Biology B7 Notes

Respiration is'nt the process of breathing in and out, it in fact is the process of releasing energy from glucose, which happens constantly in every cell.

Aerobis resperation required plenty of oxygen as it takes place using the following formula:

Glucose + Oxygen -> Carbon Dioxide + water (energy released)

The energy released from respiration is used to make ATP, the energy made is broken down to ADP when the energy is released. ATP is synthesisied form ADP using energy from resperation.

You also respire more when you exercise, this is because ATP is used to contract your muscles so you need more energy to create this and respiration increases. Your breathing rate is increased to get more oxygen into the blood. Therefore, your heart rate also increases to get more glucose and oxygenated bloof around the body to your muscle quickley, and remove the CO(2) quickly at the same time.

Anaerobic resperation doesn't use any oxygen at all, this is possible because somtimes your body cant get the oxygen it needs. So in araerobic resperation:

Glucose --> Lactic Acid (energy released)

Because of this reaction you produce energy but the lactic acid builds up in your muscles. SInce oxygen is needed to clear this acid build up you are in a oxygen debt, therefore you keep breathing heavily for a while after exercise.

Blood is a fluid made of cells, platelets and plasma, they are listed below:

-Red blood cells: Transports oxygen from lungs to all the cells in the body.

-Plasma: Liquid that carries everything.

-White blood cells: Fight infection from micro-organisms.

-Platelets: Small cell fragments that help the blood to clot.

A specific blood type is important in transfusions this is because if you have the wrong blood within you it can trigger the immune system to attack it and it will clot the blood. Blood type A has A antigens and B anti bodies, so B has B antigens and A anti bodies. Where as AB has no antibodies so it can take all blood but because of its 2 antigens it can't give blood. Furthermore, O is oppisite to AB as it has no antigens but both antibodies.

Alleles are different vesions of the same gene.

- ABO blood type is detemined by a single gene that has three alleles.

- Io is for the blood type O. Ia for A and Ib for B

- Io is ressesive but Ia and Ib are co-dominatant this is how the blood group AB is formed. 

The majorety of living things have a skeletal system, this is because skeletons support and protect you. Joints connect each bone and allow you to move, cartilage lets the joints rub and it also acts as a shock absorber. Some membranes in joints release synovial fluid to lubricate the joints.

Muscles pull different bones to them, muscles attach to the bones though tendons, when a muscle contracts the tendon pulls the bone allowing you to move.

Patients need regular contact with practitioners.

-Health: A general sense of mental, social and physical well being and not merely the absence of diesise or infirmity.

-Fitness: The ability to adapt to your enviroment.

Information is needed to develop the right treatment regimes.

-Symptons, previous health or fitness, family medical history and current physical activity

Practitioners need to keep records to help remember the background information of a patient, remembering the health or fitness plan and to monitor changes for progress and to share information with professionals so people have the best information on a person.

Treatments can have side effects, but sometimes the benifits out weigh the risks.

There are many ways to reach a particular target. For example, to enhance fitness you could do many different activities like running. As well as fitness there are different ways to cure you the best way to do this is to let things heal naturally. 

Treatment needs to be modified if there is no change, damage or side effects that out weigh the benefits of a treatment.

As well as all these things excessive exercise can cause injury like sprains which are damage to ligaments, dislocations, torn ligaments, torn tendons.

The rice method can be used to treat a sprains. Rest to avoid other damage, use ice to reduce swelling, compress the sprain to reduce joint movement. Finally elevate the sprain to prevent further swelling,

Physiotherapists can treat skeletal-muscular injuries by either offering advice or treatment.

Pyramids are a successful way of showing food chains, they are organised by producers at the bottom and predator on top. However, they can be misleading because of the presence of a big organism like a tree.

Pyramids of biomass give a more accurate picture, this happens because they give a fairly accurate indication of the amount of energy at each level of the food chain. This pyramid shows the mass of living material at each level.

Energy is transferred between different organisms in the eco-system, it starts when energy from the Sun as it is the source of energy for nearly all life on earth. If an animal eats a plant or another animal it takes the stored energy, and that works its way though the chain. 

Energy leaves the food chain by respiration, heat, excretion, some material like bones isn't eaten, so its not passed on. Food chains are often quite short because so much energy gets lost the chain cant continue.

For the exam you need to be able to calculate the efficiency of the energy transfer

                              Energy available to next level

 Efficiency % =     ------------------------------------------     X 100

                            Energy available to previous level

Soil contains four main things:

Inorganic matter - Rock, mineral irons E.C.T.

