20 Time Final Post

Recently, I was able to complete the TED Talk that we had to do for our project in class, and the video of it can be seen below:

Personally, I think I did better than I expected on my TED talk, although I definitely have some things that wished I could have improved upon. I had expected to forget some important part of my presentation, such as including the 3 references to outside sources or forgetting to even mention my finished product, which was my compost bin and pile. However, I did think that I could have been less nervous during my presentation and cut down on the unnecessary filler words, like "like" and "uh". That is something that I think could have only been reduced with more practice and experience, which I will take with me for future presentations or public speaking occasions. Confidence when presenting a topic has always been a rough spot for me, so this experience in general has been quite helpful for me in forcing me to focus on an area that I am not all that comfortable with. I tend to be better at writing my thoughts and researching information about a subject rather than presenting about it, so the overall experience of planning for and writing my presentation will help me improve in the future. I decided to go the way of writing out my script and trying to memorize the gist of it instead of creating an outline that I would bounce off of during the presentation, and I realized not only how long it takes to write everything out, but also how hard it is to remember everything word for word. Because I am not a person that improvisation comes naturally to, I think the technique of writing down the basic framework of sentences for my key ideas will come in handy in the future, as long as I space out my time evenly.

As for the rubric, I would probably give myself a 73/75, missing points in the voice and enthusiasm category as I feel that my voice was kind of monotone throughout the presentation and it may not have seemed that I was as excited about my project as I could possibly be. Overall, my take-away from the task of creating and presenting my TED talk is that confidence is truly the key to any presentation: once you believe in yourself and the preparation that you have done, all that is left is to do is to be yourself in front of however many people you present to. Additionally, I thought that being able to watch others' presentations before me was not only helpful in giving me suggestions on how to improve my own public speaking, but also in learning more about the various topics that were covered and getting me interested in new information that I had possibly not heard about before.

20 Time Reflection

For this project, I chose to take on the task of making my own compost system in order to cut down on the amount of organic waste that my family and I produced, with the intention of inspiring others to learn more about helping the environment while educating myself more on a subject that I was really curious about before going into this project. My original plan was to first research a reasonable amount about the topic of composting, and then follow up by building my own compost mechanism, contacting various sources and possibly calculating the amount of greenhouse gases(caused by food waste decomposing anaerobically in landfills) that I have taken out of the atmosphere. I had intended to be able to have ready-made compost by the end of this semester for me to utilize in a garden started on my own as well.

As for the success that I reached with my project, I do think that I reached many of the goals that I set out for myself at the beginning of the semester, with some key alterations. I never did get around to calculating a quantitative amount of greenhouse gases I was conserving, and most definitely did not finish creating compost that would be useful for gardening purposes(I learned quickly that the decomposition rate of my compost would take far longer than I had allowed for). Every day spent doing the project in class was not wasted, however, as I utilized all of that time to either research further on how to improve my methods or draft an upcoming post ahead of time.

I think the most important takeaway that I had with this project is that nothing really ever turns out the way you expect it to, and that what matters the most is how successful one is in persevering with one's goals or even changing it to further suit one's intentions. There were plenty of rough spots throughout the course of this project, from underestimating the amount of work it would be to choose a design with affordable materials to unexpected occurrences that would uproot the schedule that I had planned out for myself, yet I am proud of the way that I handled it in the end and was able to make adjustments accordingly. Not only did I learn how to reduce the environmental impact that throwing away food waste can cause, but I was also able to learn and improve upon tendencies that I found within myself. As shown from my third blog post, procrastination was something that I struggles with, and the following weeks revealed to me that it was not a dislike of my project topic that impacted me this way, but rather the laziness that I had in starting to do something. After motivating myself to go out and work on my compost area, I realized how pleasing it actually was to slowly accomplish another part of my goal, and that would motivate me to continue working and not give up.

Based on the amount of progress that I have made on my project this semester, I would give myself an B+, because I am proud of the way that I handled the problems that were thrown at me out of the blue and I did achieve most of the goals that were possible in the time allotted. Obviously, it would have been great for me to be able to finish my first batch of compost and have it ready to utilize by the end of this semester, but the complications I had with my schedule at the beginning of the semester unfortunately prevented me from doing so. One thing that I would have changed about my approach would be starting the project earlier and not being so hesitant to move on from theoretical research to actual composting, but many of the things that I accomplished during class and outside of school did meet my initial standards, such as having made a successful process for composting and even reaching out to an expert through email(with a rather helpful answer to one of my questions as well). I was able to sort through dilemmas in having the wrong materials thrown in as well as having a limited amount of space to end up with a finished product in the form of a compost pile in a selected area with an assisting bin to place feedstock beforehand(shown below).

As for what will happen next, my goal is to continue this project up until I am able to achieve my initial goal and make the original food scraps(turned into compost) go full cycle by using it to plant something new. After that, I should hope that my family and I habitualize the process of composting for our food scraps in the future, in hope that this practice will inspire others to lessen their impact on the environment as well. In the meantime, the entirety of my project can be viewed here.

