Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
Cool Grasshopper Dissection Blog
Grasshoppers are found in a large range of habitats but the largest number of them can be found in lowland tropical forests and grasslands. Most grasshoppers favor open, dry habitats. Grasshoppers are herbivores and they eat plants such as oats, rye, barley, and wheat. They do not have a nose, so instead they have holes along the sides of their body for breathing. A large grasshopper can jump a distance of 20 times the length of its body. Now that we've got some context about grasshoppers, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a grasshopper to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, watch this video to see how we did it!
Cool Crawfish Blog
Hola senores y senoras. Today we're going to talk about everyone's favorite Louisianan delight--the crawfish! They are found in bodies of water. Some species are found in fresh water while others are
found in swamps, ditches, and rice paddies. Most of them can not tolerate polluted water. They feed on dead animals and plants. Crayfish breathe through feather like gills. There is a species of crayfish that is blue called the blue Crayfish. There are ones that are also red and white. Now that we've got some context about crayfish, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a crayfish to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, check out this video to see how we did it!
found in swamps, ditches, and rice paddies. Most of them can not tolerate polluted water. They feed on dead animals and plants. Crayfish breathe through feather like gills. There is a species of crayfish that is blue called the blue Crayfish. There are ones that are also red and white. Now that we've got some context about crayfish, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a crayfish to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, check out this video to see how we did it!
Cool Frog Dissection Lab
Hey kids, what's green and hops around? A frog! Frogs are the most popular of amphibians. They live both on air land and in the water and are capable of living in the most diverse habitats ranging from hot to warm, wet to dry. Using lungs to breathe on air and gills to breathe underwater. Frogs live on every continent except Antarctica. Frogs are carnivores, eating insects primarily. Larger frogs however can eat small snakes, baby mice, or even other smaller frogs! Now that we've got some context about frogs, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a frog to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final result of our expedition into this frog, watch this video to see how we did it!
Cool Clam Dissection Blog
Hello, Dallas. It's the enraged Zucchinis again, here with another installment of our dissection series and today we've got a treat for you. Today we explore the wonderful, stupendous, amazing...clam. That's right, but before we open it up and take a peek inside, let's have some background information. The clam can be found on the seabed of fresh as well as salty bodies of water. Clams are known as filter feeders, which means they pump water through their bodies, trapping small organisms in their gills, such as plankton, which they can consume. As the water passes through the siphon of the clam, carbon dioxide and wastes are removed from the body of the clam, and the water is expelled through the siphon. Incidentally, there is a particularly interesting type of clam that is appropriately named the giant clam, for its four foot size. This clam is said to have an average life span of about 100 years. Now that we've got some context about clams, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened a clam up to show you their external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, watch this video to see how we did it!
Cool Starfish Dissection Lab
Hello boys and girls. Gather around. Today we're going to talk about dissecting starfish. But before we make any cuts, here's some contextual information about the starfish. Starfish are found on the sea beds of all oceans, typically about 20,000 feet below the surface of the water. They feed on invertebrates in the area, such as clams, oysters, sand dollars, and mussels. Some starfish may also feed on decomposing plants and animals or even coral. Starfish breathe through the tube feet in their arms by diffusing oxygen through their skin. Starfish also have eyes at the ends of each arm, but it is unknown what their purpose is. Now that we've got some context, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a starfish to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, watch this video to see how we did it!
Cool Lake Perch Dissection Blog
Hello Americans. Welcome to our Cool Lake Perch Dissection Blog (cue airhorns). Today you're going to learn everything some things about dissecting Lake Perch fish. But first, some background knowledge on our friend, the Lake Perch. The Lake Perch is a freshwater fish found predominantly in freshwater lakes and ponds in the Northern Hemisphere, though some species have been introduced to Oceania. Just like me at a Buffalo Wild Wings, it is carnivorous; unlike me at Buffalo Wild Wings, it feeds not on wings but on smaller fish/crustaceans and insect larvae. Like most of its fish brethren it breathes through gills on the sides of its body, but unlike most of their fish brethren, some species of the Perch spawn their eggs by draping long strings of eggs over plants or other structures underwater. Now that we've got some context about the lake perch, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a lake perch to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, check out this video to see how we did it!
Cool Worm Dissection Blog
Hey kids, today we're going to talk about everyone's favorite little critter. You see them when it rains and when you're in the garden. It's the earthworm! Worms live in land and water and can be found in almost every habitat on earth. They can eat and process all sorts of wastes and soil and they are some of the only creatures that can do that. Worms breathe through their skin, air dissolves on the mucus and through this process works can breathe. If worms dry out they will suffocate. Each earthworm is both male and female, they produce eggs and sperm. Now that we've got some context about worms, let's talk dissection. Take a look at the pictures below where we've opened up a worm to show you its external and internal anatomy.
Now that you've seen the final product, watch this video to see how we did it!
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Cool Gel Electrophoresis Lab
Intro:
Once we let the process run and the DNA fragments run towards the positive end because they are negatively charged, we get a gel that looks like this. 
Using the lambda as the template, and using other people's gel for further measurement, we are able to accurately label the DNA fragments with the appropriate size. The smaller fragments are further from the starting point because they are smaller in size and can travel further than the larger fragments. We start to see pattern in each gel slot and all of the slots add up the the same number of base pairs, 4100 bp. With all of this data, we can now construct our plasmid map.
