Kira+McLean

 BIOLOGY This is my student page. Enjoy!!!

  Anti-Ageing Water??? I know...sounds crazy. **Biochemistry is awesome.** But this video is really interesting, and this guy just might be onto something. The guy who came up with this whole idea's name is Mikhail Shchepinov... He's a Russian scientist. The guy in the video talks about the isotope effect and Mikhail Shchepinov's theory on how to prevent ageing...   ** One of the accepted explanations for ageing among the scientific community is the free-radical theory. This theory says that irreversible damage to the biomolecules that make up our bodies is what causes us to age. ** The main destroyers that cause this damage are oxygen-free radicals, or aggressive chemical compounds that are an unavoidable by-product of metabolism.    Oxygen radicals are so dangerous because they chew up electrons like crazy and leave a trail of destruction wherever they go -- broken chemical bonds. This damage builds up over a lifetime and eventually causes the body's basic biochemical processes to fail. **Carbon-hydrogen bonds in protien are especially vulnerable** and damage to these bonds has been linked to many old-age diseases, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, chronic renal failure and diabetes. The human body produces antioxidants and exzymes as a defence to these attacks, but **over time these defence systems fall victim to oxidative attack too**, leading inevitably to death. Many anti-ageing medications are based on **supplementing** the body's own defences with antioxidant compunds like vitamin C and beta-carotene, but there hasn't been much proof of these working yet. This guy says there's a better way to fight ageing -- instead of supplementing our doomed natural defence systems, make the bonds harder for the free radicals to break. That's the whole point behind this entire "heavy-water" thing. **The basic concept of the isotope effect is that the presence of heavy isotopes in a molecule can slow down it's chemical reactions.** This is because heavy isotopes form stronger covalent bonds than their lighter counterparts; for example, a carbon-deuterium bond is stronger than a carbon-hydrogen bond. It's not in the markets now because it's slightly controversial -- **at 35% heavy water, your entire body chemistry would be so messed up you would die.** But, **of the 20** amino acids humans use **10 cannot be made by our bodies** and have to be present in our diets. SO...they're looking at **pre-re-enforcing the vulnerable bonds in our food** via feeding it to the animals we eat to prevent ageing somewhere down the road.  So.. I tried to sum it up here because the article is really really long.. but it's really interesting if you have a few minutes to sit and read it all. The picture up there might help clarify things a bit too, hopefully. [|Click here] to go to the site... Definitely **watch the video** below though, it's really interesting. And there really is more cool stuff at [|newscientist.com]!!! media type="custom" key="2817457"

Lawton, Graham (2008, November 27). Would eating heavy atoms lengthen our lives. Retrieved December 2, 2008, from NewScientist Health Web site: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026841.800-would-eating-heavy-atoms-lengthen-our-lives.html?full=true

<span style="font-size: 120%; color: #d91408; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">Protists (UNIT TEST) --> <span style="color: #f60456; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found [|this website]when I was looking for something about protists, it's awesome. It's about protozoa only and it's nothing the textbook doesn't cover, but it kind of sums everything up into a really big web page. Just something to help study if you're up for reading a bit... <span style="font-size: 60%; color: #d64400; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Dey, Dr. D. Protozoa. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from Dr. Dennis Dey's Website Web site: http://www.mumstudents.org/~ddey/1protozoa.html <span style="font-size: 120%; color: #bb2a4e; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;"> New Species <span style="font-size: 120%; color: #ff007b; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;"> Scientists have recently discovered hundreds of new species of animals off the north-western coast of Australia, in the Great Barrier Reef. They're mostly either soft coral species or small crustaceans. This one is called a //Dendronephthya,// but there's a slide show on [|this website] with a few other pictures. All of these species were previously unknown, which is crazy. It makes me wonder how much else we don't know. They look so surreal though.. some of the new species they found are amazing. It's a really short slide show, definitly worth watching. The animals that live in the ocean are so beautiful. [|Click here]. <span style="font-size: 150%; color: #ff8600; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 110%; color: #fd4708; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 80%; color: #ff0019; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 80%; color: #b04554; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 75%; color: #a34354; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Marshall, Michael (2008, September 19). Reef search turns up hundreds of new species. Retrieved November 2, 2008, from NewScientist Web site: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14755-reef-search-turns-up-hundreds-of-new-species.html

