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It’s no secret: I’ve got high cholesterol. Well, actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. The truth is that for an 18-year-old, my LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol level is astronomical and my HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol level is pitiful. According to the American Heart Association, a desirable level of LDL cholesterol—the “bad” kind that can forms clots in your arteries and causes heart attacks or strokes—is below 200 milligrams per decilitre of blood (mg/dL). Between 200 and 239 mg/dL is considered “borderline high risk,” and anything above that is “high risk” (1). Well, my latest LDL count was 240 mg/dL. On the other hand, my HDL cholesterol count is 17 mg/dL, when a desirable level is above 40 mg/dL. To clarify, HDL cholesterol is considered to be “good” cholesterol, though no doctor could really tell me why. Experts have suggested that HDL cholesterol may carry LDL cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where it is passed through the digestive system and excreted. Other doctors believe that HDL cholesterol “removes excess cholesterol from plaque in the arteries, thus slowing build-up” (2). But ultimately, no one really knows.

   Reading textbooks, especially science textbooks that weigh more than a small child, can be quite tedious. My roommate’s biology book is no exception. While it works as a fine paperweight and mini-table, it also hosts a multitude of information, with such relevant topics as observation, diversity, scale, molecules, cells, the human body, genetics, ecology, evolution, matter and energy. Accompanying the text is a supplemental CD, called “The Student Media for Biology”, with chapter outlines, mini-activities, videos, games, quizzes, flash cards, and more condensed information at which you could shake a stick. Despite the width and breadth of the epic book, I found Biology to be a great resource for biology students (as well it should be, considering it’s hefty price and the measures my roommate took to avoid it). I was particularly impressed with the comprehensive layout and structure of the text.

   Last year on Earth Day, I attended a lecture entitled, “The Truth about Plastics” at my high school. We watched a short documentary about a scientist and his studies of the effects of plastic pollution in marine ecosystems (turtles dying from eating plastic bags, plankton eating plastic and fish eating that plankton and other fish and birds and humans eating that fish). Afterwards, the speaker talked to us about alternatives to plastic and things we as students could do to get involved in the cause. I stopped buying bottled water ad purchased a tin bottle, convinced my mother to buy milk in cartons, and asked for paper shopping bags. Yet plastic is everywhere, and it can’t be denied that some products bring good. Despite plastic’s positive properties and obvious benefits, plastics are harmful to the environment, and their consumption should be reduced.

Written by Mary Roach in 2005, Spook tackles the afterlife from the point of a scientific scholar. She examines the concept of death in relation to what people believe to be true and how people react to certain phenomena. Yet it can be applied to biology because one must have a strong idea of life to recognize death.

Roach tackles many of the concepts that we hold as faith and supernatural such as reincarnation, ethereal beings, and the idea of the soul. The soul is part of life because it is so closely related to how we continue in our world. Without a soul many people believe that we would not be able to go on living, yet it is not something that can be physically seen.
Covering the topic of what is not physically seen, Roach explores the theories of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Rene Descartes and Duncan MacDougall. Leeuwenhoek was responsible for a theory that believed that the soul came from a preformed human inside the male sex cell and Descartes studied the anatomy looking for the soul. He was able to find what he believed to be a soul in the pineal gland, which he chose mainly because of its location. MacDougall was the first scientist to spend research time measuring a person before and after death to look for a soul. What he found was the difference of 21 grams between a living and a dead person and this number has become synonymous with a soul's correct ‘mass'.

Dissociative Identity Disorder, or more commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a mental dysfunction where the brain breaks down the person's personality into several different ones. Dissociation, part of the disorder, is part of the brain's natural defense against unpleasantness and one of Freud's five defense mechanisms (3). The person has learned to connect unrelated things in order to cope with their emotional pain. Not curable with drugs or without therapy, this mental disorder has been highly publicized and has a controversy over whether or not it truly exists.

