Hormones

To help understand hormones, we each chose a specific one and made an informational podcast.

Transcript:

Have you ever had that “butterflies in your stomach” feeling before giving a presentation? Has a friend who has a severe allergy to a food ever told you about their EPI-pin? These reactions are caused by the hormone Epinephrine, which is more commonly known as adrenalin as it is secreted by the adrenal glands.Epinephrine is a water soluble hormone, meaning that it is able to be absorbed into the blood stream. Also, it has a positive feedback loop, meaning that it continues to increase itself, as opposed to shutting itself down. The receptor for epinephrine is the adrenergic receptor which is located on the plasma membrane of primarily liver cells.The release of adrenaline is triggered by high stress situations such as heat, bright lights, excitement, noise or especially physical threat. The two key enzymes, dopamine-hydroxylase and tyrosine-hydroxylase, are the two catalysts in beginning the synthesis of adrenaline, which results in the release of adrenaline into the blood stream.  The primary function of epinephrine is to increase blood flow throughout the body. In situations such as cardiac arrest or anaphylactic shock, an Epi-pin would help bllod to keep flowing and hopefully save a person’s life. 

(Link to recording to follow)

Cell Respiration

Yeast Lab-Cell Respiration

Abstract- In this lab my partner and I investigate the effects of temperature on the rate of cell respiration of yeast. Fortubes are tested in hot water, warm beads, room temperature and an Ice bath. The results were that the hot water bath rocketed up and produced a rate so fast that the stopper actually popped off the tube after only 2 minutes. The warm bath actually came in under the room temperature due to a possible error in the setup in the lab. The ice bath either slowed down so much it was not able to be recorded or stopped respiration completely.

Intro

Question- How does temperature affect cell respiration?

Background- Cell respiration is a complicated topic, as it is very complex and has many different parts. The basic equation of the process in animal cells is C6H12O6  + 6O2 yields 6CO2 +  6H2O + 36-38 ATP and in plant cells is the opposite, where they yield sugar and oxygen. In Cell Respiration for humans, food is taken in and broken down, and energy is released to create ATP to be used for other processes.

Hypothesis- If four test tubes with yeast are tested for the rate of their cell respiration based on the amount of gas which is produced with one at room temperature, one in ice, one at 50C and one at 70C, then the warmer conditions, the faster the cell respiration will be.

Methodology

Materials- 4 test tubes, four tube plugs, four gas recoding syringes, ice box, bead warmer, hot plate with beaker and water, yeast, warm water, salt and sugar

Procedure-

1. Prepare the 4 test tubes with 1g of sugar, 35mL of warm water, .1g of salt and 1g of yeast.
2. Put the flat caps on and shake to mix.
3. Put the new plug with syringe on and let them sit for 5 minutes allowing the process to start.
4. Take an initial reading after putting the tubes in their four locations (hot water bath, warm bead bath, ice bath, and room temp) by pushing the syringe to 0 and letting it come back out.
5. Repeat the reading process in 1 minute intervals at least 5 times.

Results

Room Temp (control)	Ice Bath (10C)	Bead Bath (50C)	Hot Bath (70C)
2.8	1.1	1.0	2.0
3.8	2.1	2.0	13.0
6.0	2.4	2.8	max
8.0	2.4	3.2	-
9.0	2.4	5.0	-
11.0	2.4	5.8	-
max	2.4	9.0	-
-	2.4	11.0	-
-	2.4	max	-

Purple: Hot bath

Blue: is room temp

Green: warm bath

Red: ice bath

Conclusion- Our results somewhat failed to reject our hypothesis. The hottest condition, the hot water bath, did end up having the most gas produced the quickest and the ice bath had the slowest rate. The tube in the hot water bath actually popped the seal off due to the gas pressure being so high inside the tube from such a high rate of respiration. The tube in the ice bath stayed completely the same after 2 or so minutes, showing us that the cold had either drastically slowed or even stopped respiration in the tube. The two that puzzled us are the room temp and bead bath. An idea which may be the answer to this situation is that the room temp test tube was completely covered by a styrofoam holder, which may have acted as an insulator and helped retain heat. The tube in the bead bath, however, only had about an inch of the tube covered, possibly letting heat escape where it was not covered, or just not heating the entire tube, only the area which was submerged. Another potential source for error could have been one of our systems losing a seal, letting gas escape and not giving us an accurate reading of how much gas was produced.

Enzyme Lab

Jello Lab-Enzymes

Abstract- In this lab, my partner and I investigated why the directions for preparing jello say to not add fresh pineapple, only cooked, to jello mix. We tested frozen, fresh and canned pineapple in batches of jello, adding the fruit before the jello was put in the fridge. The fresh and frozen did not set, but the canned did, proving that not only does cooking pineapple allow one to use it in jello, it neutralizes the enzymes involved in the entire process.

Intro

Question -How does Jello’s ability to set differ with different types of pineapple?

Background- Bromelain is an enzyme which pineapple and pineapple juice contain. When entered into the digestive system, it interferes with the body’s ability to digest food. This occurs because the Bromelain contains enzymes such as protease, which break down amino acids. When added to a substance such as jello, which has a similar structure as a protein in a human body, with amino acids. A fruit such as pineapple would have this so that an animal which eats it, would not be able to digest the seeds of the fruit, and would then deposit them away from the original plant, spreading them and replanting the plant.

Hypothesis- If my partner and I prepare four petri of jello dishes exactly the same, and add canned, fresh and frozen pineapple (and one control), then the only the canned and the control will set and harden.

Methodology

Materials- 4 petri dishes, one box jello powder, warm water, cold water, beaker, mixing rod, fresh pineapple, frozen pineapple, canned pineapple

Procedure-

1. Measure out your specific amount of jello powder.
2. Add proportional amount of boiling water and mix for 3 minutes.
3. Once powder is dissolved, add same amount of cold water.
4. Add your specific amount of each type of pineapple (canned, fresh, frozen) to its specific dish.
5. Label Petri dishes and stack and put in fridge.
6. Return and observe results 3 days later.

Results

Dish #	1	2	3	4
Pineapple type	Fresh	Canned	Frozen	Control
Ammt. of pineapple	1.39g	1.39g	1.39g	-
Ammt. of jello	20mL	20mL	20mL	20mL

Conclusion- When the dishes were checked on the third day of the experiment, it was found that only dishes 2 and 4 had “gelled” jello. These results failed to reject our hypothesis. The control did what we expected and solidified, proving that there was no error when preparing the jello. The dish with the canned pineapple solidified because when pineapple is cooked, the enzymes are neutralized and therefore inactive. One possible source of error could be that my partner or I could have mixed up one of the fruits. Another possible error could be that one of us could have improperly prepared the jello, or left it out of the fridge.