Disclaimer: mistakes in my science are entirely my own fault, but also yours for believing a website written by a science student.

13th May 09

Toxoplasma Gondii

(from toothpaste for dinner.com)

T. gondi is a protozoan parasite. It lives definitively in cats but can be carried by all known mammals (this includes you and I). The disease is said to be toxoplasmosis and it it usually minor, but it can cause diseases of unborn babies, espeically in farm animals which can lead to abortion or still born babies. This is a major cause of animal loss in farming.

How can you get it? Well, you can get it from your cat (which is why kissing your pets is so disgusting, but you can also get it when your cat sleeps near your head, or you don't wash your hands etc). You can also get it from cured meats, or uncooked meats, or by not washing fruit and veg properly before eating them. Although we can obtain Toxoplasmosis, T. gondii only fulfills its entire reproductive life cycle inside a cat. This is why it is the definitive host.

7th April 09

DNA made a bit more complicated (See yesterday)

So there are three bases in a codon. The third base is not bonded as tightly as the other two. You could think about it this way: if you have three monkeys, the first two are holding a hand and a foot but the third monkey is only holding hands with the last one. This means that it can wobble about a bit on its bond.

As you can see as he is wobbling he can stretch further. if you imagine now that there are another row of, say, lady monkeys, the bonding partners, below holding on the feet of the monkeys. As he is wobbling he can stretch further. He might end up with the wrong partner, thus changing the relationship. This is what happens in DNA- the wrong partners can pair through the wobble hypothesis . The wobble hypothesis can lead to mutations (changes) is the meaning of the DNA. If there are changes to the basic units which code for the amino acids, then the amino acid polymer will have changed and consequentially the protein will be different. The protein might be incompatible- useless, scrapped by the body. It may also be harmful (cancerous).

6th April 09

DNA made as simple but as complex as possible

DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, is a long linear polymer of nucleotides (a nitrogenous base, a sugar, and a phosphate group) which form bonds resulting in a double helix.

Nucleotides are ingenious. There are only four different ones in DNA depending on which nitrogenous base is present. The four bases are Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Thymine (T) and Cytosine (C).

A,G,T and C form the letters of the genetic code depending on what order they are in. A can only bond with G and T can only bond with C. It requires 3 base pairs to code for an amino-acid (the building block of a protein), and these are called codons. A codon of TGG will code for the amino-acid Tryptophan. The combination of ATG will code for methionine.

Just one codon (any combination of any three A, T, C or G nucleotides) can code for a huge 64 amino acids combinations. But there are only 20 amino acids. Why is this?

The DNA code is said to be degenerate or redundant. This does not mean that is is out of work. It means that two combinations might code for the same amino acid, for example GCT, GCC, GCA and GCG all code for Alanine. The code is therefore degenerate but not ambiguous. As seen from this example, it is often the case that the first to bases are the same and the third one that differs.

There are two strands of DNA, like a zip, which have nucleotides (like the teeth of the zip) holding the strands together through hydrogen bonds.

8th March 09

Three Phases of Love... Phase 3

The final stage of love is attachement- this is what keeps couples together and allows them to raise children. Crafty huh? the two main chemicals of this feeling are oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin is possibly the best hormone ever. It is released during sex, during childbirth and can actually stimulate milk flow by a woman just looking at her baby. If you block the release of oxytocin, then mothers reject their young. They form no attachment. It is also true then that couples having more sex stay together as attachement forms this way, and having a baby automatically forms an attachment between mother and child. I'm not sure what vasopressin (usually called ADH- controls kidney water balance and thirst) does in terms of attachement, but studies with voles have shown that if you take this hormone away then they lose devotion.

28th Febuary 09

Three Phases of Love... Phase 2

The second stage is attraction. This stage really kicks into your nervous system- it makes you release a number of neurotransmitters this time instead of hormones. These are adreneline, serotonin and dopamine. What do these three chemicals do to your brain?

Adrenaline increases your stress levels- it makes your heart beat fast and you start to sweat. Dopamine is the pleasure chemical (it actually does the same thing to your brain as cocaine and can make you feel focused and energetic). Serotonin is the special love chemical that makes you feel intensely happy and keeps you thinking about your lover. Strawberries and chocolate have high levels of serotonin and this is why it makes you extremely love sick eating strawberries on valentines day.