Biomass - Living and dead organic matter. Worms, living and dead and other dead organisms.

Water - Helps plants survive

Air - This is vital for respiration of soil animals and roots 

·         Living together in direct contact, commensalism this is when the relationship Benefits one, but the other isn't harmed. Where as  parasitism is where one benefits and one is harmed.

·         Tapeworms can live on digested food, they do this as they have a  large surface area so can get food by diffusion.  They manage to remain within the body with suckers to attach it to the wall of the intestines.

·         Blood flukes have a pointed head so they can burrow through the skin. They live with in the host as the can incorporate human antigens onto their surfaces making them invisible to the host’s immune systems.

·         Parasites can affect us by...

o   Causing disease

o   Affecting food.

o   Parasite evolution is connected to that of its host.

Malaria is a human disease caused by a parasite, because of this the African population suffer from sickle cell anaemia. Sickle cell anaemia affects red blood cells, it stops the red blood cells from carrying oxygen as they are shaped like sickles. 

This de function is caused by a faulty recessive gene, is two carriers have a child the likeness of getting sickle cell anaemia is at 25%. The carriers have some protection from malaria as malaria uses the red blood cells to grow in, but they cant live in sickle ones. This allows an increased change of survival therefore they are more likely to pass the gene on.

Plants produce glucose though photosynthesis, this makes food in plants that is sugar. The reaction is as follows:

Carbon Dioxide + Water --> (sunlight, Chlorophyll) --> Glucose + Oxygen

This process happens within chloroplasts which absorb sunlight and use its energy to make this reaction.

Plants use glucose in three main ways:

In respiration to produce energy

To make chemicals for growth

To store as starch, ready to use when the light is little.

Three factors affect the rate of photosynthesis, these are light, CO₂ and temperature. Any of these can be a limiting factor that slows down the rate of reaction. If you increase the light the rate will also increase, however, eventually it will level off and something else will become a limiting factor.

If the temperature will make the enzymes work to slow if the temp is too low, if its to high the cells will denature. You can measure the rate under different conditions, for example you can use a gas syringe connected to a tube with water and pond weed. Change conditions and check the amount of CO₂ produced.

Only change on variable at a time, this will help towards achieving a fair and reliable test.

Respiration releases the energy in glucose, compensation point is when the plant is using the same amount of glucose as it is creating. Energy from respiration is used in active transport, moving minerals from the soil (low concentration) to the root (higher concentration).

Human activity produces a lot of carbon dioxide, we do this though the use of cars, electricity production and industrial processes. On top of these things we also chop down trees that absorb the C O₂ and release oxygen.

Increased CO₂ maybe causing global warming, this can cause the following effects:

Expanding Sea, Melting Ice

More hurricanes due to warmer weather

Different weather so drought and flooding

Bacteria have a very simple structure, with the following features, they are very small with no nucleus and they contain plasmids. Micro-organisms are grown in fermenter on a large scale as they have the perfect conditions for them.

Micro-organisms can help us produce food from fungi like Quorn, antibiotics like penicillin and enzymes for food manufacturing like rennin.

Gene modification is a great achievement it can produce now useful micro-organisms and help plants become resistant to virus's. Genetic modification involves important stages. The aspired to cell is isolated, it is then cut from the DNA using restriction enzymes and isolated. The gene is joined to a vector (often the plasmid or a virus) It is then inserted into the host DMA of the organism to produce desired characteristic. 

We use genetically modified organisms to make insulin, it is cultured in a fermenter. Modified micro-organisms are cheap and easy to create. However they can mutate and become dangerous.

GM Crops Pro's and Con's

Pro's: Increase yield and more nutrients for poorer countries

Con's: Might be unsafe or cause allergies and transplanted genes may get out into the environment and damage the ecosystem.

Genetic testing can help identify genetic disorders by looking for faulty genes and chromosome abnormality. Complementary DNA can be used to find a gene.

By identifying a faulty gene.A gene complimentary to the gene you are looking for. Use a gene probe.

identifying a chromosome abnormality. How many tunes the chromosome is present by locating a gene thats only in that chromosome. If the gene is there more or less than normal then its abnormal. 

A gene probe is mixed with the DNA. If the gene you're looking for is present their based will lock together. Gene probes are tagged so you can find them, a chemical tag stick on the end of a sequence. So you can locate the gene probe once it's stuck to a gene. They are also florescent and will glow and show up in UV light, a radioactive chemical can be used and detected using autoradiography similar to an X-ray.

If the gene is present the chromosome will have a highlighted on on it where the gene is present.