So there you have it, a hypothetical outline of how our restriction enzymes work on our plasmids based on our gel electrophoresis. Next time you want to commit a crime, remember that technology like this is legit, and it gets people incarcerated on the regular.
During the lab, we take DNA samples containing combinations of restriction enzymes and run them through a gel electrophoresis. The overall goal of the lab is to analyze the DNA bands in the gel to approximate the sizes of the DNA fragments and being able to construct a plasmid map that correctly places enzymes in the appropriate location with respect to the gel's data.
The Gel Process:
Once given a premade gel mold, we load our five DNA samples in 5 of the 6 slots after placing it in the water. The first slot contains Lambda which is the control DNA and is free of restriction enzymes. This will be our template for determining the sizes of the DNA fragments. The second slot is left empty. The third contains restriction enzyme PST1, the fourth contains PST1/ SSP1, the fifth contains PST1/ HPA1, and the final slot contains all three restriction enzymes.
Mapping the Plasmid:
After a good ol' round of gel electrophoresis, there's nothing better than mapping out your plasmid and its restriction enzyme cuts. Seriously though, pay attention because this is pretty slick. First we examine the second gel lane, which was cut up by none other than PstI. From this lane our circular DNA is cut into two pieces, approximately 600 and 3500 base pairs long when compared to the lambda pieces, which means that PstI, must have cut the plasmid twice as such...
Then we examine the third lane, wherein our friendly neighborhood plasmid was cut by both PstI and HpaI. We get fragments that are 600, 500, and 3000 base pairs long, which means that our 4100bp fragment from the second lane was cut into two pieces by HpaI. We get the following result...
Then we check out the fourth lane where we used PstI and SspI to cut the plasmid. We get fragments that are 600, 1300, and 2200 base pairs long, which means our 3000bp fragment from lane two was cut into two fragments by SspI. Here's our plasmid now...
Lastly, when we use all three restriction enzymes to cut up the plasmid at the same time, as in lane five, we get the following cuts...
Friday, February 27, 2015
Cool E. Coli Transformation Lab
You think you've seen it all when it comes to bacteria? Well you ain't seen nothing yet!
In this lab we used the process of genetic transformation, which entails inserting a plasmid (insertable gene) into an organism's DNA to modify its traits. Here's how we did it...
We used four pre-prepared agar plates with the following contents...
1: pGLO-/LB (control)
2: pGLO-/LB/amp (control)
3: pGLO+/LB/amp
4: pGLO+/LB/amp/ara
pGLO was the plasmid that we added to the organism's genetic material. pGLO+ indicates the presence of the plasmid and pGLO- indicates its absence. LB stands for Luria Broth, which prepared the E. Coli cells for the "log phase" of reproduction. Amp stands for ampicillin, an antibiotic that's a relative of penicillin. Only the cells that received the pGLO plasmid would be able to survive the wrath of the ampicillin. Ara stands for arabinose sugar, which provided the materials necessary for the pGLO+ cells to make their fluorescent protein.
First we started off with 2 small tubes, one contained plus Pglo another contained minus Pglo. Then we put 250 micro liters of transformation solution into each tube. We then picked up some colonies of ecoli and put them in each test tube. Then we put each of the test tubes on ice. We then added plasmid DNA to the +Pglo tube but not the -Pglo. After, we incubated them on ice for 10 minutes. Then we put them in heated water in order to break the plasma membranes so the plasmid DNA can enter the cells. We then added some nutrient broth to each tube so that the colonies could grow. Then we took the solution out from each tube and placed them in the four agar plates. The agar plate with -Pglo and lb showed that anything can live on the plate, the agar plate with -Pglo lb amp showed that the antibiotic works. The other two plates served the purpose of showing that the plasmid DNA was actually transferred to the host.
These are the four agar plates we used to grow the ecoli on
Incubation of the two test tubes on ice
Our lab was succesful in transforming the ecoli and at the end we also measured the transformation efficiencies of the bacteria for each of our lab groups.
In order to calculate this rate you have to go through the steps outline in the picutre below.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Cool DNA Extraction Lab
Where do you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from Cotton-eye Joe?
This is a mystery that has baffled the minds of scholars since the dawn of time. We don't know where Cotton-eye Joe went, but with the knowledge of the 21st century we know where he came from.
DNA is what makes each and everyone of us unique. Handed down to us from our parents, it codes for every cell in our body. As a way to visualize DNA, we do a neat little activity involving strawberries, DNA extraction buffer (soapy salty water), and isopropyl alcohol.
We start by putting two strawberries in a ziploc bag and we crush them. What this does is allows the strawberry guts or cells to be exposed to the 10 ml of DNA extraction buffer that we add right afterwards. The soapy DNA extraction buffer, since it's part polar and part non polar, will take off the cell membrane on the cells inside the strawberry- exposing it's DNA.
This was how the strawberry mix looked after the DNA extraction buffer and isopropyl alcohol was added.
We then funnel out the strawberry soap mix. What this does is separate out the clumps of the strawberry from the DNA juice mix.
Then we added Isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol in this experiment would cause the DNA to clump together into something we can extract.
Picture of extracted Strawberry DNA.
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