TED Talk Outline:

• open with some joke about compost/how much harder it was in reality
• recall specific anecdotes and hardships faced and how I pushed through
• explain things that I learned(yes, about the environment, but also about motivation, procrastination, learning curve, perseverance, etc)
• maybe end with new idea about contributing to environment but more importantly, don't be afraid to try something new

Unit 6 Reflection

For this unit, we covered the muscular system, observing the micro and macro functioning of certain muscles and their parts, including the interactions that various structures have in helping our body move itself. Of course, we covered the basic anatomy of the muscular system, and learned the different classifications and nomenclature of the variety of muscles that are in the human body; more importantly, however, this unit covered what movements are created by the conjunction of various muscles, and the physiology of what makes our muscles move.

Synovial joints were what we started off with, or more specifically what motions we could perform with synovial movements. We learned that many synovial movements have opposite functions, like abduction(moving limbs away from the midline) and adduction (moving limbs closer to the midline), as well as plantarflexion(pointing the foot) and dorsiflexion(flexing the foot). 

Ogele, Tonye. Body Movement. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p., 19 May 2013. Web. 11 May 2017.

The next part of the unit dealt with the different qualities and characteristics of different muscle parts. Muscle tissue itself can be divided into skeletal, smooth, and cardiac muscle, all located in different areas of the body and capable of different functions.  Skeletal muscles are mostly in charge of voluntary movement, smooth muscle is in charge of involuntary movement, and cardiac muscle(located in the heart) contracts and pulses to bring about blood flow. Muscles are either excitable, contractible, extensible, or elastic, or a combination of the 4, allowing them to receive and respond to stimuli when appropriate and carry out certain functions. Connective tissue of muscles gradually become more specialized the smaller they are, like for instance fascia, which hold entire muscles together, compared to endomysium, which are fascia that hold individual muscle fibers; tendons, however, join muscles to bones. 

Next was the classification of muscles. Muscles are often categorized based on where they are, what role they have in a particular movement, and through their names(which can vary based on direction of muscle fiber, size, shape, etc.). All muscles have an origin, a side where the tendon connects to bone yet has no role in contracting the muscle, and an insertion end, which when contracted, is moved towards the insertion end. In particular synovial movements, there are prime movers(causing the action), antagonists(on the opposite side and relaxing when the prime movers are contracting), and assorted other roles for the multitude of movements. Lastly, nomenclature of muscles are often determined by large groups of similar characteristics (i.e. shape, of which deltoids are triangular in). 

Muscles organized by the type of movements they perform and what role they have

As I talked about, muscles are organized into different categories based on their respective function and image or characteristics, and all of that culminated into some major muscles that we learned in class. One notable group that I would like to focus on would be the quadriceps muscles: the rectus femoris, vastus intermedialis, vastus medialis, and the vastus lateralis. The rectus femoris flexes the thigh and pulls the knees up, while the three "vastus" muscles are in charge of extending the knee joint, with a couple other accessory functions. We went over in greater detail how specific muscles work in conjunction with each other in our Chicken Dissection Lab, which emulated the human body and its muscles.

It was also crucial for us to learn, at the very core, how muscles worked in contracting and relaxing with the help of certain systems in the body. First, before we go into any specifics, the definitions of certain terms must be identified. Every muscle is composed of thousands of muscle fibers, and each individual muscle fiber has tiny myofibrils, which are the "thread" of the muscle fiber. Sarcomeres line up inside the myofibrils, and are areas where the protein fiber overlap and slide past each other during contraction. Muscle contraction can be summed up in the following steps:

1. An action potential(nerve impulse) is sent by the motor neuron to the muscle, stimulating Acetylcholine to be released from the motor neuron vesicles and bind to receptors on the muscles membrane, activating the 2nd action potential.
2. That action potential opens active transport pumps in the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which let out Ca2+ that attach to troponin on the TT complex and changes its shape.
3. The new shape pulls the tropomyosin away from the myosin-binding sites on actin, and ATP attaches to an ATP binding site on the myosin.
4. The ATPase, when in the presence of Mg+, splits the ATP into ADP+P, and swings the head forward.
5. When the P takes off, the myosin head binds onto the binding site on the actin; eventually, when the ADP is pushed off, the myosin is de-energized and pulled back to resting state.
6. The above steps are repeated until the CA2+ is removed from the TT complex, signaling an end to muscle contraction and the start of muscle relaxation.

Relating to some of the vocabulary in this section is the What Happens When You Stretch? reading.