Campbell Reece defined Biology as “the scientific study of life” in the Seventh Edition of his textbook Biology (1). Needless to say, this statement is vague and written as a conclusive fact. It is difficult to question its veracity or scientific merit because it’s not really saying too much in the first place. Instead, Professor Grobstein began his course by similarly suggesting that Biology is the “science of life,” but he then presented a series of additional questions:
• What is science? Why can't it "get it right"?
• What is life? Can one get it "right"?
• Does science = life? (2)

From the start, Grobstein involved his students in the discussion and made them think. Yes, think about science, not just memorize it and move on. He encouraged us all to actively participate in and ask questions about the study of Biology. He acknowledged the fact that much of science is “theory” and not “fact” and that there still exist hundreds of questions that neither he nor anyone else could answer. According to Grobstein, science is simply a series of hypotheses that have not been disproved. On the other hand, Reece wrote in absolutes. It is as if he felt obligated to answer all of the questions about Biology, and therefore life. Grobstein’s lectures did not attempt to account for the unknown, but did often acknowledge it. Ultimately, Grobstein and Reece’s didactic approaches to Biology differed on three particularly interesting subjects: their definitions of life, their approaches to diversity and evolution, and their attitude towards the human brain.

 

Ever since I was younger my sisters have always tried to convince me that I was adopted because I had so many ‘abnormalities’ as they would call it. I have an extremely short tongue that can barely extend over my teeth; two of my toes overlap, and to top it off I developed hand tremors a few weeks after I was born. There are various forms of tremors but the one that I have is called Tetany. Tetany is a condition that can be noted by severe muscle spasms.

It took me a few weeks to decide that I didn't want my DNA for a graduation present. The thought had been tempting me ever since I'd attended a lecture about genetics with my AP Biology class; apparently there were companies who, for as little as a few hundred dollars and a cheek swab, would mail you a map of your ancestral origins based on bits of your DNA. I'd always loved history, but felt I wasn't a part of it; to me, being white and American meant you weren't connected to anything, even though I technically knew some of my “ancestors” had come from Ireland and Scotland about two hundred years ago. I wanted to send off my DNA samples and receive a map telling me that in fact, I was a combination of all sorts of interesting backgrounds. It would have validated my place in history, in my own mind.

With the recent reports of serious foodborne illnesses that are occurring throughout the country, and in a myriad of recent situations, the question of where exactly our food comes from, and how it can become contaminated by various agents, has had widespread coverage by the media.  By taking the prevalence of food related diseases into consideration and combining this with the fact that a good friend of mine had been hospitalized from such a food related illness just last week, I couldn’t help but take a closer look into what exactly I have been eating and where my food was coming from.  The main cause of the majority of the recently publicized sicknesses is a bacterium called Escherichia coli; or E. coli as it is commonly known.  It is this bacterium that is responsible for the outbreak related to fresh spinach grown in fields in Salinas Valley, California, which sickened 199 people and killed 3 (2).  In addition, it had also been linked to the current outbreak of illness associated with those who have eaten at Taco Bell restaurants, like my unfortunate friend.  As the latest epidemic-like outbreak of E. coli has been garnering even more media attention, public fear has been rising about this potentially dangerous bacterium and information concerning it is pertinent.

The entire structure of this biology class is unlike any other science class I have seen. It rejects most of the conventional ideas and methods of most science classes and embraces the individual’s ideas, perspectives, and insights. Conversely, most science classes are concerned with general terminology, scientific laws and methods, and long lectures. In order to properly evaluate the differences between the unconventional course and the more traditional book with relation to each other, one needs to consider only a few key concepts and evaluate accordingly. On this basis, I am going to compare and contrast this course and the book in both their presentation style and in the information offered. I have decided to choose a particular subject, prokaryotes evolution and their ability to transfer genes throughout a population, and evaluate what I have learned from each source. Using this as a foundation, I will also delve into the idea of horizontal gene transfer, the different ways the two sources have presented this concept, and what this says about the sources in general.