GM Foods The Myths and the Real Dangers

How GM Foods/Crops Are Made

Two videos this week to make up for missing last weeks. They intertwine quite nicely I think. Hopefully I will be able to film the second one tomorrow or Thursday.



As always, feel free to email me with questions or comments: spottedlabcoat@gmail.com

Happy watchings!

- Bethany

Atoms and Cells

Cells, atoms and molecules are often referred to in the news and throughout science, but what are they exactly?

Cells

Cells are the building blocks of every organic thing on this planet; they cannot be seen with the naked eye and come in all different types, blood cells, skin cells, muscle cells and brain cells. Different cells have different jobs and different structures. Although cells are very small, they can be seen under a microscope, a piece of equipment that magnifies samples. Simple microscopes can magnify up to 400 times, this allows us to see cells such as this:

This photo was used with permission from Emma, you can contact her via email:

emmahsh@gmail.com

Or view her deviantArt account at: http://gelbeschafe.deviantart.com/

This is also the link to the photograph: http://gelbeschafe.deviantart.com/art/Onion-Cell-13059245

For ease of viewing, the samples are stained bright colours so that individual parts can be distinguished. This is a sample of onion tissue and you can see a lot of cells here, each little blue ‘box’ is one cell. The dark blue line is the cell wall, whilst the dark pink circle in the middle of each box is the nucleus.

Cells are like very small bodies in a way, they have what are called organelles. Organelles are simply very small organs that help the cell to live, the most important of these is the nucleus, which is the ‘brain’ of the cell and contains the DNA.

Here is a rough breakdown of the parts of a cell, however, those of ul

timate importance as in bold.

Animal Cell - http://www.uvm.edu/~inquiryb/webquest/fa06/mvogenbe/Animal-Cell.jpg

Plant Cell - http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/cells/plants/images/plantcell450.jpg

Cell membrane: This is the ‘skin’ of the cell, it controls what substances, and how much of them move into and out of the cell.

Ribosome: Are little factories which help to create

proteins, they float freely around the cell.

Cytoplasm: The cytoplasm is the fluid inside the cell, it gives the cell its shape and allows the movement of nutrients and other organelles.

Nucleus: The ‘brain’ of the cell, it controls cell function.

Golgi Body(or Apparatus): The bigger factory within the cell,

it produces a variety of cell products.

Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum: Another factory within the cell which makes the membrane.

Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum: The Rough ER is exactly like the Smooth one except that it has many Ribosomes within it, working together with the ER.

Cell Wall: The cell wall is a tough version of the cell membrane and is found only in plant cells.

Mitochondrion: These organelles convert cell ‘food’ into energy to be used to make more cells, grow and repair (this is called Respiration).

Vacuole: A vacuole is like a giant storage container within plant cell

s, they can be filled with water or with nutrients and help to give plant cells their stiff shape.

Chloroplasts: Chloroplasts are what make plants appear green, they are the power stations within plant cells and are responsible for absorbing light and making it into plant food.

Atoms

Whilst cells are the building blocks of living things, atoms are the even smaller building blocks of everything in the world, including cells. Multiple atoms together are called molecules.

Although the atom is far too small to be seen, even with a microscope, scientists have a fairly good idea of what an atom is made up of.

There are 118 known types of atoms and each of these are represented on the Periodic Table of Elements. Elements are the simplest compounds found on Earth – such as go

ld, silver and helium.

http://mysciencehomework.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/periodictable.gif

The body parts of an atom are much like that of the solar system – there is a central ball (the sun) and other objects spinning around it (the planets). Within an atom, the “sun” is made up of protons and neutrons – they form the nucleus of the atom. Protons have a positive electric charge, whilst neutrons have no charge. The “planets” are electrons, these have a negative charge. This means that the electrons spin around the nucleus of the atom because they are attracted to the positive charge

of the protons.

A diagram of an atom.

Atoms of either the same type, or of different types can join together to create molecules. For example: two hydrogen atoms (a gas), join to one oxygen atom to create one water molecule – H₂O. A glass of water is made up of over a billion water molecules.

A model of a water molecule – two hydrogen and one oxygen atom.

The humble atom and its biological counterpart – the cell, have been studied for years, and will continue to be studied for quite some time I am sure. However, in order to understand some of the exciting and important scientific work and/or moral questions associated with that work, this post should have told you all you need to know.

Side note:

Hi everyone, I hope that this was an informative post. Make sure you email me with questions/comments/suggestions of topics or every corrections. Contact me at spottedlabcoat@gmail.com

Happy Readings!

- Bethany

Greetings and Many Happy Readings

Science is one of those entities which is all around us, this computer I am typing on, the pen you used to write down a message with, the tap you just turned on to wash your hands – these are all examples of what science has been able to give us. However, despite the degree to which the products of science are integrated into our lives, in general, scientists themselves are not very good at communicating with the wider community.

It is this travesty, which I am aiming to try and lessen through this blog.

My name is Bethany van Hameren and I am currently studying science at the University of Queensland. To be more specific I am studying the Bachelor of Biotechnology. During my studies I have come across much scientific information which I believe isn’t very widely known to those not currently studying science, but which should be because it is important or highly interesting information. None of the opinions or ideas which I may express in this blog are associated with the University of Queensland or any of its staff, it is simply the university where I study.

I hope to use visual aids as much as possible throughout this blog (just not in this first entry obviously) to make it clearer and more interesting. Most of the images which I will use will either be created or photographed by myself, or I will use only with the express permission of those whose image it is and with credit to them. If I ever fail to do this, I encourage you as readers to let me know so that may correct it. My other aim is to write this blog in an order which will hopefully make sense. So that I have given enough related background information on a topic before I talk about it, thus eliminating confusion.

Although I will take the utmost care to make sure that the information which I post on this blog is correct, I also welcome any information to the contrary. I will also try to present information in an unbiased way, however because of my own personal opinions, I won’t be able to do this as successfully as I would like. Thus, I will do my utmost to present both sides of topics when they arise, no matter what the issue, it will probably be obvious however, on which side of the issue I stand.

I also hope to throw in some humor as well because I certainly like to laugh and I think that the more laughter in the world, the better. However, I have been told quite a significant number of times that I am not funny, so I hope that I don’t embarrass myself too much in my attempts to be humorous.

Now to explain a little bit more about why I feel the need to write this blog:

Unfortunately, scientists are not very good at explaining to the public what it is they do, or the reasons for which they do things. We tend to forget that not everyone has the same background knowledge we do, and thus race forward in our details of our new idea/theory/research without stopping to explain important background information about our idea/theory/research. It is this tendency which has led to the building of a wall between lay people and scientists. In the worse cases, this can lead to scientists feeling as though they are underappreciated and that “everyone else” is uneducated, while “everyone else” feels as though scientists are nerdy people with test tubes in uncomfortable places. This can cause very large problems, particularly when it is very important for the scientific community to work hand in hand with the rest of the world to solve a global problem such as, of course, climate change.

So, I hope to use this blog to try and knock down some of the wall which has formed between the lay person and the scientist, to try and improve the world! …at least in some small measure.

Hopefully the first “real” entry into this blog will not take very long to put up.

Wish me luck, I wish you, very many happy readings in the future.

- Bethany