Life in outer space...?? [|CLICK THESE WORDS] <span style="color: #d51a39; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, scientists have discovered a bacterium that lives 2.8km beneath the surface of the Earth, in a gold mine in South-Africa. They nicknamed it the goldmine bug but it's official name is //Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator//. It lives in absolute isolation from any other living organism, which has astrobiologists going crazy. This organism is one-hundred percent self sufficient. They say this is the type of bacterium which would survive in the harsh environments of outer space, it can survive without help of any other living organisms and it doesn't use the sun or any of the byproducts of photosynthesis. The fact that the communities of this bacterium that the scientists discovered and did tests on contained only one single species "stands one of the most basic tenets of microbial biology on it's head". It's an obligately anaerobic species and analysis has shown that the bacterium gets its energy from the radioactive decay of uranium in the surrounding rocks. It forms endospores to protect itself, it has a flagellum to help it navigate, it has genes which can extract carbon and fix nitrogen -- this bacterium is entirely independent of the rest of the world. This is living proof that everything necessary to sustain life can be packed into a single genome. [|Click here] to read all about it.. it's sooooo cool. <span style="color: #e4480c; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">I also found [|this website] which is all about archaeabacteria. They are so interesting.. seriously. They are definitly my favorite. I think there are bacteria on other planets for sure.. we just don't know it yet. But defiintly read this, it's not very long.. it's worth two minutes. [|CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK HERE] Brahic, Catherine (2008, October 9). Goldmine bug DNA may be key to alien life. Retrieved October 29, 2008, from NewScientist Environment Web site: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14906-goldmine-bug-dna-may-be-key-to-alien-life.html?feedId=online-news_rss20 Davison, Anna (2008, June 26). The most extreme life-forms in the universe. Retrieved October 29, 2008, from NewScientist Space Web site: http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14208-the-most-extreme-lifeforms-in-the-universe.html <span style="font-size: 115%; color: #fe541b; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">

This is a link about dissecting eyes...cows eyes anyway. I know it sounds kind of gross but it's got a lot of information about how our eyes work and why we see the way that we do. There are videos of the girl actually dissecting an eye. Some of them remind me a little too much of the movie hostel, but if you're not too easily grossed out it's really pretty interesting: [|click here to watch and learn.]

<span style="font-size: 70%; color: #ff451a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Murphy, Pat 2005. Cow's eye dissection. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from Exploratorium Web site: http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/index.html

<span style="font-size: 120%; color: #ff6c00; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">DID YOU KNOW?? <span style="font-size: 110%; color: #f9156d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That the average person encouters 18 scientific claims a day.. but you can't believe everything you read. There are a few questions you should ask yourself next time you read a headline that makes a claim that doesn't quite sound beleivable. [|This links to the website I found.]

<span style="font-size: 110%; color: #ff3f29; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 60%; color: #ff0900; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gordan and Betty Moore Foundation. Evidence: How do we know what we know?. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from Exploratorium Web site: <span style="font-size: 60%; color: #ff0900; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.exploratorium.edu/evidence/index.htm

<span style="font-size: 200%; color: #fc7d03; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">Anyone confused?? <span style="color: #ff341a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 110%; color: #fd2208; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Soo..cells. Anybody else not remember anything from grade 9..?? Well.. this video I found is pretty funny. And it kind of jogged my memory after doing nothing science-related at all for almost a year: <span style="color: #ff341a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 120%; color: #ff007b; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">media type="youtube" key="--NXZCX9VPA&hl=en&fs=1" height="344" width="425" <span style="font-size: 60%; color: #ff1400; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">swbe (2007, November 25). Anatomy of a cell. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from Youtube Web site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--NXZCX9VPA

<span style="font-size: 200%; color: #ff006e; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; background-color: #ffc100;">Little ecosystems on our skin <span style="font-size: 120%; color: #fda517; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">Bacteria is EVERYWHERE.. and over 60% of the biosphere by weight is bacteria. That's a lot of prokaryotes. This video is pretty cool.. it's all about the different bacteria that live on our skin. Did you know that there is more of a difference between e.coli and bacillus than there is between us humans and corn? Thanks by the way to Mrs. Holyoke Walsh for the site!!

media type="custom" key="2046814" width="253" height="107" <span style="font-size: 60%; color: #f71602; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lichtman, Flora (2007, October 18). Life on our skin. Retrieved September 23, 2008, from Science friday Web site: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10043

<span style="font-size: 330%; color: #f81670; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">DEAL or no deal??! <span style="font-size: 120%; color: #fa7800; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: #fef07c;">It's actually called grade or no grade.. but it's the same idea. Except it's got questions about cells and all that kind of stuff we're learning about now. The instuctions are pretty straightforward. [|So, this sentence is the link.] The website I got it from has tons of other science review games too. [|Click here.]

<span style="font-size: 80%; color: #ff1e00; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: #ffffff;"> <span style="font-size: 150%; color: #fe2d0b; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 60%; color: #ff1e00; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Sheehan, (2006, November 13). Cell organelles: grade or no grade?. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from Biology Review Games Web site: <span style="font-size: 60%; color: #ff1e00; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.sciencereviewgames.com/srg/games/gong.php?id=92 <span style="font-size: 80%; color: #ff0011; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Science review games (2006-2008). Biology games. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from Science Rewiew Games Web site: http://www.sciencereviewgames.com/srg/subjects/bio.php

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