On bioethanol

I learned about bioethanol when we went to the lab at the law school. Bioethanol is created out of sugars, and those can be gotten from a number of plants, but mostly just those that have a lot of fibrous bits in them. Dr. Rood told us about his father and the way that he created a system of production that makes both paper and fuel out of banana trees.

I am afraid that those trees are grown on plantations with wage slavery populations. That is sad to me if it is true.

We also learned that diesel engines freeze up in the winter and that an owner would have to plug their car in over night in order to make sure that their car did not freeze.

On Mitochondrial Eve

Mitochindrial Eve is an ancestor to all human beings. She is the first humanoid to have mitochondria in her cell structure. Mitochondria, and the DNA that creates mitochondria, only exists in the egg. That means that mitochondrial DNA passes from mother to child and has nothing to do with the father.

This means that we can trace mitochondrial DNA much more easily than any other kind of DNA. It does not have nearly as many mixups and interruptions as normal DNA because it does not come from both parents.

Mitochondrial eve probably looked nothing like a human being, but most images on the internet really attempt to make her look like we do. That is probably wrong.

On Amphioxus

Amphioxi are famous because they provide a way of learning about the origins of vertebrates. They have certain holdover genes that they share with other vertebrates, even though they split with the majority of vertebrates over 500 million years ago. Evolutionary theorists care about them precisely because of that function--they are basically the simplest vertebrates.

Here is a picture of one:

On Macon Dog Park

I didn't actually make it to the dog park. I made it about halfway across the park before it started raining and lightening, and on my way back from that, it rained so hard that my backpack and clothes were absolutely soaked. It wasn't a great experience.

But I did learn two things about the dog park. The first thing that I learned is that dog parks are a great place for communities to get together. People who love dogs get to see one another and talk to one another, and it brings a certain kind of superness to a community. I can get behind that.

I also learned that dogs can get the parvo virus there, which means that you shouldn't bring puppies to dog parks. Dr. Rood said that it would "basically be a death sentence." Luckily, I don't own dogs, so that isn't a big issue for me. But people should know.

On Darwin's Dilemma

I did not enjoy this movie. It was made by a blatant Intelligent Design propaganda group. Most of the "experts" in the film are employed by The Discovery Institute, a group that specifically does science with the telos of proving the existence of an intelligent designer.

While the questions that they raise are pertinent, such as questions about the Cambrian explosion and the different phylum classes, the solutions and alternatives that they present are unscientific and ridiculous. The use of science to promote an absolutely unscientific ideology makes me sad.

I don't think showing the film was a good idea, and I think that it should have been discussed and clarified in class.

Ocmulgee National Monument

We went to the Ocmulgee National Monument for this lab.

It was pretty amazing, actually. We went to a new place that I had never been before--a creek on the back side of the park. I really enjoy the park, and even though a park ranger talked a lot and really only told us about a lot of conjecture and very little actual information, he was still nice, and he pointed out the Clovis spear or arrow head in the large room of the visitor's center.

Other than that, we really did things that I would normally do at t he park. We walked to the large Temple mound and stood on top of it. The swamp looked very nice.

The real learning of the lab took place at the creek. We were able to look at all the strata that make up the landscape. The creek was like a scar in the forest--it was very deep.

We also saw kaolin, a kind of clay that people in Georgia like to eat and chew on to settle their stomachs. But that is really, really weird.

Feedback (The Negative Kind)

A negative feedback loop is when a system overcompensates for a phenomenon by feeding back into itself and recreating a homeostatic environment.

Dr. Rood helped us create a chart based on the experiment that he did on himself in class. He ate a Snickers bar really quickly and then drank a soda and measured the reaction that his body had to the sugar. It was pretty amazing. The chart is at the top of this post!