BONES!

CLICK HERE!!

Above is the link to a three part Glog that I did on Bones. It contains a lot of information on bones and their development. It also has a couple pretty cool diagrams on the parts of the skeleton I had to cover for our contest in class.

Skeletal Muscle Tissue, Muscle Anatomy Poster

My anatomy class has been working on understanding the muscle system. And we divided the last bits of information into three different sections. The three sections are: Muscle Anatomy, Sliding Filament Model, and Neuromuscular Junction. Sidney, Katrina, and I decided to take on the muscle anatomy. And we thought the best way to show what we've learned would be to make a poster. On our poster we drew and colored an example of the anatomy of muscle. And then we labeled the different parts.

Here is our poster:

                                                                                         
 

This is the muscle belly. We drew it so you could see the inside, where the triad is located.

This picture above shows the extensions of the fasicle.

And this last picture shows the "zoom in" on the contractible bands in the muscle.

This poster was a lot of fun to make. And I definitely learned more about the different parts of skeletal muscle and how it works.

Electromyogram (EMG) Lab Analysis

A couple of weeks ago our anatomy class conducted a lab to see the way the masseter muscle functions when chewing different foods. The following is my lab writeup for this muscle lab.


Hypothesis: IF several different foods are chewed, THEN the reading of the EMG of the masseter muscle function will be higher, BECAUSE the foods that are harder to chew will require more from the muscle to chew these foods.

Materials:
Vernier EKG sensor
Electrode tabs
MacBook
BBQ Chips
Carrots
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bananas
Dr.Pepper
Celery
Beef Jerky
Pudding

Procedure:
 1: Attach the electrode tabs to the upper cheek, the jaw, and arm.
2: Attach the electrode tabs to the sensor, plug the sensor into the USB port on the MacBook.
3: Start up the LoggerPro application on the MacBook to record the data.
4: Start recording the EMG data.
5: Relax jaw for five seconds while recording the data.
6: Clench jaw for five seconds, while recording the data.
7: Repeat steps 5 and 6, but instead chewing all of the different foods, instead of clenching the jaw.
8: Analyze the data gathered on each graph from each different food. Find the change in millivolts for each food.
9: Compare the results.
(Data is located above)

Conclusion:
When I look at the data we collected from this lab, I think that my hypothesis was right. The pudding was the only confusing food. Obviously pudding is soft so it would be assumed that it wouldn't take that much work from the muscle to chew the pudding. But I concluded that the first initial chew to get the first bite of pudding from the spoon into the mouth is what causes the reading to be so high. Besides the pudding the other readings make sense. The jerky and carrots required more work then just slurping the Dr.Pepper. Therefore, from the data, I have found that the harder a muscles has to work to provide a reaction, the more electricity there will have to be to do that work.

An Introduction to the Skin

Below is the link to a Glog I did on the Integumentary system (the skin). It is just some very basic information on what the skin is and does, and the different parts of it. Enjoy! :)

http://sierra3.edu.glogster.com/skin-what-is-the-integumentary-system/

Tissue Engineering Research Article

http://sierra3.edu.glogster.com/glog-5057-3567/
 This link will take you to a glog I made going over a research article I read on tissue engineering. It is basically a short overview of some of the things discussed in the article and why I felt it was important. Enjoy!

Histology (Popplet)

Below is the link to a HUGE Popplet I did on Histology. This popplet is separated into four different areas-
-Epithelial
-Connective
-Nervous
-Muscle

Each part explains the different types of tissues. And goes in deeper about the functions and where these types of tissues can be found.
So here you go! Enjoy! :)

http://popplet.com/app/#/96456

Organization of the Body (Three Part Glog)

Below is the link to a Glog I made discussing Directional Terms and Body Regions. Basically the organization of the human body. If you click on the link below it will take you to the first Glog in a three part "presentation". All of them are linked together so it should be pretty easy to follow along. By doing this Glog I learned a lot about the organization of body. Especially the Directional Terms. I had a lot of fun making this. And I hope you enjoy it as well :)

http://sierra3.edu.glogster.com/organization-of-the-body/

Homeostasis Lab "Report"

Below is the presentation Sidney Buhr, Chapin Galena, Alii Davis and I put together to talk about the lab we put together to prove homeostasis. I hope that this lab is also helpful in teaching others about homeostasis and how it works. As mentioned in my earlier post about Homeostatic Mechanisms. This lab is about a homeostatic mechanism that works to keep body temperature stable and in balance. Enjoy!

Homeostasis

Homeostasis: The body's maintenance of a stable internal environment.

Word origin: from the Greek: homeo, meaning unchanging + stasis, meaning standing.
Related forms: homeostatic (adjective).

What is homeostasis? And why is it important?

Homeostasis is important because it helps us to maintain the balances that keep us alive. Without homeostasis we wouldn't be able to function in a healthy way, in fact, we wouldn't be alive at all. Homeostasis is in charge of a lot of important functions in our bodies. It is responsible for vital processes like regulating the concentration of blood glucose levels in our blood.

Homeostatic Mechanisms are the self regulating control systems that
help the body to maintain homeostasis. There are a number of different homeostatic mechanisms but they all share these three components:

Receptors- May be a molecule or cell. They provide information about specific conditions in the internal environment.

Control Center- Tells what a particular value in the body should be, the control center includes a set point.

Effectors- Effect change in the body, they are muscles or glands.




This is a picture from the inkling text book that we are using in anatomy class.

This is how a homeostatic mechanism works...
When the receptors find a difference from the set point, the effectors "turn on" and work to return conditions back to normal. As the conditions start to get back to normal the difference from the set point starts to lessen, and the effectors start to shut down. This is called Negative Feedback. It is called negative feedback for two reasons. First, because the difference from the set point is corrected. Second, because it turns off the reactors. This is important because the reactors must be turned off to stop a correction from going too far.
An example of homeostasis and how it works to regulate important processes in our body's is the way it works to regulate our body temperature.
The set point for the temperature of a human body is 98.6 degrees. When the body is exposed to cold temperatures, the body temperature will begin to drop. The hypothalamus in the brain senses this change, and then triggers body processes that will help to keep the body temperature up. For example, the blood vessels in the skin will constrict, which will reduce blood flow and enables the deeper tissues to retain heat. If a person starts to overheat the hypothalamus will also sense this change and start to trigger processes to get rid of the heat. For example, sweat glands on the body will secrete watery perspiration, this water evaporates off the skin taking with it the heat from the body. This cools the skin to lower body temperature and regulate it.



Another picture taken from the inkling text book to show a visual of how the homeostatic mechanism that regulates body temperature works.

Positive Feedback can also be important in homeostasis. Positive Feedback is a process that moves conditions AWAY from the normal state. When a person sustains a cut or injury, chemicals will stimulate more clotting to prevent blood loss. This is very important because blood loss must be stopped to sustain life. Positive Feedback mechanisms are also important in childbirth. It increases the strength of uterine contractions that happen during childbirth.

Obviously homeostasis is important in regulating everyday processes but is also vital in other situations our bodies sometimes face, and without homeostasis we wouldn't be able to keep our body functioning. That's why homeostasis is important.