cweig001

Reflection

I never thought cell biology was particularly relevant to me. My formal education is in conservation biology and ecology, and so the cellular level never seemed super interesting to me. I taught general biology labs for almost three years, which made the information quite accessible to me, since I used to teach most of it. For example, cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and cell division were all topics I used to actually teach, and now I got to learn about them again more formally. When I taught them, I thought I knew everything about them. After (and during) taking this course, I quickly learned that there are always more details to most subjects in biology. For example, even though I taught photosynthesis, we dove into much more detail in this course than when I taught it, since we learned every specific substrate of the Kreb’s Cycle and the associated enzyme with each step. This semester I also took anatomy and physiology with lab, and so there was significant overlap with that course. We learned all different types of cells in A&P,...

Scientific Literacy Essay – Burmese Python Intestinal Crypt Cells

Background Intestinal plasticity is an adaptation in animals that allows them to shut down their intestine in order to conserve energy. Only certain animals have this adaptation, and the adaptation is usually seen in animals that go long periods without eating, such as most snakes. Unlike mammals or birds that feed daily due to their fast metabolisms, snakes often fast for long periods of time. When they do eat, they often have to digest a food source that can be larger than half of their own body weight. To make their metabolism more efficient, snakes have developed intestinal plasticity which allows snakes to essentially turn off their intestine. For example, during fasting, the tissues in the intestine will shrink and the enzymes will also decrease, resulting in overall energy usage (Andrew, 2015). After feeding, the opposite occurs and there is a dramatic transformation. New cells are formed, digestive enzymes rise, and nutrient absorption increase. This rapid remodeling is what biologists call intestinal plasticity, and it allows snakes to be extremely efficient at maximizing their energy by only using it...

Cell Biology Meme

I made this meme because I think its funny how inefficient photosynthesis is. It takes six turns of the Calvin cycle to create one glucose, making it a very inefficient process. Despite this, chloroplasts are the basis for nearly all life we have here on Earth. If we could make photosynthesis more efficient, it makes me wonder how much more abundant life would...