When glucose and fructose (two monosaccharides) are joined together it forms a disaccharide called sucrose or table sugar.  Table sugar is used in many food products today.  Polysaccharides are polymers of monosaccharides. This means that they are part of each other  Polysaccharides are short-term energy storage molecules.  Examples of Polysaccharides are starches and glycogen. Plants store glucose as starch.  Animals store glucose as glycogen.  Cellulose is also a Polysaccharide, which is in plants.  Chitin is a polysaccharide in animals and fungi.  So as you can tell i did very horrible on my test but after i did my concept map i really understood carbohydrates better.

This table sugar is an example of a disaccharide.
Monosaccharide + Monosaccharide = Disaccharide.(table sugar)













This is a structure of a monosaccharide.
The picture below is Glucose, which is a monosaccharide.

Carbohydrate Concept Map

Macromolecules in cells questions

1.  What is a macromolecule?
A macromolecule refers to a class of usually of large molecules that are important to biologically.  These are very important to cells and important to organisms.  There are four types of macromolecules; proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids

2. What is a monomer?
A monomer is any or several small molecular structures that maybe chemically bonded together to form long multipart polymer molecules. For example amino acids are natural monomers.

3.  What is a polymer?
A polymer is a large molecule made up of similar or identical subunits called monomers.

4. List the four types of macromolecules.
Proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids.

5. What are the types of reactions that macromolecules are shown to undergo?
The types of reactions that macromolecules are shown to undergo are condensation and hydrolysis reactions.

6.Describe how monomers are joined together.
Monomers are joined together by gaining other molecules and those molecules attach to each other and then the monomers are joined together. Condensation forms these monomers.

7.Describe how polymers are broken down.
Polymers are broken down by a process called hydrolysis.

8. What is the specific name for the bond between simple sugar monomers?
The name of the bond is glycosidic linkages.

9. Which kind of enzyme joins monomers together?
Protein is the enzyme that joins the monomers together.

10.Describe how you had to arrange the sugar monomers in order to build a polysaccharide.
You have to put the corners together so the oxygens match up and they build a polysaccharide.

11. Which building blocks of macromolecules are not used in building carbohydrates?
Fatty acids and Amino acids

12.Why is sugar stored as glycogen in the human body?
Its stored in the human body because if you ever need a boost of energy it will be there, its bad if its floating around in you that is called diabetes.

13. Why are plant food essential to animal life?
They are important because animals get energy from plants.

14. Describe how starch is digested by animals.
Animals digested starch by saliva in there mouth breaks in down, then it goes through many other digestive systems.

I got all this information from here.

Antacid Experiment

In the antacid experiment we measured the PH levels of vinegar, Rolaids, the ghetto brand,  Tums, and Liquid antacid.  The first thing my group tested was the vinegar.  The PH level was 3.  Rolaids had a pretty high PH level with 7.  After we tested the Rolaids we tested the ghetto brand of tums.  Its kind of weird because the ghetto brand had a PH level with 5 and Tums had a PH level between 6 and 7.  The last thing we tested was a liquid antacid.  The PH level was 7.  I noticed that when we mix vinegar with the antacid they are around the middle of the PH level scale. Every antacid was mixed with vinegar they balance each other out.  This experiment was very cool and u never knew what was going to happen with the mixtures of the antacid and the vinegar.  The graph below shows our data of this experiment.  The vinegar had a very low ph level.  This graph shows which antacid had a higher ph level.  The ghetto brand had a way lower ph level then the name brands rolaids and tums.  Rolaids had .5 ph level higher than tums.  Truly this is what concludes the graph below.

Water Experiment

 Yesterday we did a water experiment to try and understand the properties of water.  First of all we put water on a penny.  We had to count and see how many drops of water would cover the surface of the penny before spilling off.  We also tried it with alcohol.  Next we put a drop of water on a piece of wax paper and observed the shape and the way it appeared.  After we were looking at it we tried and split the water drop in half.  It was really hard to split it into two's.  Then we tried to make water move on a string.  This was really frustrating but it was fun.  Our teacher also should us a lot of cool videos on water and how  it moves.  Water has a really strong bond.  Us humans need water to survive, our body is made up of like 70 percent of water.  Water has a very strong bond.  Mr. Ludwig gave us examples of how a tree gets water.  The water is like a bond that goes straight up and goes through the tree.  The way the water stays together is cohesion thats were the water molecules stick together.  The water molecules are attached to the tree cells thats called adhesion.  We also learned what hydrogen bonds are.  Thats when the hydrogen is attracted to electrons and they are joined together.  This is what we all did and learned in the water experiment we did yesterday.

STANDARD #4

      Through out the first web site, the scientific method is very important to scientists. Hypothesis are what you come up with.  A hypothesis is what you are testing.  A hypothesis can be correct or incorrect, its kinda like your own guess.  Makes sure before you come up with a hypothesis you come up with, or ask a question about what your experiment is about.  After you come up with your hypothesis you preform an experiment.  An experiment is the testing you do to see if your hypothesis is correct or not.  After you perform an experiment you collect all of the data.  The data is very important because its the results of your experiment.   Last, after you collect data, you form a conclusion.  The conclusion should explain everything you did in the experiment and the data you collect.  This is what i have learned on the scientific method.
      The independent and dependent variables are important.  In the experiment the ECB is the independent because its the only variable thats affects the outcome of the experiment.  The independent variable should always be the variable thats is different from each other.   The dependent variable in the experiment is how much the corn grows.  So the height of the corn depends on how many bugs are around the corn.  The independent variable is the number of bugs there are, and the dependent variable is  how high the corn crops grow. A control experiment is an experiment that the observations looked over. In the corn experiment if there was two jars with the same type of corn that would be the control.  In a controlled experiment there are usually more than one trial tested.  A placebo is a liquid, powered, or a pill that has no effect on the outcome of the experiment.  In some trials of an experiment the group control will receive a placebo instead of something that effects it or changes the results.  In a double blind  trial the person who receives the item doesn't know what is going to happen, the person who gives the item aways doesn't know what will happen.  For example if the doctor gives a person a pill, either of them won't know what will happen, so its known as a double blind trial.  This is what i have learned so far about standard four.

TANNERS BLOG

i finally got my blog going.... it took for ever. I really enjoy biology. I really like how every thing we do is BLOGS!