20 Questions

Question: Is time travel possible?
I am interested in this topic because I have always wondered what the past or future might have or will look like. I always wanted to see dinosaurs from the past or robots from the future. This topic might give me the answer of whether it is possible. The current hypothesis is that time travelers already walk among us through astronauts.

My 20 Questions

1. Can dinosaurs come back into the world?

2. When will the world end?

3. Is it possible to leave the galaxy?

4. Will we ever see aliens in outer space?

5. Does being skinnier make you fitter?

6. Why do you get dizzy when you spin?

7. When will the sun explode?

8. When the sun explodes, will we explode too?

9. What is the best diet?

10. Can we mutate a human with an animal?

11. Is there anyone with the same fingerprints of someone else?

12. What happens when you become subatomic?

13. What is it like to be in a black hole?

14. When will we reach peak oil?

15. What will happen when the world becomes too hot?

16. Why does crying make you feel better?

17. Can humanity live on Mars?

18. What are other planets like?

19. Why do people get sore after exercise?

20. What is the maximum age someone can live?

Identifying Questions and Hypotheses

Question: Will the amount of sugar used in a recipe affect the size of the bread loaf? Hypothesis: If more sugar is added, then the bread will rise higher. He based it on research he did from the internet and his teacher, and his if statement was certain to be true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ01TMt0XJk

Unit 2 Reflection

This unit was about the chemistry that is involved in biology and life itself. We learned about the basic units of matter including atoms, and we also learned about the 4 macromolecules, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids. Lastly, we learned specifically about enzymes and their functions. My strengths form the unit are probably about macromolecules, because that is the one thing I think I can explain to someone if they ask me. Carbohydrates are made of rings of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They provide energy for many animals. Proteins are made up of small molecules called amino acids. They help store energy as well as control the rate of chemical reactions. Nucleic acids are made up of molecules called nucleotides, and they help store and transfer genetic or hereditary information. A nucleotide has 3 parts: sugar, a phosphate, and a base. Lipids contain fats, oils, and waxes. They are made up of chains of carbon and hydrogen called fatty acids. They also store energy while also making up part of a cell membrane. My weaknesses from this unit are probably the type of bonds and enzymes. With bonds, I usually get mixed up between covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonding. For enzymes, I still get confused with the concept of activation energy and how it works. I think I have still improved in those regions, particuarly with the enzyme part through the cheese lab. I now understand the concept of denaturing and how pH and temperature affects the time of the reaction. It also helped with my weakness of activation energy. It showed me that when a pH or temperature gets affected, the activation energy goes up. The activation energy do now also helped with this concept. At first, I didn't really get the structure of carbohydrates, and the idea of a monosaccharide, a disaccharide, and a polysaccharide, but the sweetness lab really reinforced this. We learned that monosaccharides taste the sweetest out of all the carbohydrates, disaccharides taste the next sweetest, and polysaccharides taste the least sweet. I learned how a cabohydrate's shape or structure affects its function. Another thing I learned about was the basic units of matter. The most basic units are atoms, which are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, electrons have a negative charge, and neutrons have a neutral charge. There are the same number of protons as there are electrons in an atom. Atoms of the same element that differ in the number of neutrons are known as isotopes. I think matter is another strength of mine from this unit. I feel like I am a much better student today than I was at the start of the unit. I have learned the importance of chemistry, even though I used to think that chemistry is not needed for biology. I want to learn more about atoms and learn more in depth about chemistry. I have really grown as a student from the beginning to the end of this unit, and I look forward to learning more. 

Cheese Lab

The question of this lab was what the optimal conditions and curdling agents for making cheese? Through our experiment, we found out that acidic and hot conditions are the optimal conditions for curdling agents, and that chymosin is the best curdling agent. In our data, neither buttermilk ther control of milk with no curdling agent curdled at all. However, both chymosin and rennin did curdle. In an acidic pH, both of them took 5 minutes to curdle, while in basic pH, there were no curdles at all. In a neutral pH, the milk did curdle, but it took 15 minutes. This supports our claim because in our claim, we stated that acidic was the optimal pH for milk to curdle, and in our experiment, an acidic condition only took 5 minutes. When we made it basic, the enzyme denatured and it increased activation energy. The neutral conditions curdled slower, but because it just turned a little less acidic, it still curdled. In hot conditions, chymosin took 5 minutes and rennin took 10 minutes to curdle. Meanwhile, in cold conditions, no curdling was visible, while in a neutral temperature, it again took 15 minutes to curdle. This supports our claim because it shows that a hot temperature is the best temperature because it took the least amount of time to curdle. Also, chymosin curdled faster than rennin, which supports our claim that chymosin is the best curdling agent. This is because we wanted to see which curdling agent would curdle the fastest, and the data from hot conditions shows that chymosin does that.