Lastly, in this unit we covered the use of muscle fibers in exercise. We learned that there are slow twitch, fast twitch a, and fast twitch b fibers at work in different types of exercise, explaining the notable variation in body shape across all sports. Slow twitch and fast twitch a fibers both require oxygen, as they are oxidative processes, and yet differ in many ways; slow twice fibers have lower glycogen stores, are red in color, are relatively slow at contrasting, while fast twitch a fibers are the opposite, in that they have high glycogen stores, are pink, and have a fast contractile speed. Fast twitch b fibers are an entirely different beast, however, and run glycolytically and without oxygen, causing them to be anaerobic and lacking blood vessels(meaning that they are white), which is most useful for short distance sprints. Therefore, athletes actually have to be quite informed about the amount of fast and slow twitch fibers that they have(which is genetically determined) in order to excel the most in a certain sport. The way that exercise build muscle is through hypertrophy(an increase in cell size) or hyperplasia(an increase in cells overall), and that can be caused by concentric contractions(muscle shortening movement), eccentric contractions(lengthening movement), isometric  contractions(holding a pose), and passive stretching(without active movements muscle).

Some things that I would like to learn more about in this unit would be the importance of the role that genetics plays in determining how well someone is at a certain sport, as well as the dysfunctions of more muscles and joints that I did not cover in researching for my More Effective Joint Project. I have always found it fascinating how the genetic predisposition of somebody can overall influence the type of sport that they are most drawn to, as well as how muscle and bone can knit itself together from nearly complete tears, so I would like to learn more about these topics.

Overall, I think that this unit was a successful one for me academically. I was able to be intrigued about what we were learning in class, and despite initially dreading the Most Effective Joint project, I felt that the additional research that we did on a specific joint really helped me in the studying process in understanding how muscles and bones and ligaments and tendons work together to move the body. In my lab groups, I was able to push through trials and confusion with the help of my peers, and I am satisfied with the amount of work that I was able to get done with my 20 time project during this unit. My New Year Goals were to be more on top of studying and cut out procrastination so that it didn't impact me as negatively, and for the first, I think I am doing a reasonable job in studying enough. However, for procrastination, I have been finding it harder for me to stay on track with the stress of AP testing over(or almost over). In order for me to try and finish things ahead of time, as well as space out studying for other classes accordingly, I think I shall try planning more thoroughly in my planner what exactly I should have done by the end of the day, leaving enough time before the due date to act as a buffer as need be.

My Composting "Can" Be Improved

Since the time of my last post, I have continued filling up the garbage can that I hoped would help me contain the compost, but now, as the garbage can continues to reach full capacity, I am beginning to consider looking for new venues to form a compost pile where I can possibly create compost in a bigger area. A number of problems have arisen with the garbage can format, including the growing stench that can be smelled next to the trash, the increase number of flies next to the house, and most notably, the finite amount of material that I can put in it.

The smell is often what most people(notably my sister) have been commenting on, and I do agree with her on that note. The fumes remind me of rotting food, which is(contrary to popular opinion) not what compost should smell like. I got help from a highly informational troubleshooting document, which I was led to through the San Jose composting website(here), and you can access the document itself here. The document mainly suggested adding more dry materials in and turning it, which I will also address later in this post.

The next problem that has arisen is the increase in the amount of fruit flies plaguing the compost bin. I researched a bit why such a thing should/shouldn't happen, and drew up a resource from another blog on this website about composting here. I tried out the method, using white vinegar at first, which was not as effective(shown below), so I will try and use apple cider vinegar as suggested going into the next weeks.

Every week, my family produces about a bucket and a half of compostable food scraps, if not more, and the amount of compost that I can put in the bin at one time is limited, meaning that I probably need to think of a new method to create compost. I am thinking of maybe creating an area for my compost to sit in the backyard decompose itself, because the garbage can situation does not seem ideal for turning. It is quite useful to hold materials that I wish to compost, but the small circumference of the bin also makes it hard to turn and aerate, which I worry might delay the decomposition time, which might restrict me from the progress of my project.

Since I probably don't have that much time to go shopping for materials in which to build the compost with, I was thinking of using some chicken wire and make a pile that sits inside of it, as suggested by another plan on the list of designs that I looked at. This would also solve one of the problems that I think the garbage can has, which is the fact that it is not the right size for things to compost correctly; I was supposed to make a pile 3x3x3 ft^3 in volume, and the garbage can is not quite that size. 

Overall, all of these trials have helped me become more active with my life and acknowledge the amount of waste that could be thrown into landfills. Filling up the compost every week since the last post has forced me to move around in between my studying and go outside to deal with the compost, as well as led me to realize just how much food waste is actually thrown away instead of being utilized. I've also learned to be more resilient, and not give up in the face of hardship. Despite the commentary of many for me to change my project entirely, I am still dedicated to seeing it progress, just though trial and error. The next steps for me are to carry out the plans that I have written on here, and possibly contact the blog that I have recently looked up for advice for a composting beginner. I truly think that having an outside opinion on what I am doing will help me in convincing others that composting is an option for them as well.

More Effective Joint: Shoulder Dislocation

For this project, we were tasked with creating our own improved joint in order to alleviate the commonality of a certain dysfunction or injury. I chose the shoulder joint, in particular the dislocation of the glenohumeral joint, because I was curious about the specifics of how dislocation works, as I have never personally had it happen to me before. I had also recently come across a certain dysfunction of the body that intrigued me, the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes(EDS) which also pertains to dislocation, motivating me to chose this topic. Throughout the project, I researched the anatomy of the shoulder, finding important structures crucial to the movements of the shoulder, and then looked up what exactly causes the dislocation of the shoulder. In doing so, I realized the broad nature of the term “dislocation of the shoulder” and narrowed it down to a more specific injury in a Bankart lesion. I then brainstormed a way to fix the problem, and recorded the details of my discoveries down below.

