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

Acids and Bases

This post is just a quick explanation of what acids and bases are, although we have all heard of them before, it can be a little confusing as to what the difference between them is and what role they play in our day-to-day life.

Acids and bases are both chemicals which all contain the chemical element Hydrogen, however, that isn’t really important to know. What is important is that all acids and bases are corrosive to some degree, this means that they have the ability to ‘eat through’ and break up matter. Be that food, stains or even human skin.

For example: all citrus fruit contain citric acid – that is why when you get lemon juice in a cut, it stings, because the acid is attacking our tender skin. Despite how much that hurts, citric acid is a weak acid, this means that is isn’t dangerous to us – good news for people who love oranges.

Bases as used for cleaning mostly, and have a very slimy feel to them – bleach is an example of a base.

You can tell the strength of an acid or base by its pH number. The pH scale extends from 14 to 1 – 14 being the strongest base and 1 being the strongest acid. The number 7 on the pH scale is represented by water and is classed as neutral. Thus, the closer to 7 a number of the pH scale is, the more neutral the chemical and thus, the safer it is.



How Acids and Bases Work Together

Acids and bases are the opposite of each other, much like fire and water – they are able to cancel each other out. If you take one acid and one base in equal amounts and of equal volume and concentration (the amount of acid to water) and mix them together, then you would end up with just water and salt.

This is a very handy feature of acids and bases which we use every single day. Bacteria, when they eat, put out acidic waste, it is this acid which rots your teeth and causes cavities. Toothpaste is an example of a weak base and is used to counteract the acid from the bacteria in your mouth – stopping your teeth from rotting. Brushing your teeth with toothpaste also helps to kill the bacteria and manually remove them through brushing and rinsing.

The best example of acid within the body is actually in the stomach. Hydrochloric acid resides within the stomach with a pH of about 2, to help digest your food. So why doesn’t this strong acid eat through your stomach? Because of a thick coating of mucus which lines your stomach and is replaced every 3-5 days. This mucus prevents the acid from eating through the stomach.

So there you have it, acids and bases, hopefully put simply and answering all the questions which you never had about them.

Happy Readings!

- Bethany

Designer Babies - The Spotted Lab Coat on Youtube

Watch, rate, comment, enjoy!

Evolution

So I would have done a post on Evolution myself, however Doug (QualiaSoup on Youtube) does it so very well in his video, that I thought that I would just post it instead:



Thank you very much to Doug and go check out his channel! http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup

Happy Watchings!

Bethany

The Spotted Lab Coat Does Youtube

So I have started a Youtube channel, called, funnily enough, The Spotted Lab Coat: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpottedLabCoat.

I am also on Revver: http://www.revver.com/u/Spottedlabcoat/
and Metacafe: http://www.metacafe.com/channels/Spottedlabcoat/

Below is my first video, I hope to start updating my channel once a week (with a link in this blog) and the blog itself once a week on a different day. I haven't yet worked out which days, but once I do, I'll be sure to let you know.

So I hope you enjoy it and if you have a Youtube account, don't forget to visit the video and make a comment.




If you have any suggestions for video topics or questions which you would like answered, don't forget to email them to: spottedlabcoat@gmail.com

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