Cell Biology

How Cells Divide: Meiosis vs Mitosis
This website, and animation was interesting as they do a compare/ contrast regarding meiosis and mitosis. It helps to be able to better understand where the two are similar and where they differ.

The Citric Acid Cycle
I thought that viewing the exercises from the Citric Acid Cycle website was done very well. It had easy to understand charts, and asked good questions at the end of each section that allowed you to see if you were understanding the information being presented. I enjoyed learning more about the citric acid cycle through this. One thing it helped me to see more is the importance of being balanced in the food we eat. How the body utilizes the different parts of good food in order to obtain energy. In addition, when something goes wrong with the citric acid cycle in some way, how much it can affect different areas of the body, as well as how we utilize the foods consume.

Discussion Question:
"It is the network of interactions in its entirety that constitutes and specifies the characteristics of the particular cell, and not one of its components. "
This thought has me pondering on a quote I read by Bruce Lee, " To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person."

This idea can also be applied with how characteristics of cells or anything else in the body should be studied. We can look at the shape, color, smell, sound, location, etc and derive many theories regarding what it's character and purpose is, but until we see how it interacts with the whole system, we will never really know it's full potential.

Animation - Citric Acid Cycle

Discussion Question: "Everyone comes out happy; the doctor is happy, the patient is happy, but ethical challenges remain."
Growing up I was sick with ear infections frequently. I felt like I was placed on an antibiotic at least quarterly. Doctor's did not understand why I was getting so many ear infections. Soon one doctor discovered an ear tumor, which led to surgeries and more antibiotics. During high school and right after I remember feeling "not right," having no energy, and always tired. I also seemed to catch every bug that was going around. I would go to the doctor's looking for some help and relief from this, but would generally come out with an antibiotic of some sort. Looking back on this now, I can see how the doctor's didn't know what was going on with me, and thought an antibiotic would make everything better. Now I see that taking all these antibiotics was not helping my health in the long run. Also understanding more, that if they had understood more about celiac disease and food allergies, a lot of things may have been prevented to where I didn't need to experience so many ear infections, or be placed on quite a few antibiotics. It seems as if we expect doctor's to have all the answers, and to give them a "god-like" status, to what they say is fact. When in reality they are just as human as all of us, trying to help others. I think that doctor's feel this weight of burden society places on them to take away the pain of others, so will do what they know will do this. Sometimes that is to give them a medication that sounds good, when in reality it may not be needed.

Animation - Citric Acid Cycle
Looking at the animations reminded me of being in Chemistry and Biology classes, and trying to make sense of how Carbohydrates, Hydrogen and Oxygen could accomplish some many complex tasks within us. The animation that I was interested in was the Citric Acid Cycle. This cycle occurs in the mitochondria which has been interesting me the past few months. What is interesting to me regarding all the metabolic pathways is that if something is not converted correctly, than the whole body can be thrown off. This shows the importance of being balanced, and providing the body the essentials of what it is needing in order to function properly.