Evolution Essay
Starting at the very beginning stages of life, to create something as simple as DNA, the prokaryotic cell had to evolve into the eukaryotic cells so that multi-celled organisms can be created. From then on, the evolution chain didn’t move quickly. It took billions and billions of years for our species, homo sapiens, to be created. From multi-celled organisms we began to develop different tissues which would protect our organs. Later, that species would evolve into a species called Cnidaria. At this point in time, 580,000,000 years ago, we had DNA, muscles, nerves, and tissue. After species had evolved to this point, there was a sudden diversification of life.
Next came the era of fish. In this time, the species evolved to live solely in the water to live partly on land. It was very necessary for these species to make these changes because, in water we are not able to defend ourselves as well as on land. Darwin’s theory is proved here because survival of the fittest is what caused this change to be made. A species could not survive without struggle unless they went on land. The major changes started with teeth. After teeth, the species tetrapods evolved to have arms and legs. This specific adaptation was imperative to the evolution process because, again applying Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest, arms and legs are the most used part of our body when defending ourselves from harm. After arms and legs were created, one of our vital organs were created. With the advancement in species came the creation of lungs After these fundamental changes were made, there was a Permian Triassic Extinction, where 96% of all marine life became extinct.
Chronologically, the age of dinosaurs comes next. This time period only had a duration of 30,000,000,000 years. Although that doesn’t seem like a short amount of time, there wasn’t much evolution happening. During the dinosaurs age ears were created. Yet again, Darwin’s theory is proved because the creation of ears would only help the species to protect itself from predators using sneaking and camouflage to hunt down their prey. Also the complete coverage of body hair and giving birth to live babies were adaptations that this time span made.
Following the age of dinosaurs, came the cenozoic era, or the age of mammals. During this time, there were many modifications made to each and every species in order to create the best beings possible. A critical and ongoing change that each species made was to the brain. Before this time period, species only had small brains that were successful at keeping them alive however, they were not big enough or advanced enough to make them the fittest to survive. With the evolution of the brain came the evolution of the brain's capability to control the body’s movement, allowing the body to make more advanced movements also allowing better communication and judgement.
Regardless of the era of time that is examined, Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest is easily applied. From single celled organism evolution has been a crucial part of creating the superior species that we are today. There are many imperative steps in the evolution ladder that is required in order to create the fittest species to survive.
PHOEC Write Up
Problem: What is the impact of the different amounts of
water inside a can do to the crushing ability.
Hypothesis:
I believe that the cans with the least amount of water will
crush less. The less amount of water in the can will allow the can to heat more
instead of the water. When the can heats more the metal will become a more
liquid state. Therefore when it is submerged in water the temperature of the
can will decrease rapidly, allowing the can to stay in its original state.
Materials:
1.
Bunsen Burner
2.
Goggles
3.
Measuring Tube
4.
Metal Pliers
5.
20 Cans (for multiple mistakes and truals)
6.
Bucket (Filled with cold water)
7.
An available sink
8.
Water
Variable:
Constant Variable: Temperature of water (inside the can
& in the bucket), How long the water will take until it is turned into
water vapor.
Independent Variable: The water inside each can
Dependent Variable: How much the can will crush
Experiment:
After many trials of filling the can with a varied amount of
water; we waited until we saw water vapor. This would give us the cue that the
water was starting to bubble. We counted to 5 and immediately immersed the can
into a bucket of water. After we were completely completed crushing the cans,
we filled them up with as much water as it would hold and as we emptied them
again, we measured how much water the can could hold
Conclusion:
As we were testing I found that my hypothesis was quickly
proven incorrect. The cans with the less water were crushing quicker than the
cans that had more water. One of the last cans we experimented with, we added 5
Milliliters of water. After being crushed, the can was able to hold 77 Milliliters
out of 350 possible. This means that the opposite of my hypothesis happened.
Although the can held less water and took less time to heat, emerging it in the
bucket sucked all of the oxygen out of the can causing it to cruse more.
Using Boyle’s law, I know the reason that the can would crush
more if it had less water; if a gas is held in a container at the same
temperature for a period of time, it will work opposite of the pressure.
Meaning that with the water vapor (or the gas phase of water) being a small
amount it will oppositely affect the can when it escapes. The can will crush
more, because of the small amount of vapor leaving the can. Also meaning that
the amount of pressure in the can being so low with the low amount of water
vapor, the inverse affect will happen, the can crushing more. Using Charles Law,
I can further support my conclusion, because the less amount of gas that is in
the can the greater the crushing will be because there is more vapor volume.
Where as in a can that would have more water, has less vapor volume.
Authors Note: When I think about ecosystems, I think about conventional classroom type learning. Where all the students open a textbook and looks at the different types of ecosystems. Something very artificial. Last week Mr. Roehl and I had an eye-opening discussion about how an ecosystem functions. What factors contribute to a successful ecosystems. My goal in this piece is to be show my point of view on natural changes to an ecosystem.
Ecosystems are affected in many different ways, human interaction and natural causes. Most people look at any disturbance to an ecosystem as a negative one. Ever since we were declared one nation, we have had one philosophy, 'the bigger the better' which includes the amount of land that we own. Going back to the 1800's, when the westward expansion took place, we told the Native Americans that they had to move out of their homes and go to a reservation. We invaded their living environment, just like we are doing today in ecosystems. We are building roads through wetlands, cutting down trees to build a neighborhood. When we invaded these ecosystems, we are negatively impacting them. However, when changes are made to an ecosystem naturally, they are not necessarily negative.