While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have also been a few errors that affected the results of the experiment. Firstly, our data says that in an acidic pH, chymosin and rennin curdle at exactly the same time, but this is probably not true. This could affect our results by not specifying which curdling agent took the least time, so we wouldn’t know which one is the best curdling agent if we just tested an acidic pH. The issue repeats in the neutral temperature as well, with both chymosin and rennin being 15 minutes. Also, in hot conditions, we don’t know if it is a closer difference between chymosin and rennin because the curdling is checked every 5 minutes. A way to eliminate this mistake would be to check for curdling every thirty seconds to a minute to give us more accurate data. Secondly, everyone’s armpit has a different temperature. This could affect our results by the curdling being off by a minute or two. One armpit may have been a little cooler than others, so by the time we checked at 5 minutes, there was no curdling. The next time that we checked would have been at 10 minutes, while it may have curdled earlier, so our data wouldn’t be as accurate.  A way to fix this is to find a more constant place to put the test tube, like maybe just outside in the sun.

The purpose of this lab was to find out what the optimal conditions and curdling agents for curdling milk and making cheese are. This lab helped strengthen my understanding of enzymes denaturing and activation energy, while also reinforcing how pH and temperature affects the rate of a chemical reaction. Based on my experience from this lab, I can explain enzymes to others while also teaching others how to make cheese. I hope this experiment will help you make your new cheese.

	Time to Curdle(minutes)
Curdling Agent:	chymosin	rennin	buttermilk	milk(control)
Acid	5	5
Base
Cold
Hot	5	10
temp control	15	15
pH control	15	10

Sweetness Lab

 The purpose of this lab was to see how the structure of a carbohydrate affect its sweetness. Through our evidence, we think that monosaccharides taste sweeter than disccharides and polysaccharides, and disaccharides taste sweeter than polysaccharides. In our experiment, we gave each sugar a degree of sweetness from a scale of 0-200. We gave fructose a degree of 200,we gave glucose a degree, and we gave galactose a degree of 75. These support our claim because these are the three monosaccharides, and they have the highest degree of sweetness out of all the other sugars. Also, the two polysaccharides(starch and cellulose) both had a degree of 0, which supports our claim because that is the lowest degree of sweetness and we stated that polysaccharides had the least amount of sweetness. Sucrose had a sweetness degree of 100, maltose had a degree of 50, and Lactose had a degree of 10. These were the disaccharides in our experiment, and they support our claim because all those degrees are less then the two monosaccharides but more than the two polysaccharides.

The structure of the carbohydrate might affect how they are used by cells or organisms. I think that the more rings there are, the more energy will be provided for the cell or organism.

In this experiment, the rating for each sample differed from person to person. Different tasters have different taste buds. If I thought maltose was fifty degrees, someone else may have thought that it is was a 75 just because everyone tastes things differently. Secondly, the amount of carbohydrate that someone tastes might affect their rating of the sweetness. If someone takes an extremely small amount of fructose in their hand, it might taste less sweet. If someone takes a decent amount of fructose in their hand, then they might think it is more sweet than the person who took very little fructose. The person who took a small amount might give it a 170, while the person who took a decent amount might give it a 200. Lastly, the amount of time in between tastings could affect the way someone tastes a carbohydrate. If someone tastes galactose right after they taste fructose, their rating might be different than someone who takes about twenty seconds between the tasting. If they taste galactose right after they taste fructose, they might give it a rating of 100 because the taste of fructose may have stayed in their mouth. The person who takes twenty seconds to taste galactose might give a rating of 75  because the taste of fructose may have faded away. For these reasons, the results in this experiment could have varied.

Popular Science states that the bumps on our tongue, or taste buds in other words, help determine how we taste not only sweetness, but also the other four kinds of tastes. According to Popular Science, "Although our brains can recognize the same five tastes—bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami (savory)—the suite of chemicals that can trigger those signals varies from one person to the next." This means that people's taste buds that were tasting these carbohydrates might have responded differently to the sweetness of it, therefore making a wide range of ranking possible. I thought that cellulose was a zero, probably because my taste buds don't react to cellulose like someone else's might have. If I gave cellulose a zero, then someone else might have given it a 10 because their taste buds react to cellulose better. 

Biology Collage