The shoulder joint is the joint that I focused on for this project, and it is actually composed of 4 joints, only one of which I centered on for my project. The glenohumeral joint is the typical ball-and-socket joint that connects the humerus and the scapula at the glenoid cavity when one thinks “shoulder”, and the joint is stabilized by surrounding rotator cuff muscles and glenohumeral ligaments. Specifically, the superior, inferior, and middle glenohumeral ligaments(GHL) help keep the shoulder from dislocating, while the coraco-aromial ligament(CAL) links the corocoid process, a part of the scapula which projects, to the acromion, the notable ridge on the clavicle. Another ligament is the coraco-clavicular ligament, which works to connect the scapula and the clavicle. The shoulder has two main types of tendons: the rotator cuff tendons, a group of four tendons including the scapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor; and the biceps tendons, having both the long and short head tendons to connect the bicep to the shoulder. Nerves of the shoulder are called the brachial plexus, and include the axillary nerve, long thoracic nerve, suprascapular nerve, musculocutaneous nerve, and many more. Blood vessels that surround the shoulder joint include the subclavian and axillary veins and arteries.

As mentioned before, the shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint, and is given some stability by the glenoid labrum, a fibro-cartilaginous surrounding of the glenoid cavity which also fuses the two parts of the joint together. The rotator cuff tendons and their attached deep muscles, as the name may suggest, rotates and extends at the shoulder joint, allowing us to circumduct our shoulders. Additionally, muscles that elevate, depress, and rotate the scapula and the clavicle, two other bones along with the humerus that make up the shoulder joint, include the trapezius, rhomboid major, and pectoralis minor, to name a few.

Despite the placement of many of these structures intended to stabilize the shoulder joint, the fact that the humerus does not completely fit into the glenoid cavity makes the joint susceptible to instability, which can result in the injury of shoulder dislocation. Shoulder dislocation can be classified as being caused traumatically(with the joint being knocked out of normal position with excessive force) or atraumatically(either habitually or painlessly, usually occurring without as much force). Considering that this project deals with the improvement of what structures are involved within the joint and not so much with the muscles surrounding the joint or the problems of individuals having more “lax” joints(associated with hyperextension, etc), I chose to focus on the traumatic dislocation of the shoulder, specifically the injury of a Bankart lesion.

The chance of dislocation is exponentially increased when there is instability in the shoulder, caused by a tear or distortion of the glenoid labrum and/or the glenohumeral ligaments mentioned above. For traumatic dislocation especially, the most common injury is called the Bankart lesion, where a part of the glenoid labrum is torn from the bone. In order to prevent this injury from happening, or at least lessen the severity of it, my proposal of a better joint would be either to increase the thickness of the labrum by 1 mm. The labrum as it is currently is 3.8mm’ 3.3 at the subscapularis bursa level, and 6.1mm’ 5.8 at the inferior portion of the glenoid, so adding on an additional 1 mm or so would greatly increase the durability of the labrum, but might cause problems with flexibility of the shoulder, in rotation or extension of the arm.

Another proposal would be to add a new structure to the inside of the labrum, in between it and the glenoid, to help hold the labrum to the glenoid and the bone with more stability. The labrum would have that additional structure holding it to the glenoid to prevent it from tearing as easily; however, the addition of that intermediate structure may affect the way the humerus fits into the scapula, and perhaps cause the glenohumeral joint to pop in and out even more easily, perhaps causing atraumatic dislocation of the shoulder. Since there are no major blood vessels weaving within the joint, those would remain unaffected, but the rotator cuff tendons that surround the glenohumeral joint may be stretched with the extra tissue inside the joint, and the stability provided by the glenohumeral ligaments(superior, inferior, and middle) may also be compromised with with this addition.

For both of these designs, I was inspired by looking at a diagram of the glenoid labrum and thought logically of how I could bolster the natural design of joint. I realized that since the labrum itself is reminiscent of the meniscus of the knee, and overall is just a rim of fibrous tissue, a thickening of the tissue might help with preventing tears; consequently, the observation that the labrum and glenoid had nothing in between the area that usually gets the most torn led me to the conclusion that something should be done to patch the area together. My design does have its flaws though; I mentioned how the surrounding ligaments and tendons and even the joint itself might be taxed by my alterations, but the nervous system may well be affected as well. The suprascapular nerve does branch down close to the glenohumeral joint, so if the glenoid cavity were to be lessened somewhat, the nerve itself may become entrapped.

Obviously, since we are unable to truly “fix” our joints, proper care of these problem areas and building strength in the muscles surrounding it are the only ways we can prevent these injuries from happening. For traumatic shoulder dislocations, prevention can be found in avoiding high-contact sports and being careful of harshly impacting the shoulder, while we can minimize damage by exercising the shoulder muscles to increase the cushion that we have when falling; atraumatic shoulder dislocations can be relieved through exercises and surgery to some extent.