One way that ecosystems are naturally impacted is by forest fires. Forest fires happen when forests are deprived of water and different species of trees and plants have time to dry out. When rain does come, with lighting, as soon as that lightning strikes any area that is water-deprived, a spark is created thus a fire started. In this case, the cause of the fire is completely natural. There are two ways that this situation could go, one that could potentially benefit the ecosystem, one that could potentially damaged the ecosystem.
In order to have positive outcome from a forest fire, it would require human interaction. The fire would need to be contained by us, otherwise the outcome has the potential of being counteractive. Assuming that by having the resources available to us, we would take action and contain the fire, as humans, by taking this action we are positively impacting the environment. After the fire had done its job, of burning the dead components of the forest, there is another action that we have the responsibility of doing. This would be to help clean up the forest and rid the forest of the dead species thus new life can begin.
Some would say that forest fires are terrible when they happen and anything that we can do to prevent it, do it. Disagreeing with that belief, I find that forest fires, or natural changes to any type of ecosystem, is good. With that, I am not suggesting that we should go starting fires, however, I am suggesting that when forest fires do occur, we should not panic. Yes, there may be some healthy living trees at expense of a forest fire, but the only reason that these fires start are because of the dry, dead items within that same forest. The only con that I would be against, would be the fire having the possibility to kill off an endangered species. However, if that would happen, I would have to look at the situation and come to the conclusion that this gives another species of animal a habitat that they can now reside in.
Forest fires can be very beneficial to the forest/jungle type of ecosystem. They burn the already dead things within the forest. When once decomposed or cleaned up, is a blank canvas for any type of tree, plant or animal to come and build their own habitat. When a forest fire occurs, there are many pros and cons concerning the ecosystem; however, in this situation, I find that the pros out way the cons. Thus positively affecting the environment .
'Author's Note: Last week I started a legacy type of study with Mr. Roehl. Our first unit of study is biology. For my first assignment, Mr. Roehl told me to define all the different parts of a cell, and what their function is. To tie the assignment together, I decided to compare the system of a cell to another system, a family. At first I thought that this assignment would be easy because I know everyone in my family, after looking into it a little further I realized that this assignment will be just take a little more thought that what I predicted.
There are two different types of cells, animal and plant. There are few differences between the two however, there is a key part of a plant cell that an animal doesn't, the chloroplast. The chloroplast is the part of a plant cell that absorbs the sun and turns it into energy. Animals obviously don't need the cell because they don't depend on the sun for their food. Just like any other system there are many parts of a cell that need to function properly in order for the cell to be healthy.
The nucleus part of a cell is just like a mother and a father. This is the cell's genes, the DNA and also controls the reproduction and growth of the cell. Although your parents don't necessarily control your reproduction, they create you with their genes and you will create your child with the same genes that they gave you. Therefore, they are a part of your child. Same for the growth, they obviously don't control how much you grow but, their DNA and how much they've grown will correspond with how much you grow.
Next let's talk about the RNA strand. The first thing that you need to know about the RNA strand is what it stands for, Ribonucleic Acid -- a nucleic acid made up of ribonucleotides. In order from us to talk about the RNA strand, we need to know about the DNA strand, it stands for deoxyribonucleic acid -- a nucleic acid that is in every cell in your body containing your genes. Let's break it down, nucleic acid, a macromolecule that is made of five carbon sugars, used to bind things in the cell. The sugar in the DNA strand is the deoxyribose and in the RNA it is the ribose. Ribonucleotides, are the dense region in the center of the cell that is not protected by membrane. When it comes to the DNA and the RNA strands, the work that they do is quite different however, one can't exist without the other. The RNA is basically the information highway; it is the glue that holds the DNA strand together. This is because it knows the specific code the DNA strand is looking for. The DNA is a molecule that embodies pertinent information regarding a specific cell. Grandparents are like the RNA strand in every cell. Knowing the family history which binds the family to its tradition. The DNA represents a whole family unit which would contain all of the biological information.
The RNA strand is not protected by a membrane. The cells membrane is a protective layer. Separating the cell from the environment around in, and only allowing few selective things to go through it. This part of the cell is like an older brother or sister in the family, he/she wouldn't let anything to harmful or dangerous happen to you, granted you did not deserve it.
Ribosomes are a very important part of a cell. They are a large complex structure that copies the missing information in the DNA linkage, which is paired with the cell's amino acids. Thus creating a full DNA strand.
There are two vocabulary terms that are rather difficult to understand when learning about a cell, the endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi body. The endoplasmic reticulum is a three dimensional structure that divides the cytoplasm into sections. Cytoplasm is the area where chemical activity would be present. Additionally, the golgi body is the factory where things are collected and packaged for the cell. The endoplasmic reticulum is like an aunt or uncle because when I think of aunts and uncles I think of extended family, not necessarily divided but, a different branch of the family tree. Also, when I think of the golgi bodies I think of the dad in the family, he protects the whole.
It is very important that all of these things within the cell are working properly otherwise there is something called a mutation that will occur. A mutation in a cell will occur when there is a damage to the cell. Just like a cell's healthiness, it is important to have a healthy relationship with all of your family members because otherwise there will be negative outcome and damages to that relationship and in the long run the family.
No comments:
Post a Comment