Changing leaves

On Tuesday we finally left the animal world and turned to plants,  I am really going to miss the dissections though.  Our experiment Tuesday was to show how leaf color is affected by different ph levels.  It was a pretty simple experiment, we boiled some red cabbage so the water took on a bluish color then added various amounts of ammonia (a base) and vinegar (an acid).  As we put more in the water showed a broad range of colors going from pink to green.  We would put in one of the ammonia or vinegar and watch it change color, then put in some of the other and reverse it back again.  

When I think about it, I wonder what explanation evolution has for this.  How does this change help the plant survive?  Evolution says that organisms survive by developing traits that make them stronger, well, how do beautifully colored leaves make that tree stronger?  The way I see it is that the only explanation for this phenomenon is that it was created by a loving God who seeks to fill our world with beauty!

All About 'More' Dissections...

Over a span of three modules in our Biology book, and the length of four weeks, my Biology budies and I got to dissect four animals! 

The first animal we dissected came from the class Annelida, a worm! It was our first dissection so it was memorable! (Even though it was pretty small, and not as interesting as the others.) The worm was pretty 'bare' inside compared to the others, but we got to see the ganglia (which is a substitute of the brain) of the worm. It didn't have a respiratory sitym because it breathes through it's skin, so we missed out on that. Over all, it was a pretty interesting, and awesome dissection.

We ate some gummy worms!!!

And then had fun dissecting the real worm!

The next thing we dissected was the crayfish. That seemed to be filled with much more interesting stuff in it compared to the worm. It was pretty funny, before each dissection we had, we all named our crayfish. I think mine was named Dora. Mine also had many eggs inside her, so she was just about to lay eggs. It was pretty fun overall. Here are some pics below.

I remember when I cut it open, it was wet...

Completely shell-less!!!

Many Dissections

It took 11 modules to get here, but we finally dissected some animals.  We actually put some of those surgical skills to work cutting open some critters.  First up we attacked an earthworm, and it didn't take long to completely destroy it.  Oh well, at least we had four.  When we cut it open, I was immediately amazed at the complexity of such a "simple" organism.  For a creature that doesn't have a brain it certainly is well-equipped for survival.  It had a very large intestinethat when we accidentally cut open, out spilled it's "food", commonly known as dirt.  When I look at the way everything inside that worm is designed I cannot believe that most people believe it all came about by chance.  It is too complex and simply amazing to have been created by anything less than God.  And all that from a worm!

Next week we mutilated some crayfish, I hope none of us have dreams of being a surgeon.  The gross factor was actually somewhat higher for me this time.  The crayfish is much larger than a worm and has many organs that the worm does not, such as eyes, a brain and reproductive organs.  It amazed me when We found out that some of our crayfish were male and some were female.  One of them had just mated and was filled with eggs ready to lay them!  The crayfish is also much closer to human anatomy than the earthworm so it was very interesting and much was learned.

Overall it was a very interesting two weeks with two dissections.  Next week we get to cut open a perch, how bad could it be?  

Mutualism

In biology today, we read about mutualism and a few of the animals that are involved in symbiotic relationships. A symbiotic relationship is when two organisms are in contact with each other, and being in the relationship, they both benefit from it through each other.

Once we were done reading enough about mutualism, we moved on to read about three types of fish, that are involved in symbiotic relationships.

The first one is the clown fish. Most of you should know that the clown fish live in sea anemones because the sea anemone has a poison that only the clown fish can withstand. Thus, the anemone is a safe haven from predators, who dare not touch the deadly tentacles of the anemone. This relationship is symbiotic, because of two things:

1. The anemone offers protection to the clown fish with its deadly and poisonous tentacles.

2. The clown fish brings food to the anemone, by attracting dumb fish who don't know that the anemone is a trap. So when fish go in for the attack, the anemone kills them, and then begins to feed on the dead fish.

This is an amazing and great example of symbiosis and mutualism.

The second fish we learned about today was the Gobi fish and Blind shrimp. They both live in a hole together at the bottom of the ocean. This is a symbiotic relationship because:

1. The shrimp is the builder of their home and since the currents often collapse the hole, he is constantly rebuilding the hole.

2. The Gobi fish is the lookout for predators. While the shrimp works and since it is blind, it keeps a feeler touching the Gobi constantly. So when the Gobi see a predator approaching, he wiggles his fin, and the blind shrimp, feeling it wiggle with it's sensor, then retreats into the hole, along with the Gobi fish.

In the picture above, you can see the reddish Gobi fish, and the yellow blind shrimp, with its feeler/sensor on it's companion's fin.

The last fish we learned about was awesome! The Oriental Sweetlips is a fish with teeth. It has no way or means of brushing them, and so its teeth can rot away quickly. God was amazing enough to create another fish, designed specifically for the task of "brushing" the teeth of the Oriental Sweetlips. So the little fish, the Blue-streak wrasses, benefits through this by having a tasty meal, which he eats of the the Oriental Sweetlips teeth, and the Oriental Sweetlips get's a free cleaning of his teeth! Here's a picture of both fish...