18th Febuary 09

Three Phases of Love... Phase 1.

For the next three days I'm going to take all the fun out of love and make it scientific. The first stage is "Lust"
This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen – in both men and women.
Testosterone is an interesting chemical. It is a steroid hormone which is secreted by adrenal glands and helps increase the red blood cell count (so you can be more energetic) as well as increasing libido.
Pheromones also play a role in the first stages of love, increasing attraction between two people. Sex pheromones are released when a female is ready for breeding. Perhaps this is why we feel more attractive at certain times of the month and why others find us more attractive. I also wonder if this is why males like young women whereas females don't like young men (well they do but the young men probably don't like them).

18th Febuary 09

Helicobacter pylori

This is a helical shaped bacteria which likes to be inside you. Unfortunately, unlike bifidum bacteria, H. pylori is not a friendly beast. It produces oxidase, catalase, and urease which upset the mucous membrane in the stomach, causing peptic ulcers. It is also capable of forming biofilms making it very hard to remove. Because it destroys the mucus it means that the acid can eat away at the cells of the stomach. It is also particularly good at evading the host's immune system by doing things like stopping the toll-like receptor 2 from signalling to the immune system what's going on.

17th Febuary 09

Is it possible to swallow upside down?

To start swallowing, your tongue makes a 'bolus' (from Latin bolus, ball) with the food and pushes it towards the back of the mouth. The pressure of the food on the palate and the back of the mouth triggers pressure receptors to make some changes in the throat- the epiglottis closes to keep food out of the airways, and the palate seals to stop the food from going up your nose. So good so far- if you were eating on your head you wouldn't have it dribbling down your nose. The oesophagel sphincter relaxes due to impulses from the pressure receptors and opens. Up until this point swallowing is voluntaray, but the last push with the tongue puts the food on a no-return journey, controlled by the medulla instead of by your conscious thought.

Now the food has entered the oesophagus it is moved by peristalsis (wave like contractions maintained by circular and longitudinal muscles) which is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Yes, gravity does play a part usually, but the power of peristalsis (this wave contraction of the oesophagus) is so great that it can work in an antigravity way! This is why birds can eat upside down! num num.

16th Febuary 09

How does drinking pepsi with your meal help digestion?

It is thought that an original ingredient of pepsi-cola was infact pepsinogen. Pepsinogen is the storage compound of pepsin (a digestive enzyme which degrades food into proteins and peptides), it is kept in the pepsinogen form in the body so that the cells don't start digesting themselves! When the molecule is secreted into the acidic environment of the stomach, it changes into the active pepsin form to help aid digestion. Since I don't have a bottle of pepsi nearby (and i dont ever drink the stuff) it is hard to know whether it is still an active ingredient, but if it's there then think, you could infact be aiding your digestion by intaking pepsinogen!

4th January 09

Welcome to 2009! How exquisite.

Armillaria ostoyae
The honey fungus is a cool being. It is a paracitic fungus which dwells mainly in trees and shrubs, but the most famous colony of this fungus is in the strawberry mountains. Why is it famous? Because it forms the largest organism by area in the world!! It does this because it is able to form rhizomophs ("boot strings") for great distances on the ground beneath the trees, so that it can consume multiple energy sources by decaying them. The largest colony covers about 9 km squared which is obviously larger than the great blue whale, and scientists reckon that the weight of it all might be over 600 tons. Another amazing thing about this little pile of mushrooms is that this particular colony is probable 2,400 years old. It is disputed whether or not it is actually one bug mushrooms (do the mycelium all connect?) but tests on various areas show identical genetic make up. If it's not all one organism though, it's still the largest area of identical colonies.

29th December 08

Pika pika :-D
I love these little creatures. Unfortunately they are becoming endangered due to climate change- their thick fur which is so useful for keeping warm in cold weather is a hindrance in warming weather. They usually spend their time scampering over rocks and hiding their meals underneath stones so that eagles can't find them. Unfortunately moving uphill to colder altitudes is not an option because it doesn't have the right vegetation for the pikas to thrive.
As a species they are related most closely to rabbits and hares, as they are of the order largomorphs which contains both the families Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and Ochotondae (the pikas).

