True Facts

These videos are amazing and hilarious and I’m sharing because I love you all.

Whoops

So when I announced that I would be busy and unable to post much, I didn’t realize that I would end up with the several days of blog silence. Unfortunately, this may continue until I’m done house-/pet-sitting as that will keep me pretty busy. I should be able to post something tonight and definitely something next weekend. I swear I won’t disappear forever.

Wolf Bite

So! Between my online statistics class and petsitting, I will be a busy busy bee for the rest of April. But I shall do my best to post science! Even if it is the science of statistics.
For now, check out this melanistic wolf. Melanism is the result of an abundance of dark pigment (melanin) in the skin, hair, feathers, scales or fur. Dark colors can be very adaptive and help animals hide from predators or prey, but in certain environments they’re highly detrimental to survival. Plunk this pup in the arctic and see how much food he catches. Conversely, an albino animal does great in the arctic snow. Albinism is the absence of any pigment in the skin. This is often highly detrimental because you’ll stand out even in shadow. Certain animals have evolved to be semi-albino (their skin can produce melanin, it just won’t) in the winter and melanistic in the summer. A lot of the animals that do this are actually arctic animals. Since winter camouflage is so important to survival but retaining that through the summer is such a problem, they evolved to switch coats seasonally. People do this too, but it’s usually a wool to cotton kind of change.
Anyway, if you’re not an albino, even if you’re fish-belly pale like me, you have a little melanin in your skin. More is released from melanocytes (melanin producing cells in the skin) when you’re out in the sun. This prevents UV damage and results in a nice golden tan. Unless you’re me, then nothing happens except a growing conviction you’re descended from highly sun-resistant vampires.

My Little Solutes

Although it is a very basic concept, diffusion is one of the most important things you’ll learn in biology. Anything from steeping tea, to gas exchange, to electronegativity gradients involves some form of diffusion. To illustrate this concept, I will be taking a page out of my high school language arts teacher’s book and use plastic toys as models. Specifically, ponies.

For diffusion to occur, you need a solution contained within a semi-permeable barrier or an uncontained solute newly added to a solvent (eg. sugar dropped into tea). In this case, we have a concentrated pony solution contained by this semi-permeable black ribbon.

The solvent (air) exists on either side of the barrier, but the solute (pony) concentration is much higher on the left. As a result, the ponies diffuse across the barrier from the region of high concentration to the region of low concentration. Diffusion continues until the concentration on either side of the barrier is equal. When that occurs, we have equilibrium.

Here we started with ten ponies on one side and ended with five on each, but diffusion would still occur if we started with one, two or even four ponies on the right. Additionally, diffusion equilibrium just means that there is no net motion of solutes. The ponies are still moving, but their motion maintains equal solute concentrations on either side of the barrier. A good biological example of diffusion is the diffusion of oxygen from alveoli (tiiiny air pockets in lungs) to blood vessels, and carbon dioxide from blood vessels to the alveoli. Here the solvents on either side of the barrier are different, but the barrier is only permeable to the gases so it all works out.

Osmosis is a relative of diffusion. Like a close twin (think Siamese, not Lannister). Rather than describe the motion of solutes, osmosis describes the motion of water, a solvent. Let’s look at the ponies again.

Here were still have a membrane permeable to water (represented by dimes), but not ponies. So the water moves from a region of low solute concentration (and high water concentration) to a region of high solute concentration (and low water concentration). Just like with diffusion, only the solvent moves to equalize concentrations on either side of the barrier.

Now on both sides we have twice as much water as pony (2:1 ratio) and once more there is balance in the world.

Sources

Years of science learnaging.

All Aflutter

Heavens! There are forty of you! My readers are getting downright numerous.
 Thanks for reading you guys! Got a picture post coming up.

No Such Thing As Islands Part 2.

OK, have you checked the basement? No Housemate larvae? Good, those are a bitch to get rid of. Now, how ‘bout them mets? Seriously, do you watch sports? Cause sports are an excellent example of organism interaction: competition.

Though under more natural circumstances, organisms compete for more necessary things like mates, space, food or water, there is usually a winner and a loser. The winner gets the resources and the loser…doesn’t. Of course, sometimes the competition is less baseball and more…Risk. Everyone stabs everyone in the back and in the end it doesn’t matter if there’s a winner, cause no one’s happy. Assuming the table doesn’t get flipped over first. Of course in the wild, losers or losing ties can result in crippling injuries or even death.

But organismal interactions aren’t all death and table flipping. Some organisms are involved in mutually beneficial relationships, a practice called, wait for it, mutualism. Here everyone helps everyone and we all go home happy. Sort of. Really, there are some organisms that either happen to have complementary lifestyles or they’ve evolved to complement one another. Like clownfish and anemones; the little fish are immune to the stings of the anemone, which provide it with a home. In addition, the clownfish clean parasites off the anemone and lures bigger fish in for the anemone to catch. So maybe everyone is happy.

