Jessica Stermanns Blog November 1/07

Today we wrote our final exam on the reproductive system. I found that ¾ of the exam had to do with the female reproductive structures rather than the male. You really need to know your hormones for this test, as well as their functions and targets. In total there were 31 multiple choice questions and about 5 written response. The written response was very similar to what we can expect on our diplomas. There was lots of reading, so make sure you are doing active reading while taking your test. I used a highlighter to help me point out the important parts of the exam. The written response question was all about estrogen mimicking compounds. I researched the topic and I found an interesting article written by Belinda Martineu called Fathead Minnows.

The article is all about male fathead minnows, what happens to them in the presence of estrogen-mimicking compounds can be likened to a sex change. Scientists are checking whether a gene normally turned "on" only in female fathead minnows has, because of exposure to certain estrogen mimicking compounds is becoming unnaturally activated in male fish. The exposure of a male fathead to an estrogen-mimicking for only 24 hours can activate an egg-yolk gene that under normal conditions would never become activated in the wild. Given enough of an estrogenic, a male fathead can become "feminized," exhibiting the easily distinguishable physical and behavioral characteristics of the female of its species. More than a hundred synthetic chemical compounds such as estrogen are known to be capable of interfering with the normal processes of the endocrine systems in fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals.
This phenomenon caused me to think about how this might affect our own species, and me personally. I found my info at http://www.coastandocean.org/coast_spring2006/articles/fathead_minnows_1.htm

Oct.29 // Svenja's Blog // 3/3

What we did today

• finished of the reproductive system
• started Cells, C'somes, and DNA (Unit Learning Objectives)
• made a list of what we know about cells, c'somes and Dna, what we don't know and what we want to know

Thoughts on Material

• I'm glad we finished the reproductive system. I thought it was a really interesting unit but it kind of dragged on and on. I'm interested in learning about cellls, c'somes and DNA because its part of what i plan to do in the future.

Above and Beyond

• Are there any cells in our body that don't contain DNA?

According to Wikipedia there are no cells that don't contain DNA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA)

October 16, 2007. Janelle. 3/3.

What went on durring class.

1. Reviewed Male Anatomy.


2. Marked the worksheet in the male reporductive system handout along with the biograhy of a sperm assignment that was due today.


3. Quiz on Male Anatomy and Sprematogenesis.


4. Started talking about the female reproductive system.


5. Questions #10, 12 & 14 were assigned on Page 418.

The female reporductive system is way more complex than the male reproductive system.

The parts of the female reproductive system that we are responsible to know and label are the oviduct (fallopian tube), uterus, cervix, ovary, vagina and fimbriae. Females produce only 1 mature egg cell per month unlike males who produce 1 billion sperm cells per day.

HPV (Human Papillomavirus)

- HPV is a sexually trasmitted disease that can lead to cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, anus, or penis.

- A Pap test can detect pre-cancerous and cancerous cells on the cervix.

- In June 2006, the Advisory Comittee on Immunization (ACIP) voted to recommend the first vaccine developed to prevent cervical cancer and other diseases in females caused by certain types of HPV. The vaccine, Gardasil, protects against four HPV types, which together cause 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts.

- The FDA has licensed the HPV vaccine as safe and effective. This vaccine has been tested in over 11,000 females (ages 9-26 years) around the world. These studies have shown no serious side effects. The most common side effect is soreness at the injection site. CDC, working with the FDA, will continue to monitor the safety of the vaccine after it is in general use.

Robin Houlton october 3 (3/3)

Review
today in bio we did the gonads well the hormones in the gonads Mister C had us fill in the notes that he put on the projector and we filled in or Mister blankys.so if you look back at the note there is all the information you need to know about the gonads and go back to your mister blankys and you get the picter good.

thoughts
ah the gonads too of my favoret things well i thought that this was harder to rember than the other hormon systems but that may just because it felt like we never spent much time on it.
basicaly what you have to reamber is that there is too sides female and male in the female you got progestreone and estrogen and in males you got androgens like testosterone

so i thought what does testorserone do well it makes you manly like me facil hair big muscles bad spelling and estrogen makes you have your mentral cycle and boob leakage so
lh and fsh come down from the anterior pituitary and go to your ovary and testis from there it triggers the production of estrogen and progesterone and testosterone.

expanding on the topic
well when looking for gonads on the internet i wondered what kinds of affects word diet and hormones in food do to your sex horamons. and i found out that with out the receptor to take in estrogen you get super fat they tryed this no rates by blocking there estrogen recptors so this shows that the sex horimones in your body are for more than you think

Luke Helland October 4 (3/3)

Review:

Today we had a double block in the class where time stands still. But today was different. It started off like any other boring bio class with the usual boring quiz which was on the Endocrine system. It was only 20 so it wasn't that big of a test. The test was just to prepare you for the BIG test next week. After the test Challoner gave us an assignment to be done in partners in the computer lab. The assignment was on hormone dissorders in the human body. We were to make a presentaion either on power-point or on paper and we were supposed to present next block. But then the FIRE ALARM rang. We didn't get to finish our presentaions so we worked all next block to do them, so we will probably present on Tuesday.

Thoughts:

So yeah I thought the fire drill was odd because we just had a fire drill so I knew something was up. In the hall after coming back inside I overheard Mr.Brown say it was electrical so it must've been the real deal. Anyways...back to bio. So after researching some of these dissorders i sort've lost my appetite because some of them are pretty knarley. The growths that some people have are gross, and don't even get me started on the hermaphroditism....yargh!!

Additional Insight:

Kay so I was wondering if the could be a way to prevent certain types of growths in the human body by limiting the amount of growth hormone sercreted throughout the body. You would probably die if you eliminated the growth hormone all together, so maybe if you could find a way to restrict the amount of GH to certain parts of the body it would cure disease like Acromegaly.


Anywho...thats my super awesome blog......Now I'ma go eat some TURKEY!

Spencer Mousek September 25 2.5/3

• We started the class off by discussing the disection we performed on the cow eye. We talked about the questions that were assigned about the different parts of the eye and the observations we made while doing the disection. We then did a quick overveiw of the vison section of the unit.
• After reveiwing the disection, we did reveiw work sheets on all of the senses: touch, hear, taste, smell, see.
• After working on the study sheets, we began the introduction to the endocrine system. We talked about what a hormone is and how it effects our bodies. We also compared and contrasted the the differences and similarities between the nervous system and the endocrine system.

Biology 30 Blog for Monday October 1st 2007 Brandee L

• First in our exciting biology class, we reviewed the Nervous System exam that we wrote. We basically just went over the questions that didn't have good results from our class. Most of the questions that we looked at had relations to neurons and stimulating neurons. I guess that we will have to study, study, study those types of questions for the UNIT EXAM of the Nervous System and the Endocrine System on Oct.10. The next thing that we discovered was that we can get a chance to increase our mark on our Nervous System test. All that we have to do is correct all of the questions that we got wrong and thoroughly explain why that is the correct answer. It is due on Monday Oct.7.
  
• We were then introduced to the Thyroid Gland, which consists of T4 (thyroxine), T3 (triiodothyronine), and cortisol. This lead on to learning about the Parathyroid (PTH). Next was the Adrenal Gland which included the cortex (cortisol, aldosterone) and the medulla (adrenalin, noradrenalin).
  
• We continued working on Mr. Blanky sheets #2 and #3. All of the sheets will be due on tuesday Oct.9; the day before the Exam!
  
  
• There is a quiz on Pituitary/Thyroid on Oct.2

mark: 3/3