I think the little blue sliver towards the bottom right is the Blue-streak wrasses.

An Excerpt

In regard to our study of cell's flagella and cilia...

"...as biochemists have begun to examine apparently simple structures like cilia and flagella, they have discovered staggering complexity, with dozens or even hundreds of precisely tailored parts. It is very likely that many of the parts we have not considered here are required for any cilium to function in a cell. As the number of required parts increases, the difficulty of gradually putting the system together skyrockets, and the likelihood of indirect scenarios plummets. Darwin looks more and more forlorn. New research on the roles of the auxiliary proteins cannot simplify the irreducibly complex system. The intransigence of the of the problem cannot be alleviated; it will only get worse. Darwinian theory has given no explanation for the cilium or flagellum. The overwhelming complexity of the swimming systems push us to think it may never give an explanation."

Quoted from Michael J. Behe in his book, Darwin's Black Box

One piece of scientific evidence, among many, against Evolution.

In the current module we're reading, it discussed how there is a lot more evidence against evolution than evidence for it. Let's take the archaeopteryx as one example...  

They talked about how evolutionists took the archaeopteryx as a "missing link" between reptiles and birds just because the prehistoric bird had claws protruding from it's wings, and teeth in it's beak.  That was the only two things that they related of being closely connected to reptiles.  Everything else proved to be from pure bird ancestry.

Later on as more bird fossils were being discovered, a big amount of birds that had teeth and claws began appearing.  This showed that their old reason for the archaeopteryx being a "missing link" is not really proof at all since there were other birds with these same features.

Along with this argument, he talked about similar results occurring with Australopoithecus afarensis (in other words, an Ape).  Macroevolutionists wanted to believe this to be the "missing link" between men and apes, but the fossil indicated that is was purely an ape.

Basically, judging by the outcome of these two discoveries (and many more), if macroevolution really did happen, then the fossil world would be littered with "missing links" which are transitional form fossils.  Macroevolutoinists have little evidence going for their beliefs, and a lot of evidence going against it, and not even their little evidence (such as the archaeopteryx and the 'ape') is fully accurate.  

With all these facts taken into consideration, it just goes to show you how absurd evolution can be, having little in-accurate proof supporting it, and a lot of accurate proof apposing it.  Through these studies, I've concluded how amazing our God is, in that he is able to create such distinct and different species.

   

Source: Dr. Jay L. While from Exploring Creation with Biology 2nd Edition

Supplemental Website

The following is a great place to spend more time in study regarding Chapter 9:  Evolution: Part Theory, Part Unconfirmed Hypothesis.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

Punnett squares

What is a Punnett square?  That is what we had to figure out in our last two labs.  In my last post I talked about alleles and how they affect genetic traits.  Well it turns out that alleles are represented or written as capital and lowercase letters.  For example, if a trait determined whether a plant was tall or short, we could call that trait H for height.  If the allele was dominant we would write it as H, if it was recessive we would write it as h.  

The two alleles put together determine a trait's genotype.  For example: If the trait for a plant being tall was dominant it would be represented as H,  that means that the short gene is recessive or h.  That means that if a plant was short it's genotype would be hh, remember that both alleles have to be recessive for the organism to have the recessive trait.  If the plant was tall it's genotype would be either HH or Hh.

  Remember that if only one of the alleles is dominant the organism has the dominant trait.

So what does this have to do with punnett squares?  Well, a punnett square is a way that we can use two organism's genotypes to determine the chances their offspring will have certain traits.  The way this works is by creating a punnett square.  This is what a blank punnett square looks like.

it looks like... a square.  but it is really very helpful.  So, in our example let's say a tall plant "Hh" breed's with a short plant "hh".  We put those genotypes on the sides of the square like so.

After that we just cross the alleles and fill in the blanks.

From this we can determine that 50% of the offspring would be tall "Hh" and 50% would be short "hh".  This does not mean that exactly half of the offspring will be tall and the other half will be short.  This only shows that there is a 50% chance of the offspring being tall.  Just like if you were to flip a quarter twice you would not necessarily get one head and one tail, it's the same thing with this.  Hopefully I explained punnett squares well and did not bore you to death.

Earlobes

Yes, earlobes. In our recent lab we had to construct an earlobe pedigree showing whether members of our family have attached (B) or detached (A) earlobes. It is supposed to help us learn about how traits are passed from one generation to the next. Our pedigree is shown on the right.
During this lab we learned about how genetic traits are passed from one generation to another. Every trait is represented by two alleles, which are the sequences of DNA that show whether a person has that trait. One allele is contributed by each of your parents. Alleles can either be dominant or recessive. If both of the alleles are dominant or only one is dominant then that person has the dominant trait, in our example this would be unattached earlobes. However, both alleles would have to be recessive to have the recessive trait, in our example attached earlobes (like mine).