Myth: "Human life begins in the womb, not the Petri dish" Reality: Actually, it usually begins in the fallopian tube, but it can also begin in a Petri dish. The testimony of modern science is clear on this point: "At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun."

Introduction The purpose of this Human Biology experiment was to explore the environmental growth throughout the campus of Mount Wachusett Community College. Bacteria were first observed by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, using a single-lens microscope of his own design. He called them “animalcules” and published his observation in a series of letters to Royal Society. The name bacterium was introduced much later, by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg in 1838. (Wikipedia.org)

Let me start by saying, the following information is my personal opinion and response to other, unnamed websites. You can take what I have to say at face value. If you do not like it, that is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. If you understand my reasoning, great, if not, that is your choice. I would like to say, don't believe everything you read on the web. For every one website with logical, clinical, and actual correct information, you can find at least one with incorrect information or information where people try to present their personal opinions as gospel without stating that the information is ONLY their opinion.

In 1993, when Meri Moken got recognized by various institutions for her research work on the effect of detergents on bacteria, a lot of her work was actually a reflection of a broader spectrum of research that had started as early as the 1960s. What Meri essentially discovered was the resistance of bacteria to household detergents and bleaches – a subset of the age-old capability by bacteria to adapt to harmful chemicals. Her discovery illuminated the ever-burgeoning problems that pathogens present: that, over time, they become harder to eradicate, as any chemicals used against them become ineffective.

There is currently 1.5 to 1.8 million species in the world that have been successfully named and classified. Of this number a vast amount already has, or is in the process of extinction. Loss of habitat, over-exploitation of wildlife for commercial purposes, the introduction of harmful exotic species, environmental pollution, and the spread of diseases pose serious threats to the world’s biological heritage. This is of key concern as the removal of a single species can set off a chain reaction in the ecosystem affecting many others. This is especially true for keystone species, whose loss can transform or undermine the ecological processes or fundamentally change the species composition of the wildlife community.

Variation in abundance and distribution of intertidal rocky shore populations in relation to the extremities of the environment

Characterized by patchiness in the distributions of abundance of species in space and time, intertidal zones have been studied for decades in order to isolate the several important ecological interactions that cause these diverse assemblages of plants and animals (Underwood & Chapman,2000; Underwood & Chapman, 1998; Underwood, 2000). In order to recognize these environmental factors, two sampling techniques were implemented to obtain the vertical abundance and distribution of selected biota. By applying basic principles of methodology in both of the two ecological sampling practices, a comparison of patterns of biota was formed, thus the ability to quantify distribution and abundance of species on a rocky shore. This resulted in patterns depicting strong evidence for environmental pressures as a defining element of distribution and abundance.

In reading the article “Bad Bugs” I learned that bacteria can become immune to antibiotics. Antibiotic-immune bacteria have lived long before we did and they want to keep living, so they have gotten smarter. When an antibiotic drug is introduced to the body, bacteria begin to evolve and form a resistance to it Most of the cases of antimicrobial resistance occur in hospitals. Seventy percent of bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are resistant to at least one antibiotic. In the past couple of years drug-resistant diseases have been increasingly showing up in communities to people that haven’t gone to a hospital. This is because when a person takes an antibiotic it kills the sensitive germs, but some resistant bacteria stays to grow and reproduce. If a patient takes antibiotics incorrectly the bacteria have a greater chance to develop a resistance.

This article was about the how humans are working towards a cure for cancer. In recent years we have gotten closer and are still making a lot of progress. As quoted by George Demetri, “Cancer drug development now is where antibiotics developments was in the fifties.” T-cells are white blood cells that help the immune response. Now that we have made advances in blood bank technology, T-cell transfusions can finally be done. The T-cells are engineered using lentiviral vectors. The T-cells in patients are fixed so that they can fight the viral HIV and this has made a big step towards curing people. Antibodies are also used in Cancer Therapy. According to Donald Drakeman antibodies are the eyes and ears of the immune system, offering constant surveillance for viruses, bacteria, and other disease causing agents formed in the human body. Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that use a ‘lock and key’ mechanism to attach to the antigens. The rest of an antibody can now be used to recruit other parts of the immune system to fight disease. The amount of monoclonal antibodies sales has gone up from zero to five billion dollars in a few years. The patients who also get MAbs are surviving longer and see less toxicity effects than previous treatments. Vaccines are being used for cancer therapy as well. The GVAX cancer vaccines are made from tumor cells that have been changed genetically to secrete granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), an immune system stimulating hormone. Cell Genesys is developing a pharmaceutical that can be injected into someone. This will put active immune cells in the body after injection. GVAX has also shown a median survival of 26 months compared to 18-19 months with chemotherapy.

What if it was possible to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches? How would his new speeches affect Americans and how people live today? How about the chance to go to visit your Grandma who died? She always made such great cinnamon rolls. Cloning has been used to re-create plants and animals for many years. It also makes it possible to learn more about diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and therefore, possibly, find a cure. Cloning a human could enable parents to choose desired qualities in their children.

The reproductive questions surrounding seahorses and pipefish (syngnathids), specifically about why males are the gender which undergoes pregnancy, are pondered and researched in the article I chose. This article describes the similarities and differences between mammal and seahorse viviparity, “extended