9th December 08

Thou shall have a fishy on a little dishy... or lots of fishies. This is Tom's fishy bowl :-) Ceramic paints (who thought of marking up the price of ceramic paint so high???) on...er... ceramic.

3rd December 08

I dissected a mouse :-D but i don't think you want to see photos of that. Actually you might do, but i dont have any because we weren't allowed to take any. Apparently, it's not very nice to take photos of the mouse. Hello? You're chopping it up with a pair of scissors? has it died in vain? Strange people biologists. The other reason is that we "weren't taking photos for any education purposes". I beg to differ. I have a purpose for my photos!

27th November 08

I'm bored and lonely. So here are some pretty bunnies.

26th November 08

So we did some starfishes too!!!!!! I have dissection photos of them also. Basically you had to cut it in half, scrape out the stomach (ours was a fatty, obviously just eaten... tons of sick in it=gross) and examine the internal structures. The sea star has stomach in all five legs, so when you scrape it out you get a hollowish case. They're not squishy to the touch as you might think either, pretty tough, they took a bit of chopping.

25th November 08

As fate would have it, I actually saw a praying mantis today!!!!!!! It was eating a cricket, the size of itself. Just munching the head off. Mantis are COOL! There are about 2,000 different species and some of them can grow six inches long. The name "mantis" comes from the Greek word for 'prophet' or 'soothsayer' and it's given this name because when it is looking sweet and innocent, it puts its legs together like it is praying (and then it eats the bug). The main reason why I wouldn't want to meet a giant mantid is because they almost always start eating their prey alive.

Here's a picture of the one in a pot.

7th November 08

Since I had something in my eye this morning, I'm going to talk about eyes today.
Eyes are pretty cool, they help us see, and relieve emotions when we cry. All the time our lacimal glands are producing a watery substance containing citric acid (yes like in oranges) and lysozyme amongst otherthings (like a lot of water). It basically keeps your eyes moist so they don't dry out, and the lysozyme is a chemical which breaks down any bacteria which might drop into your eye. It doesn't constantly dribble out of your eye due to the lacrimal duct where it runs away to. If you have problems with your ducts or your glands, this is when you end up having watery eyes and it constantly running down your face. There are some pretty cool optical illusions here. Every being has different eyes slightly, some animals can see different colours to us, their eyes recepting different wave lengths of light, some animals can only see in black and white. Insects have really cool freaky eyes which my friend and I decided looked like aztec hats. This mantis has very cool eyes.

5th November 08

It's fireworks night! and the sky is filled with coloured stars... but how about the sea?

Linckia laevigata Phylum: Echinodermata Class: Asteroidea Order: Valvatida

This 12 inch bright blue sea star of the family Ophidiasteridae is rather spectacular in itself. As an omnivore, it inhabits coral reefs and sea grass beds in the tropical Indo-Pacific shallow waters where it defies predetors (like pufferfish, harlequin shrimps and some sea anemones) by self mutation- autonomy- as it's form of asexual reproduction. Basically it can lose it's arms to become a "comet" (a stray tenticle) and this grows four little stubs on it which can mature to be full arms!

28th September 08

Sorry about the long break... I was distracted and uninspired. However having started my course as a biologist, i may be re-inspired. So here's a bacterium I made.

the-queen-of-spades on deviant ART

Notes and New Art Work

12th June 08

Not much going on, just been tidying up a bit because this page was getting messy.

15th March 08

Friendly bacteria by ~the-queen-of-spades on deviant ART

New Art Work

17th March 08

Bio Wallpaper by ~the-queen-of-spades on deviant ART

26th March 08

So i signed up for a deviant art account :-D Sucker? maybe. It was fun though. The thing is, I've got lots of work to do, and so I can't see myself using it too much. I will be in the summer though! So watch this space.

6th April 08

I finished Yalkara! Here she is, holding the mirror of Aachan up with the view of Aachan in the mirror as she trys to find the warp in the forbdidding.... Ian Irvine liked it too :-D That made me very excited. Click on the image for a larger view.

..,~-;'`';-~,.;~*~;.,..,~-;'`';-~,.;~*~;.,

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