Works Cited

"Bones and Joints of the Shoulder." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 11 Feb. 2016. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. 

"Glenoid Labrum." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 5 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 May 2017. 

"Labrum." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 7 May 2017. Web. 09 May 2017. 

National Institute Of Arthritis And Musculoskeletal And Skin Diseases. The human shoulder joint. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p., 16 Sept. 2006. Web. 8 May 2017. 

"Nerves of the Shoulder." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 7 May 2017. Web. 08 May 2017. 

"Shoulder Anatomy." Arthritis Foundation. Arthritis Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. 

"Shoulder Dislocation." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 5 Feb. 2017. Web. 05 May 2017. 

"Shoulder Ligaments." ShoulderDoc. N.p., 5 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 May 2017. 

Totora, Gerard J., and Bryan Derrickson. Introduction to the Human Body. 7th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2007. Print. 

Weinstock, David. Shoulder Injury. Digital image. Flickr. N.p., 17 Sept. 2016. Web. 9 May 2017.

What Happens When You Stretch?

• "This triggers the stretch reflex (also called the myotatic reflex) which attempts to resist the change in muscle length by causing the stretched muscle to contract." 
• I was intrigued by this quote, as it introduced to me the fact that when we stretch, there is an accompanying stretch reflex that prevents us from only relaxing and stretching the muscle. When I stretch, there is of course resistance from stretching all of the way, but I had always thought that it was because my muscles were not elastic enough or that I was not flexible enough, and not that my body was in fact resisting my efforts to stretch all the way. 
• " Some sources suggest that with extensive training, the stretch reflex of certain muscles can be controlled so that there is little or no reflex contraction in response to a sudden stretch." 
• I thought that this information was entirely interesting, because as I have danced before, I have met many people who are either naturally flexible or have stretched enough so that they can hold splits for an indefinite amount of time. These people have put the time in to stretch their body frequently, and thus are able to suffer little pain in a position that most would suffer from because their body has lessened the effect of the stretch reflex on their muscles. 
• " When an agonist contracts, in order to cause the desired motion, it usually forces the antagonists to relax. This phenomenon is called reciprocal inhibition because the antagonists are inhibited from contracting." 
• This quote relates to what we learned about muscles in class, as we also talked about the properties of the antagonist and agonist muscles in certain motions that we perform. When we stretch one muscle, the "opposite" muscle is contracting to make that muscle stretch. 

This reading was about the physiology of our muscles when we stretch, and how the muscle spindles and muscle fibers interact with each other(along with assisting structures) to help us stretch. When we stretch, the sarcomeres in our muscle fibers contracts and the muscle fiber is elongated as a result. Some of the fibers are responsible for the stretching, while some are simply going along for the ride", which as a result causes unaligned fibers to be put back where they belong. The fibers that help us stretch are divided into 2 types: extrafusal and intrafusal fibers. Extrafusal fibers contain myofibrils, while intrafusal fibers are divided into nuclear chain fibers and nuclear bag fibers, which are the static part of the stretch reflex(which resists the lengthening of muscle) and the dynamic components of the stretch reflex, respectively. Also, when the muscle changes in tension, the lengthening reaction is triggered after some time, relaxing the contracting muscle so that your muscle is not injured. Thus, the benefits of stretching can be shown as it makes the lengthening reaction lengthen your muscles, heal scarred tissue, and train the stretch receptors, which can be applied to my life today as I often stretch in color guard to train flexibility. It is useful to know what other benefits there may be to stretching periodically, beside the aspect of being able to dance better.

Chicken Dissection Lab

For this lab, we were given a frozen chicken to take apart and assess, and that we did. Through this lab, we were able to further out understand of how our muscles, bones, and tendons all play a role in movement. Muscles are connected to our bones through our tendons, and contract and extend accordingly to help us move. This can clearly be seen in the chicken's wing and our arm, where the biceps brachii and triceps humeralis work in opposition to flex and extend the arm. On the biceps brachii, we played around with the insertion tendon attached to the humerus and was able to maneuver it to bend the arm when we pressed it, as opposed to the unmoving tendons at the origin. Although the tendons both look shiny and white ant both ends of the muscle, whether they are attached at insertion or not makes a big difference in their ability to move our muscles accordingly. Additionally, we were able to discover that twisting the humerus would also create a waving motion in the chicken wing, revealing further insight into how the bones of the body work.

As for the differences between human and chicken muscles, some major ones included the pectoralis major and minor. The pectoralis majors were the huge breast muscles on the exterior of the chicken that pull the wing ventrally, yet in humans is used in bench pressing, while the pectoralis minor lay inside the breast, and pulls the wing dorsally(which in humans pulls the shoulder down and forward).

Muscles that acted similar to human muscles were the trapezius and the latissimus dorsi, which shrug the shoulders and pulls the shoulder back and extend and pull the arm respectively. 

