World's fastest animal.

World's Fastest Animal Found

 

 A tiny mite found in southern California just made the animal speed record.  It’s only about the size of a sesame seed. Yet that would be one fast seed: At top speed it can zoom at about 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) per second. At its top speed, this mite can cover a distance 322 times its body length in a single second. The previous land-speed record holder, an Australian tiger beetle, moves at a more slower 171 body-lengths per second. The cheetah can manage short sprints at 93 kilometers (58 miles) per hour. That’s fast, but the big cat covers a tiny 16 body lengths per second.

A picture of the mite

 

 

If the mite were scaled to the size of a human, its speed would be equivalent to a person running at 2,092 kilometers (1,300 miles) per hour. That would mean it could easily outrun a moving car, high-speed train, or even a commercial jet.

 



 

Jonathan Wright and Samuel Rubin reported the mite’s land-speed record last week at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, Calif. The species, Paratarsotomus macropalpis, resembled blowing bits of dust when Wright first spotted them. The biologist works at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., about an hour’s drive from downtown Los Angeles. Rubin is a student studying physics at Pitzer College, also in Claremont.

 

 

The mites don’t belong to a new species. Scientists discovered them back in 1916. But until recently, no one seems to have studied the tiny arachnids. In the lab, they recorded the animals on high-speed video to zero in on how the mites move their legs and turn.

 

 I think this is a really cool discovery. I'm suprised scientists foung it in 1916 did not study it until recently.

 

 

 

Links

Pic 1, Pic 2, And article

 Pic 3

Cloning

Cloning

Pew,pew pew pewpew. Best laser sound effects ever. :O.

     Duh duh duh duh dada duh dada. Da da da duh dada duh dada. Noooooo (in case you didn't get it it was Darth Vader's song). Cheesy intro. I'm turning into someone else I know. "Cough" Scientific Waffle "cough".

     Back on topic. Clones are exact copies of a living thing. By a copy I mean they have the exact same DNA. In the early 1900s scientists started experimenting by splliting animal embryos. Cloning an adult animal was a recent affair, though. In 1996 scientists in Scotland managed to clone a sheep named Dolly. Unfortunately Dolly died at a very young age and developed arthritis early. How do scientists clone, you ask. They remove DNA from one cell nucleus, copied then injected into another.

Dolly. ( Yes Dolly is the sheep, not the scientist)

 

      Dolly wasn't the only one cloned. Here's a list: Carp, sheep, mouse, cows, goats, pigs, rabbit, cat, horse, deer, ferrets, buffalo, dogs and wolfs and a lot more. However some scientists invented de-extinction. WHAAAAT!!! On July 30, 2003, a team of Spanish and French scientists reversed time. They brought an animal back from extinction. That animal was a kind of wild goat known as a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex. Scientists in Japan said they could bring a wooly mammoth back by 2016.



A pic of the Bucardo.

     Cloning a person is a big debate in the scientific community. One disadvantage is what happened to Dolly. The clone could die early and catch diseases. Another bad thing is genetic diversity. As I said in one of my previous blogs mutations can be helpful. Mutations can be immune to disease. Since clones all have the same genes they cannot be immune. There is still a big ethical question. Some people say only god should have the right to create lifeforms. What do you think is the right thing to do?

 

Links

star wars pic

Clone selfie

Dolly pic

If you have a brainpop account look at this.

De-extinction info

Genetic Mutations

 Genetic Mutations

Yes I know the turtles were affected by radiation, not genes

Genetic mutations are a permanent change to a cell's DNA sequence or chromosome. Every living thing has genetic material which controls your body's function and determines your physical features. Some things like eye or hair color are determined by genes. However sometimes the genetic code changes and mutates. Sometimes they happen spontaneously or randomly during cell division.

Most of these changes do nothing at all. They are often corrected by DNA repair, so they don't become permanent. That basically sums up what DNA repair is. It just looks over DNA and gets rid of any mutations. When mutations do become permanent however, they are usually deleterious or bad.

The cell on the left is normal and the one on the right is a sickle cell

For example sickle cell anemia, which is a blood disease, is caused by a very small mutation in a protein-encoding gene. It turns blood cells into crescent shapes instead of circles when oxygen level in the blood drops.

Cancer is the result of deleterious mutations that cause uncontrolled cell growth.

Another example is Tay-sachs disease. Tay-Sachs disease is a life-threatening disease of the nervous system passed down through families.

Occasionally a mutation is beneficial and helps an organism survive. For example a bird having a longer beak would be beneficial because it could reach out farther. In fact beneficial mutations is probably why we have evolved so much. Organisms with beneficial mutations are more likely to pass their mutated genes down to their offspring. Mutations can also be caused by other forces such as chemicals, radiation and viruses. Mutations because of radiation or chemicals often are the subject of movies. Some examples are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Godzilla and most superheroes.

This has been Epicraptor and I hoped you learned something today. 

Links

If you have a brainpop account watch this. 

 DNA pic

 Cat pic

Sickle Cell pic

RNA

RNA

     In my last blog post I talked about DNA but today we will talk about the secret weapon of DNA: RNA.

     RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is responsible for a lot of different jobs in a cell. Most of these jobs involve the making of proteins. Instructions for how to make proteins are encoded into your DNA, but DNA can’t communicate on its own with the organelles (cell organs) that produce them. RNA takes the “recipes” for proteins from the DNA, carries them over to the ribosome and translates the recipes so that the ribosome knows what to do with them. Instead of thymine RNA has uracil.

