Science 10 Honours

Hemophilia A

 

Hemophilia A is a disorder where the body does not contain VIII (FVIII) which is a crucial protein that is used for clotting blood. People with this disease usually bruise easily and when cut, bleed for a longer period of time than a person without the disease would. The bleeding can be internal, in joints and muscles and externally from minor cuts, dental hygiene or trauma. People with severe hemophilia are able to have continuous hemorrhage, which is when blood comes out of a damaged vessel.  Some symptoms of hemorrhage is: weakness, problems with joints (tingling, stiffness, pain, unable to move), headaches, vomiting and abdominal pain. This does not follow Mendelian Genetics.

HEMOPHILIA from Kouzelna on Vimeo.
This video isn’t in English, but it shows how in a normal person the plasma will cover the open wound to stop blood from bleeding out, but for people who have hemophilia, it’s not present.

Hemophilia in inherited from the X chromosomal recessive disorder. It causes the clotting plasma to be unable to fully cover up the wound and still bleed. Since it’s and X-linked recessive, if the mother would carry the disorder, the following are the four most likely results:

-A daughter who doesn’t carry the trait
-A daughter who does carry the trait
-A son who doesn’t have hemophilia
-A son who does have hemophilia

The daughter wouldn’t have hemophilia because the father will also pass down an X chromosome which will over right the disorder on the mother’s X chromosome since it’s recessive. There are chances that a daughter will be infected, but it’s rare and both parents needs to be carriers of the gene, and both pass down a chromosome that carries the gene for hemophilia.

References:

Drelich, Douglas A. “Hemophilia A.” Edited by Srikanth Nagalla, Practice Essentials, Background, Pathophysiology, Medscape, 29 June 2017, emedicine.medscape.com/article/779322-overview#a1.
“Hemophilia A.” National Hemophilia Foundation, National Hemophilia Foundation, 15 July 2015, www.hemophilia.org/Bleeding-Disorders/Types-of-Bleeding-Disorders/Hemophilia-A.
Kukal, Martin, director. HEMOPHILIA. HEMOPHILIA, Kouzelna, 22 Feb. 2017, vimeo.com/kouzelna.

Scientific Method Bubble Gum Lab

Conclusion for Blowing Bubbles

From the data that we collected from the experiment, the Hubba Bubba gum was better than the Big League Chew. With the Hubba Bubba we got the average diameter of 10.5cm while with the Big League Chew, the average diameter was only 5.83cm. Another thought was that since the Hubba Bubba already came as one piece, chewing it together was easier than having a bunch of small stringy pieces that you had to chew together to make one larger piece. Hubba Bubba also ended up to be a more flexible gum. Whereas the Big League Chew was more stiff compared to the Hubba Bubba. But at the end, these results aren’t 100% accurate we used two different bubble blowers in the experiment, so I think that the results could have been different if we only had one person doing the bubble blowing instead of having two. I think this because the bubble blowing skills of the two blowers could be different and that both pieces of gum were rather large which caused some difficulties. But at the end, the Hubba Bubba was able to produce better bubbles than the Big League Chew.

 

Final Conclusion

I think that the stretchability of the gum has an effect on the size of the bubble you’re going to blow because if the gum is stiff, then it’s not able to stretch and take in all the air that you’re blowing into the gum and pop instead from the resistance. Considering that the Hubba Bubba had stretched out 22m82cm and that the Big League Chew only got up to 2m32cm, the Hubba Bubba was able to stretch a lot more. Variables that affected the experiment were probably that Micole had blown the Big League Chew and I had blown the Hubba Bubba. Our bubble blowing skills could have been different so the results were to be different. Also, we had both found that the pieces of gum were rather large and it may have been easier to have used a slightly smaller amount of gum. The length that the gum was chewed could also be a factor of how long the gum stretched. The Big League Chew was chewed for a longer amount of time than the Hubba Bubba, which means it could have gotten stiffer from the amount of chewing that it had received when we were measuring the Hubba Bubba. But, at the same time, the Hubba Bubba had stretched noticeably longer. Also, the speed of the gum being pulled could have changed how far it could stretch. Qualitative data that we had recorded were from observing the gum before it was chewed, noticing the small details and differences between the two. Quantitative data were measure the diameters of the bubbles (Average: Hubba Bubba- 10.5cm, Big League Chew- 5.83cm), length that the gum stretched (Hubba Bubba- 22m82cm, Big League Chew- 2m32cm) and the weight of the gum at the beginning of the experiment (Hubba Bubba- 7.91g, Big League Chew 7.94g). In this experiment, we had used the following SI units: Grams, Meters and Centimeters. My final conclusion is that the Hubba Bubba is a better bubble gum than the Big League Chew.