week 13-- to live is to know.  Well, yes, there are a lot of different ways of "knowing",  any living thing is having some kind of cognition. I have to go to sleep now. Sorry to be not so articulate. 

This was a great class, Larry. Thanks for organizing it the way you do. It was a pleasure even though I didn't have enough hours in the week to really do it justice.  I am saving these packets for future reference!

Peace on ya---- Jean

week 12:  photographed auras..... I plan to do this again on Jasper's birthday, and on my birthday --- make a tradition of it!   Jasper is obsessed with crystals now.  it could get expensive.

wk 11:  the "cool animation site" one about the krebs cycle is very pretty and kind of mesmerizing to click back and forth on.... I still can't explain the Krebs cycle to someone else though. 

TCM and cell biology.  I don't have much to articulate there.  Systems. Systems with rules that all fit together and have their own sense.  Causes and effects that can be predicted and seem to flow naturally.......

week 11--- How Cells Divide: Mitosis vs. Meiosis  -- The flash animation comparison  side by side is really really helpful!   Love it. 

week 10---- critters in my environment:  Child. Plants. Mold. Bacteria, beneficial and not. Rat(s) in basement and possibly attic.  Redwood tree on property line is gone now for a couple of weeks (had to be cut down for safety reasons) but was formerly an ecosystem holding raccoons, squirrels, who knows what else.  No worries, there is another redwood a few feet away and they probably live in the sewer  half time anyway (the raccoons). Squirrels are as big as housecats from eating my figs, so I don't pity them.

My backyard is an ongoing experiment to see how many native weed volunteers can invade the previously groomed and fancy garden the former owners (orchid breeders, no less) had created. It pains me a bit to see the sea of wild onions that have taken over like a blanket, choking out the former inhabitants (various flowers with purpose). No time for gardening. 

week 10- Cell Biology sites--

I found the Intro to Cell and Virus Structure site to be very useful-- I loved the relative sizes and detection devices diagram. Interesting data point: human body has 75 trillion cells!

I took a lot of notes about these sites on my assignment sheet. Too tired to copy them all down now, but I swear I looked at them all!  Another interesting factoid-- "modern biology" is only since 1839 -- the idea that all living things are made of cells concept......

Also interesting-- questions about cellular evolution-- cells came from non-living chemicals--volcanic eruptions plus lightening plus UV radiation = amino acids rain down and form CELLULAR SOUP!  Or.... up from hydrothermal vents, or fell from meteors....... hmmmmmm?

Spikes Gallery-- I want to have a blown up picture of the fossil diatoms from Oamaru in my living room!   Absolutely magnificent.

Week 9:  Ethics of Gene Therapy----

Well, the fact that someone died from gene therapy due to an immune response is pretty disturbing. It all seems so risky and uncertain.... tumors can be induced if a gene is integrated in the wrong place in the genome (same fears with the genetically altered salmon that I wrote about....scientists forging ahead without considering wider consequences) The theory that info only travels from germline cells to somatic cells (DNA~RNA~protein)  is just a theory (Weismann barrier)-- and if it turns out that it is not true and this "barrier" is actually permeable, and genetic treatments of somatic cells may result in inheritable changes to the genome THAT would be scary genetic engineering of the HUMAN SPECIES!  Bad idea. 

Week 9:  review of Animations link:   The "Periodic Properties" section is GREAT.  Tells a lot about the history of the Periodic Table, and has good graphics and explains things in an engaging way.... the Acids/Bases/Salts  section was less impressive. Just kind of like reading a boring textbook......except for that one funny picture of a dog drinking out of a toilet, although what that has to do with the subject is questionable.....

My favorite definition of biochemistry was: " Biochemistry is the science that studies the activities of living organisms at the cellular and molecular level".  While all the definitions are technically correct,  this one is specific enough to really define it and give you an idea of what a biochemist might be engaging in.....  A broad statement like "Biochemistry is the chemistry of life" may sound poetic, but it is not helpful to differentiate it from other types of chemistry or biology.......

Week 8:  Semiconductor-- GERMANIUM: Ge: atomic # 32, a shiny hard silver/white metalloid similar to tin. Same crystal structure as diamond. One of the few substances that expands as it freezes!  Was predicted by Mendeleev, but was proved to exist by Clemens Winkler in 1886.

It is a semiconductor material used in transistors. It was used in "solid state" electronics from the 1950's until the 1970's, then silicon became more commonly used.  Solid state components have no mechanical action , but electromagnetic action instead. I always wondered what that meant.

Week 8:  Chembalancer and Balancing Equations Tutorial were both useful for practicing and getting it down.... I'm going to save all of these for when my son is a little older and learning chemistry....The website about the acidity and alkalinity of various foods is my FAVORITE website we have looked at, and I've emailed it to many of my clients and friends. Very useful.

week 7:   RADON!   one of the 6 "Noble Gasses" , which used to be called rare gasses, but Argon is not so rare, and "inert gas" is a misnomer too since several do take part in chemical reactions.

Rn : atomic # 86, #neutrons=136, has 6 energy levels. Colorless, odorless gas with a cubic crystal structure. Discovered in 1898 by Freidrich Ernst Dorn. It's a radioactive gas that emanates from radium compounds, i.e. is obtained from a radium chloride source (the kind used in cancer treatment anyway). Radium and radon are not used in x-ray medical radiography like they used to be.... it is also produced during the operation of nuclear power plants. It is probably what killed Marie Curie in the end.....

Radon is a contaminant of indoor air that causes 21,000 LUNG cancer deaths in the US per year, the second leading cause of lung cancer after cigarettes. It can accumulate in buildings from natural sources beneath them-- soil and rock!    AAAAACK!

Week 7:    So, unfortunately Avogadro never got any credit in his lifetime for having the radical thought to make a clear distinction between atoms and molecules. Poor guy.  This is a good website for explaining things about the scientific process..... A good definition of a HYPOTHESIS: merely a tentative explanation of observed events, not a prediction, but it allows you to make predictions that can be tested by experiments (and may eventually become accepted as scientific theory).  Avogadro's number (6.02 x 10 to the 23rd, ) is the number of fundamental particles in a mole of substance.  Gram molecular weight is a convenient weight..... a gram molecular weight of any substance contains (Avogadro's number) of molecules.....a particular volume of gas is proportional to molecular weight.  A MOLE is a gram molecular weight of a gas (at standard temp. and pressure), it occupies 22.4 liters of volume. Another way to say it is: 22.4 liters of a gas (at standard temp and pressure) contain the number of molecules that weigh as much as the molecular weight of the gas expressed in grams.

I think these were good websites..... I would need to hammer it into my brain a lot longer to make it stick though.