 

     While DNA is like a spiral staircase RNA is a spiral staircase sawed in half. Both DNA and RNA are long chains of nucleotides, or pairs of nucleic acid bases. DNA is double-stranded and contains a sugar molecule called deoxyribose. RNA is single-stranded and does not contain deoxyribose; it contains the sugar ribose instead. RNA is transcribed from DNA and is necessary for the creation of proteins in cells. In addition, RNA can have a much larger variety of nucleic acid bases. This gives RNA a wider variety of shapes and functions. DNA is made mostly of just four bases, and it serves one particular function. most living things have RNA and DNA but some living things only have RNA.

 

     Now for the different types of RNA. The different types are mRNA, tRNA, and rRNA. the job of mRNA or messenger RNA is to carry the protein recipes of that the DNA made to the ribosomes. Basically DNA is the engineer, RNA is the messenger and the ribosomes are the factory. Oh wait, the ribosomes can't understand what the RNA is saying. Duh duh duhhhhhhhh. The world is going to end. Nooooooooooooooooooo. Wait, we brought a translator. Yay. TRNA for the win!!! The tRNA or translator RNA is basically a translator. Now for the rRNA or the ribosome RNA. It just got bored of staying in a nucleus so it moved to the ribosomes. Ribosomes are actually part RNA. The rRNA is the one that makes proteins.

 

It would be funny if this bog was longer than my DNA one. Oh wait.....

 

This has been Epicraptor and I hope you learned something.

Sources

DNA/RNA info

Pic

DNA

DNA

 

Deoxyribonucleic acid is what DNA stands for. Quite a mouthful isn't it? Hey Epicraptor here and I am going to talk about DNA. Everybody has a unique DNA. DNA is located in the chromosomes which are present inside the nucleus.It's arranged in a spiral shape called a double helix. The sides of the ladder are made of sugar and phosphate molecules and the rungs are made up of nitrogen base pairs. The base pairs are cytosine, thymine, adenine and guanine. Since the DNA chain is so long, the base pairs can arrange themselves in millions of sequences. The base pairs have a specific code for arranging themselves. Thymine can only pair with adenine and cytosine and guanine can only pair up together. So why is DNA so important? Because DNA is basically a blue print for you. DNA contains information for an organism's growth and function.

As stated in my previous mitosis blog chromosomes reproduce by mitosis.When chromosomes are duplicated before mitosis, the amount of DNA inside the nucleus is doubled. The two sides of DNA helix unwind and separate from each other. Each side then becomes a pattern of which a completely new side forms.The new DNA has bases that are exactly identical to those of the original DNA and are in the same order. In 1952 scientist Rosalind Franklin discovered that DNA is two chains of molecules in a spiral shape. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick made the first DNA model.

You may or may not have seen a crime in a movie where the Crime scene investigators find some DNA left behind. DNA can be found in blood, sweat, hair strands and fingerprints. Since no two people in the world have the same DNA, crime investigators try to analyze the DNA. The DNA found at the crime scene is then matched with the suspects DNA. If it is a match then the suspect can be arrested for the crime.

This has been Epicraptor and I hope you learned more about DNA today.

Sources

Source 1

Source 2

 Source 3

Cell division and Mitosis

Hey everyone! Epicraptor here ready to discuss mitosis. Cell division is the division of a dying cell to form two new cells. Mitosis is when the nuclei divide into two new identical nuclei. Mitosis ensures that each cell offspring will have a complete set of chromosomes like the parent cell. Chromosomes are two DNA molecules held together by a circular structure called a centromere. Every human cell has 46 chromosomes. Mitosis has four steps, prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase.

A chromosome

During the prophase chromosomes are visible. Structures called centrioles appear on opposite ends of the cell. Thread-like spindle fibers begin to stretch across.

Prophase

In metaphase the chromosomes line up in the middle of the cell. Each centromere attaches to two different spindle fibers.

Metaphase

In Anaphase the centromeres divide. Each half of the chromosomes separate and move to opposite ends of the cell.

Anaphase

The last phase is telophase. In telophase Spindle fibers start to disappear. Chromosomes uncoil and it becomes harder to see them. Each mass of chromosomes develops it's own nuclear membrane to make a new nucleus.

Telophase



A cell about to divide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ninja Kick!

Links
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The T-rex had a predator!

 

The Tyrannosaurus rex  was one of the most fearsome predators. Everyone knows what a T-rex is. I think? Anyways scientists have wondered why its ancestors remained relatively small for millions of years. Now, the discovery of a new meat eater may offer some answers. This newfound predator may have preyed on T. rex’s ancestors. That should have kept them small and on the run. Scientists call the new dino Siats meekerorum. Like the T-rex, Siats walked on two legs, but Siats was an Allosaurs. S. meekerorum ruled what is now western North America about 98.5 million years ago.  Some predator usually dominates every ecosystem. Such an apex, or top predator usually is so tough that no other creature attempts to tackle it. And as long as the top predator remains healthy, no other creature will prey on it. (Think of an apex predator as the schoolyard’s biggest, meanest bully.)Zanno and her team estimate that Siats weighed more than 3,900 kilograms (8,600 pounds). Most of the fossil remains they found came from an individual that likely measured more than 9 meters (about 30 feet) long. But it also was only a juvenile when it died. Its towering size makes Siats the third-largest known predator to ever prowl western North America.

Links

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