Other muscles that we were tasked to find are found below:

The iliotibialis extends the thigh and flexes the leg

The deltoid raises the upper arm/wing

The brachioradialis pulls the hand back, and the flexor carpi ulnaris flexes the hand

Blue pin: Sartorius, flexes thigh and allows for crossing of knee
Red pin: Quadriceps femoris, flexes thigh and extends lower leg
Green pin: Semimembranosus, extends the thigh
White pin: Semitendinosus, extends thigh
Yellow pin: Biceps femoris, flexes leg

Blue pin: Gastrocnemius, extends foot and flexes lower leg
Yellow pin: Peroneus longus, extends foot
Black pin: Tibialis anterior, flexes foot

Unit 7 Reflection

For this unit, we focused mainly on the skeletal system, and more specifically, what the bones in our body do, how they work, and what certain ones look like. As with many other units that we have learned in Anatomy and Physiology thus far, the purpose of this unit was been to correlate the functions and dysfunctions of the bones in our system in order to understand how they help our body work the most efficiently and healthily as possible. Essential understandings include the classification of bones, the gross and microscopic anatomy of bones, the function and dysfunctions of the skeletal system, how lifestyle choices affect bone health, the relationship between the structure and function of bones, tissues, and cells, and how the skeletal system works to help maintain homeostasis.

First off, we went over the general functions and dysfunctions of the skeletal system. Bones are divided into being either axial(integral to framing the body) or appendicular(on the appendages of the body), and mainly work to support the body, protect soft organs, move in accordance to skeletal muscles, store minerals, and form blood cells. Bones are also responsible for constantly regenerating and discarding bone tissue throughout one's lifetime, in a process called bone remodeling, which we would cover more in depth later on. When one of these functions of the body are compromised, it is often due to a certain disorder associated to the dysfunction of the skeletal system; for example, osteoporosis, which is more common amongst women, causes bones to lose the stored minerals that they have and create brittle bones the to break more easily and often create mini-fractures that compress the appearance of the skeleton. Other disorders include scoliosis, which is when the structure of the spine is irregularly curved(a dysfunction in supporting the body) and arthritis, which is the inflammation of joints(inhibiting the function of movement).

Carter, Henry Vandyke, and Henry Gray. Osteoblasts and osteoclasts on
trabecula of lower jaw of calf embryo. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p.,
16 May 2006. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.

Next, we went over the biological composition of bones, and their purpose in bone density. Bone remodeling, as mentioned before, is a process that all bones in the body undergo, and osteocytes, osteoblasts, and osteoclasts assist in, and each type of bones cell has its own role. Osteocytes can be considered the older generation of osteoblasts and osteoclasts(those young 'uns), as they are firmly embedded firmly in the bone itself and send signals for the other two types of cells to do their jobs. Osteoclasts are the bone destroying cells(much like the angry teenager stereotype) that get rid of bone tissue to maintain and repair injured bone. Osteoblasts, on the other hand, "blast" new bone material on the bone in order to replace that injured bone. Alongside cells, there are also a few notable
hormones and minerals involved with bone remodeling as well, which helps emphasize why a healthy diet is important for all the systems of the body. The parathyroid hormone(PTH) is secreted when the osteoclasts are more active and there are lower Ca2+ ions in the blood in order to indue those ions and phosphate from the bone into the blood, and calcitonin is used to bring Ca2+ ions back into bones and at a normal level(as well as keep osteoclasts in check). Proper nutrition is thus extremely important in bone remodeling, because the vitamin D(which helps absorb calcium into the body), vitamin K(assorted vitamins that go straight to the bone), and vitamin C(which helps produce collagen secreted by osteoblasts) that we ingest all are necessary to feed the process of bone remodeling.

We then went more into specifics on how the body repairs bone fractures(serious ones that cannot get fixed only through bone remodeling). Primarily, one must know the difference between certain types of fractures of bone, which include complete/incomplete(whether or not it breaks straight through the bone)or closed/compound(whether or not the skin is pierced by the bone). Other types of fractures are a comminuted fracture(broken into 3+pieces)and an oblique fracture(where the break occurs at an angle)but regardless of the type of break, all bones are repaired (once the ends of the bone meet) through the creation of a blood clot that turns into a procallus(mass of protein fibers). Fibroblasts then arrive at the scene to establish connections of dense connective tissue, followed by chondroblasts and osteoblasts, until finally time becomes the final instigator in creating cartilage and bone into a bone mass called osseous callous.

