Category: Science 9

Skype Chat with Charis Walko

by Maddie

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This a picture of Charis, in the middle of teaching my class about plurepotent stem cells, along with adult stem cells and embryos.

During our conversation, Charis was currently in Vancouver (close to science world) but, she was born in Germany. She has currently been working for Stem Cell Technologies for about 6 months. Before, we started the Skype call, my class got in groups and came up with a series of questions to ask her. I feel that this was a great learning experience for myself and others. Talking with her really helped me prepare for my test and have a better understanding of stem cells.

Some of the questions we asked were…

  1. What type of diseases can be treated with stem cells?

“Around 80 diseases can already be treated, mostly to do with blood”

2. How do people you work with feel about the stem cell controversy?

“Most of them don’t like it very much, so they choose to use an alternative”

3. Are there other ways to obtain plurepotent cells?

“The way to obtain plurepotent stem cells are through a human embryo”

During this chat I have learned many things including, she attended university in the UK and that is where she got her PhD, a human induced plurepotent stem cell can be formed to make any type of cell and lastly, plurepotent cells can treat many blood diseases.

Life as a Mutation

by Maddie

Hello, I am a negative mutation known as Turner Syndrome. I tend to affect most females. My history can sometimes be confusing so I’ll explain it to you. When I was a gene, the SHOX part of me was missing on the X chromosome. The SHOX is a gene for long bone growth. That is why all my hosts are usually on the shorter side. The other missing genes regulate ovarian development.

My mutation was caused by when a female/my host is missing one out of two X chromosomes in the female cell, if it’s not missing then it’s structurally altered. An easier way to explain it is that my mutation was caused by deletion. One of my chromosomes was taken away instead of added or replaced.

30% of my hosts have extra folds of skin on their neck, often referred to “webbed neck”, a low hairline on the back of their neck, swelling in the hands and feet, abnormalities with bone structure and/or kidney problems. About one third to one half of the hosts are born with heart problems too. The complications with those problems can sometimes be life threatening. Most of the females have normal intelligence, BUT, developmental delays, nonverbal learning disabilities and behavioral issues are also possible.

My mutation has many affects on my hosts life, such as a shorter height (due to the missing SHOX gene), and her ovaries would never function properly. Due to this, she would be infertile (the inability to conceive a child). The host I have a affected right now has to go under surgery for hormone replacement so she can properly develop breasts, female body contour, proper bone growth and her menstrual cycle. My hosts lifetime is also affected by having difficulty being in certain social situations.

If you have never heard of me before, now you can say you have a whole new respect for how I am.

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The questions I asked to create my mutation story was “what happened Turner syndrome as a gene?” and “how does turner syndrome affect a person’s life?”. I used the combination of internet and google search engine as I worked through this project. The process of this project went pretty well, what I would of done differently is, a little more research with more detail
Bibliography:

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Tanya Harrison Space Learning

by Maddie

In class we had a Skype call with a Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist who is currently in university studying Mars. A project she is currently working on is the Mars Curiosity Rover.

During our Skype call, we had asked Tanya a series of questions that we were wondering. The day before, we prepared the questions with a partner. She is currently attending the university of Western Ontario.

Here I have listed a few questions we have asked with the answers below.

Q: Why did you choose this field of work?

A: “When I was younger I would always watch star trek, and since then I knew I wanted to study space”

Q: How much is a rover?

A: “The Curiosity Rover costed 2.1 billion dollars”

Q: Would you ever consider space travel?

A: “I wouldn’t becauseI am very claustrophobic”

Q: If Mars fails at sustaining life, what other planets could sustain life?

A: “Mars is the only one that possibly could, but Saturn’s moon Titan possibly could as well because of its thick atmosphere”

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Currents From The Kitchen

by Maddie

With this experiment we used a complete circuit to produce electron flow in our fruit/vegetable. The fruits/vegetables we used were lemon, orange and potato. The purpose of this experiment was to light a light bulb using our fruits and vegetables. Our light bulb didn’t glow with either food, to find out if electrons are flowing you could use a voltage meter. Our light bulb didn’t glow because the fruits/vegetable didn’t produce enough voltage/electrons. We could modify our experiment by using bigger fruits/vegetables so that more electrons can flow. The transmission metals and the crocodile clips cause electrons to flow. I can use this in my everyday life when there is a power outage and I need to power a device or, if I don’t have access to electricity, I can use this instead. I feel like this tactic won’t be the next “big thing” because there are not big enough fruits/vegetables to power a town or a city.download_20151115_160014download_20151115_160026download_20151115_160044download_20151115_160049

Electricity Mind Map

by Maddie

1. What type of circuits exist?
2. Out of every electrical object, what uses the most electricity?
3. What does the average human use the most electricity on?
4. How much electricity does an average human use?
5. When was electricity Discovered?
6. Who discovered electricity?
7. About how many objects in the world require electricity?

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Science App Review

by Maddie

The science app I chose to review was Chemical Elements Names Quiz.

Questions:

1. What is the app about?

The app is about all the chemical elements on the Periodic Table. The app teaches you to recognize each element and its symbol. It has about four or five different methods to test you on your knowledge.

2. What does the app consist of?

Chemical Element Names Quiz consists of four or five different methods to test you on how well you know the elements including its symbols. The first method is a basic element quiz and that is just a series of questions that are multiple choice. The second method is flash cards, this is the method I would choose to study a bit if I’m taking the quiz in the app or a quiz in school. The third method is another multiple choice quiz for all the elements, except with this quiz you have three tries and if you run out you restart with different questions. The fourth method is a quiz of sophisticated elements. For this quiz you have to give 4 answers from the other methods to unlock this section.

3. Is it useful? Why?

Yes, this app is very useful because it is a very good app to use when your studying for an upcoming test you might have. A few weeks ago, this app would of really helped me for my chapter one quiz that I had.

4. Is it easy to use? 

Yes, its quite simple to figure out and takes little to no time to work and completely understand every aspect of this app

5. Does the app end once you reach at certain “goal”?

No, this app always has questions for you to answer. You can study with this app whenever and there will always be questions to answer.

6.  What section of science does this app cover? 

This app covers the chemistry section in science.

7. Does it have parts that teach you things about science?

The only part that teaches you about science because it gives the answers instead of you having to give the answer.