But sometimes, not everyone is happy, or particularly sad either. In commensalism, one benefits and the other doesn’t really give a shit. Like the birds and the trees. Unless the bird is a woodpecker, then the trees might get a little miffed.

I would say that that is all for interactions, but it isn’t. Some aren’t so easily classified. In the words of my marine bio prof, “Crabs ride jellyfish! Sometimes we have no idea.”

Mcmeins, Rand. 2009.

Sources

Yancey, Paul. “Biotic Factors.” Marine Biology. Whitman College. Walla Walla, WA. 5 4 2011. Lecture.

No Such Thing As Islands

They say, “No man is an island”, but really, NOTHING is an island. An island isn’t even an island (Take that, They). You can’t go a day without interacting with another organism, whether you like it or not. I mean, I guess if you found a totally sterile room and killed all your body’s natural microbiota, but that’s cost-prohibitive and a little pointless. Even though there are plenty of harmful organism interactions, like petitioning and workplace pen-stealing, there are many beneficial interactions as well as a few…questionable ones.

Predation is one interaction that comes most readily to mind. One organism consumes another, to the predator’s advantage and the prey’s disadvantage. Another reason not to live in the crazy sterile room: you would also get hungry without so much as a plant organism to eat. Yes, herbivores do predate in a sense. But herbivory does not necessitate eating an entire organism; most just eat part. For instance, a cow will only eat the blades (leaves) of grass, not the roots. So the plant lives, battered and torn, but alive. Truly, cows are the cruelest of creatures.

Truly.

Similar to predation, parasitism involves one organism benefitting from the interaction to the other’s detriment. However in this instance, the parasite may not directly consume its host and definitely does not want to kill its host (at least not before it can reproduce). It’s like That One Housemate you had in college. They’re way too loud way too late at night, they eat your snacks and give away the endings to your video games, they ruin your shit and are always (ALWAYS) two days late with rent, but they do the dishes and keep the bathroom clean so you don’t kick them out even though they’re slowly draining your life away. You’ll crack in the middle of your Intro to Econ midterm, but by that time The Housemate will have moved on the a new host. Unlike an actual parasite, they will probably not have reproduced prior to this. Probably.

Check the basement.

 

(More interactions tomorrow)

 

Sources

Yancey, Paul. “Biotic Factors.” Marine Biology. Whitman College. Walla Walla, WA. 5 4 2011. Lecture.

Photo credit me.

Oh, And By the Way…

…April Fool.

Research Spotlight: Pot Watching

No, not that kind of pot, the copper kind. Maybe stainless steel, whatever you boil your water in. Anyway, it doesn’t matter the material, according to new research from Whitman University’s chemistry department, you may still have trouble making your tea in the morning.

Graduate students in the physical chemistry lab have shown that water heated over a low flame does not boil under observation. The Dunnivant Lab, headed by Professor Herbert Dunnivant, has been studying the various physical (as in the atomical and subatomical properties) of water for the past five years. Previous publications involved the potential of water to become a superfluid. A superfluid is a liquid that, once cooled to near absolute zero, possesses no viscosity, these actually “escape” from unsealed vessels containing them due to their lack of intermolecular friction. More recently, the Dunnivant Lab turned their attentions to water in higher energy states. In particular, the effects of different factors such as altitude, relative humidity and ambient temperature on the ability of water to boil and the temperature at which it boils. All studies were conducted with repeat trials testing the effect strength of the different factors when the flame was strong, medium or low. Most notably, observation had a significant effect on boiling point when the flame was low. However, if the water was heated with a coiled heating element (like an electric stove), boiling point was unaffected. All fire releases a certain amount of energy as photons or light particles. If unobserved, these photons dissipate as heat. But when you look at a flame, your eyes absorb those photons and they do not dissipate. This will actually lower the heat of the flame, but this is usually negligible. However, weaker flames are greatly affected by the loss of photon energy. To the point that an observed flame is unable to heat water to it 212˚ F boiling point.

So even though it may seem more energy efficient to use a lower flame when boiling water for your morning cuppa, as long as you’re watching and waiting, it won’t be. You can even test this at home. As we speak I’m typing from the kitchen where I set a pot on about an hour and a half ago.

I’ve been keeping an eye on it since and it still has not boiled. A candy thermometer held over the flame reads 100˚ F.

EDIT: Dammit, I looked away.

Source

Dunnivant, Herbert, Tanaya Raso and Emma Neff-Mallon. 2013. “The Effects of External Factors on Rapid Vaporization of Water.” Journal of Physical Chemistry. 101: 62-102