Villarreal, Mariana Ruiz. Human skeleton.
Digital image. Wikipedia. N.p.,
 3 Jan. 2007. Web. 17 Apr. 2017

General anatomy paired with a little bit of physiology was learnt in the last few lessons on the skeletal system, about both joints and the bones of our body. Joints work mainly due to their creation of either a first, second, or third class lever that help us move our bodies with ease, and are classified base on functional and structural qualities. On the functional side, synarthrosis names immovable joints, amphiarthroses contains slightly movable joints, and the group diarthroses has freely movable joints.  Structurally, joints are divided into fibrous(ligament joining), cartilaginous(cartilage joining) and synovial(without anything in between). Add the two classifications together, and specific joints within the body come to mind, like the synovial diarthrotic joint of our wrist, elbow, hip, and shoulder. With the mentioning of specific joints within the body, it is impossible not to mention the individual bones of the body that are the most important in supporting and transporting ourselves. In a bone lab that we conducted in class, we were assigned to learning about and memorizing a choice number of bones
, a notable few including the femur(the largest bone in the body), the mandible(lower jaw), and the false and floating ribs under the 7 true ribs that are not fully connected to the rest of the ribcage.

After learning all about the skeletal system, there is still some areas that I have questions on, including whether flexibility has anything to do with bones, why being double jointed is a thing, and why creaky joints/old injuries are sometimes affected by the weather(or so say old people).

As a student during this unit, I felt that I did keep up with paying attention in class and properly absorbing the material that we learned in class and at home by keeping up with homework and class work. The only lab that I posted during this unit, the Owl Pellet Lab, was truly quite fascinating to me (while I did do a similar lab in 4th grade, the specimens were rather skimpy in bones and not nearly as big as the ones we had this semester), and I felt that I was able to work well with my partner in order to figure out what kind of animal we had. Participation in class was, I think, rather normal for me, and if there is anything that I felt this unit I could have improved one, it might have been starting to study for the test a bit sooner and keeping a steady progress on the 20 Time Project. From my New Years Goals post, you can see how one of my weak points is procrastination, and although I feel much more solid on the material we learned this unit than, say, the past unit, I still could have started studying sooner to clear up my schedule for other classes. From my last 20 Time update as well, my struggles with procrastination have definitely peeked through a bit during this unit, so I will endeavor to put more persistence into my goals going into the next unit. However, I do think that I should be proud of the progress that I have made this unit in learning new material, and I am looking forward to taking what I have learned with me going forward.

It's "Bin" Great So Far

Now that the time to write our 3rd blog post has come around, I am happy to report many new developments in my project. I now have created the basic frame of my compost bin out of a black, 31 gallon garbage can (pictured below). My dad helped me drill 6 rows of 8 holes, each approximately 1 cm in diameter and every row 5 inches apart from each other. The lid of the garbage can has 21 holes, and the bottom of the can was drilled as well in order to promote ventilation and the drainage of unwanted water.

Originally, I had actually not intended to use a garbage can for creating compost; I thought that this sort of container would not be big enough, since it did not fit the requirements of having a 3x3x3 ft^3 volume that one of my other resources had indicated. However, a brief venture into Home Depot left me without a concrete plan for the materials that I had wished to use, considering that I could not find adequate chicken wire, wooden snow fences, or even wood that I wished to use to make the compost bin. Hopefully this design(which was also on the plan I provided in my last post) will work out, and insulate the compost inside enough to hold heat.

After constructing the base for the compost, it was time to start actually putting things in it. To assist with this, I used a separate bin in the kitchen to hold the compostable feedstock(food scraps). 

This was crucial, as i didn't want any meat or dairy products(or god forbid, plastic) to find their way into the compost; however, I still had to fish out a couple pieces of bone here and there. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I would have to start collecting dry and wet materials to put into my compost, and luckily enough, my house is located near quite a few oak trees with ample supplies of dry leaves, so I started off with a sizable layer of those leaves at the bottom of the compost.

Afterwards, I put in a layer of food scraps(from plant sources) to supply the "wet" aspect of compost, resulting in it looking a little something like this:

At this point in time, there is still some way to go before the bin gets to a large enough size to produce heat in the middle, so for the following weeks I will be documenting my progress in trying to do just that. With all the rain lately, it has been hard finding dry brown feedstock for the compost, so I might look for a way to stockpile oak leaves while they're still dry and available. Turning, which helps increase airflow and shorten the amount of time compost is created, is also a method that I will start using once the compost gets bigger, and I will keep this blog updated once I start doing it and see how(or if) it improves the way that the compost gets along. Also, it still remains to see whether this bin will work; if it fails to decompose the way that it should, then I might have to try and create another way to get rid of extra food scraps. Until next time, however, I'll keep working with this model and see how it goes. I will also try to look for nearby facilities to reach out and ask questions as well, and maybe even attend a few classes if y schedule clears up.

Mainly, what I have learned about myself is that I find it really hard to adhere to my goals or long-time projects when there are other things that are there to distract me in my schoolwork. I've struggled on the past with procrastination and other problems, but for this project especially I feel that I should work more towards breaking this habit of mine and putting this project in a higher priority. Our culture in school especially prevents us from focusing on the "big picture" at times, especially when it comes to doing well in school; I think that this project, in the long run, will help me stay focused in what I hope to accomplish, not just for 20 time. 

Owl Pellet Lab

In our Owl Pellet Lab, we were given an owl pellet to pick apart and needed to identify exactly what kind of animal(s) were part of this particular owl's diet. In my lab group, we found multiple bones and even skulls within the owl pellet, as documented by the pictures on the bottom, and even were able to identify a few of the bones that we as humans shared with these organisms.

