New species of Octopus found in record depth

The NOAA expedition project is a three year long project which started in 2015. It’s aim is to carry out a couple of expeditions in the deep waters near Hawaii for finding out more wildlife in this part of the world. (further information: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1603/background/plan/welcome.html)

What is interesting about this deep waters in Hawaii is that they keep a huge ecosystem in a really unusual depth. It appears twice as deep as the ones that were considered the deepest "big ecosystems" until a couple of years. This ecosystem is founded at 4000m of depth, and during the eight previous dives that the team has performed this last months they have been able to contribute with a lot of information to scientists about life habits of rare species that science didn't know a lot about.

It was only matter of time that a new species were discovered and this has been the case. A new type of “ghost” octopus species found at 4290m deep in the seas surrounding Hawaii, which you can see in the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWHvekDCAo4

Animals which sense the magnetic field

Animals like pigeons, lobsters, moles, even fruit flies can use the magnetic field for orientating themselves in the globe. This has been known since a couple of decades, but why do we know so little about it even if there’s loads of experiments and research going on with this topic? 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2080998-animal-superpowers-how-were-homing-in-on-their-magnetic-satnav/

I was reading an article on the new scientist about this and I found it really interesting. Basically, even there are a lot of animals with some kind of ability for feeling the magnetic field, none of them show a real organ or region in their body that is designed for this. As the article says “There is no nose or ear for feeling the magnetic field that we can appreciate”, and also, if this different “organ” even exist, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same place for all animals which sense the magnetic field.

Lately one of the substances that has been studied is Cryptochrome, a type of protein found in the eyes of some animals. It produces radicals (A type of chemical compound) depending on the magnetic field, and it’s used by fruit flies for sensing the magnetic field, for example. For proving that this substance had something to do with magnetic orientation, a team of scientists from the University of Oxford genetically modified a group of fruit flies cutting down the gene which produced this substance. This engineered flies that didn’t present Cryptochrome, weren’t able to orientate using the magnetic field. Unfortunately, we cannot say that all animals which sense the magnetic changes base that perception on this substance, because humans also contain Cryptochrome and we don’t sense the magnetic field. 

Animals with the ability to feel the magnetic field are still a mystery for us, so there’s still a lot of research to be done in this topic, but if we get to find what is the real root of all this, It could have great benefits for us.

My Own Mesocosm!

A Mesocosm is an experiment carried out for studying the development of nature under controlled conditions. It is really useful for testing the changes that organism will undergo under certain circumstances.

Last week in Biology we created our own mesocosm. It was simple, we picked up a bottle, added some small rocks, some sand, some compost, some water and the plant that we wanted to. I chose to put germinating peas into it. Then we sealed the bottle with some tape. As we studied in Photosynthesis, the plants would get Water, CO2 and sunlight to form glucose, creating Oxygen and water vapour as byproducts. Then, the bacteria from the compost would use the oxygen and produce CO2, which will be used by the plants, completing then the cycle. Then, even if the small ecosystem was isolated, it should be able to survive. The only element that should be getting in and out would be energy in the form of sunlight getting into the bottle and kinetic energy in form of 

heat.   

In theory this works, but in practice this is not so simple. The plants could die due to many reasons: Too much water, not enough CO2, not enough compost and therefore bacteria for producing oxygen… Etc. So I wasn’t really sure if my plants were going to survive.

I have to say I got really excited when one of the germinating peas started to root. That was three days ago, now a couple of germinating peas have already grown up. It may seem like a kind of childish experiment but if you think about it’s really interesting and it has so many applications. Now everyday the first thing I do in the mornings is check how my plants are, even knowing that I wouldn't be able to do anything about it because is completely sealed, but still it makes me feel really excited.   

A recent case of deadly fungus infection in bananas is fastly spreading and it could heavily affect the global market

In my IB biology class we have started the topic of Ecology and it's application. For one of my blog posts in this topic I will summarize the following article:

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/49393

The tropical race 4 or fomarium oxysporum is a type of fungi which causes what is know as Panama disease on the variety of cavendish bananas, which is the only variety grown for the global market. The specie of fungi was first discovered in the 1990s in malasia but now it has spread to south east Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The disease is deadly for the cavendish banana. It spreads through death plant matter but also through the clothes of the workers, and the pathogen is quickly spreading to other countries. It supposes a great danger not only for mass producers of bananas for developed countries, but also for local little farmers whose economy depends on their banana plantations. It's vital that scientist find a solution to the epidemic, cause it will have devastating results if it developed more.

Elodea experiment.

Today in Biology HL we did a another experiment, but smaller than the previous one. In the experiment we took Elodea, an aquatic plant.

What we wanted to proof with the Elodea was that the rate of photosynthesis actually depends on the amount of light that is given to the plant. We put the plant inside of a test tube with water and we were able to see the bubbles of CO2 that came out from the plant. Then, we plugged a lamp and gradually we moved it closer to the test tube. Doing this, we could actually see how the rate of bubbles increased at the same time we moved the lamp nearer to the plant.

I found it really interesting, and it shows you how what you're studying actually works in real life.

Pigment spectrum experiment

So as I said in my last post,  we started photosynthesis in my class of Biology HL. Today we did our first practical in this topic for understanding better how pigments (Chlorophyll is an example of a pigment) actually work and how do they difference from each other.

In the practical, the first thing we did was to put a small spatula of sodium sulphate into a test tube. Then, in that same test tube we got some small pieces of spinach inside of it and mixed them with a forceps. After mixing both of them until we get kind of a liquid, we get that liquid with a painting brush. Using that painting brush, we put the liquid in a small point of  a peace of paper, 1.5 cm from the edge. Then we blow in the point and put more liquid in it, for making it really concentrated. After repeating this step a couple of times, we get the paper into a test tube and fill it in with solvent B (I don't know the exact name) until the liquid is a couple of milimetres far from the point.

After all this process we leave the test tube with the paper resting for a couple of minutes. The solvent B would carry the pigments, which has been separated by the Sodium sulphate. The solvent would be able to carry some pigments further than others depending on their "weight" and we will be able to see the different pigments form the spinach leaves.

Photosynthetic animals?

Photosynthetic animals?

We just started topic 8.3, photosynthesis, in Biology HL. One of the first things we were talking about were if plants, fungi, algae and some microorganisms were the only ones that could get energy via photosynthesis. We discovered then that that isn't true. First of all we looked this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcX2n1rC4W4

(Since I started IB Hank has became one of my closest friends)

So It's true that there are animals that use photosynthesis for getting energy from the environment and accumulate it as ATP. And only that, There also vertebrates which do that. It is true that they are not fully photosynthetic (except of the first one which has to eat for their first weeks), but still, that animals have evolved to create a type of symbiosis (or at least mutualism) between them and photosynthetic creatures for harvesting energy.

Another animal that we checked in our last lesson was a specific type of jellyfish that only lives in one specific lake an specific island of indonesia which has living algae on them and they live in a completely symbiotic relationship. The Algae provides the energy needed by the jellyfish for surviving and the jellyfish moves towards the sun, facilitating the algae's work, and also protecting it from the outside.

I just see that the possibility of having photosynthetic animals in the actual world (Which means that there's a possibility of humans also being able of doing that in a far future) absolutely amazing.