We were able to find an assortment of animal bones

An animal's femur, pelvis, lower jaws, and other assorted bones

Upon uncovering all of the bones in the owl pellet, I hypothesized that one of our animals was a pocket gopher, due to certain characteristics of the skull that we observed. From the owl pellet that we got(which was 6.35 g, 45 mm long, and 33 mm wide), we had dug out a skull which was 36 mm long and 21 mm wide, with accompanying mandibles 16.5 mm in length and 3.7 mm in width. This fit in with the typical characteristics of pocket gophers(which have skull lengths of 30-42 millimeters), and although there were some discrepancies in the supposed mandible length(the ones that we found were significantly smaller), that can be attributed to the gopher being eaten prematurely. Additionally, the teeth of the skull were observed to be sharp and pointy, and have separate roots, which is one other characteristics that pocket gophers and voles share. Lastly, the shape of the skull did resemble that of a typical pocket gopher(as seen from the packet), which further solidified my suspicions that the animal we were dealing with was a pocket gopher.

The teeth of the skull were sharp and had individual roots

The skull looked almost exactly like the picture in the packet

As for ways that the animals were similar and different to our own human anatomy, the animals that we discovered had similar femurs, vertebrae, and scapulas as humans. The bones were surprisingly identifiable due to their similarity to human features in our own anatomy. In the scapula specifically, both shoulder blades in rodents and in humans have a fan-like shape, which made it easy to find. Things that differed from human anatomy were definitely the skull(and the teeth as accessories), the pelvis, and the mandible. The differences in the mandibles was most prominent, as humans only have one large lower jaw, while rodents seem to have 2.

The scapula looked a lot like humans' due to its similar shape

Rodents tend to have separated mandibles, not like humans

Learning the Framework

So far, I have been researching more and more about the topic of composting, and gathered numerous sources detailing exactly what types of compost there are and the characteristics of different compost bins. Although composting may seem self-explanatory on the surface, there are actually a lot of layers(no pun intended) involved with creating a successful system of decomposition. Just by researching about the different ways to construct holding units, a new world of information was opened up to me about which types of compost bins were most efficient(worm composting and turning units), how to choose a compost bin most suited to your abode, and whether or not turning the compost would make a difference. From this plethora of information I settled upon a plan of building a holding unit, the one which my resources hinted would require the least amount of work and delicacy, as long as I was able to provide at least an open, flat space of 3 ft x 3 ft x 3ft(which is able to fit in my back yard). I managed to find a plan as well for the construction of various types of holding units, which you can see for yourself here.

Next on my list was actually learning about what I should and should not compost, and how exactly to make the best possible environment for nature to do its work. Compost(at least in a holding unit that I plan to build) should be at least 3x3x3 feet in volume in order to properly hold in heat to speed up decomposition and keep pathogens away from the pile. The order of placing biodegradables should be first a layer of "browns"(dry, carbon ingredients) right above the ground, followed by a layer of "greens"(wet, nitrogen ingredients), alternating back and forth until a height of 3 feet is reached. Brown materials include any sort of dry yard waste like leaves and branches, which my house has plenty of due to our abundance of oak trees around, and green materials are things like food waste(but NOT including animal products of any sort) and yard clippings. At this point, I realized that I should plan to create a separate kitchen container for the green items that I wish to compost and separate out the things that need to be thrown away, so I included that in the general plan that I wished to follow. For some really interesting and important information concerning how to compost properly, you can refer to this resource for help.

Over the time that I have started working on my 20 Time project, I learned a number of things about myself, one of which was that it was hard to convince myself to stick to goals I had for a certain week when more pressing schoolwork was to be done. I had set a goal in my first 20 Time post to start building a compost bin by my next update, and I have not yet been able to accomplish this. Additionally, things that I struggled with during these first couple of weeks has been being out of town for a number of days, restricting my ability to get any work done on a project that is mostly material in nature. There was also the difficulty in doing much work during the allotted time in class besides research, because the majority of my project involves actually building a compost unit and composting at home, which I clearly cannot do at school. To overcome these obstacles, I will try to work more on my project at home through better planning of when to divide the work amongst my other homework, and trying to catch up over the upcoming break.

As for the next steps in my project, I am hoping to accomplish all of the steps I have listed previously and really start composting by the time of my next post, and detailing my findings through the audience on my blog to encourage others to join me in trying to reduce organic waste.

Reflexes Lab

In this lab, we learned about the various reflexes that we have in the body. As we know from learning about neurons, a reflex is the shorter pathway of certain reactions so that instead of firing signals all the way to the brain and back to the mentioned area, it first straight from a sensory neuron to the spinal cord, where it then bounces back to immediately signal mortar neurons to enact a certain response, oftentimes without us knowing it. Therefore, we sent out to find these reflexes and test them out for ourselves, with the photo pupillary, knee jerk, blink, and plantar reflexes, along with the general test of reaction time. All of these tests showed certain behaviors that occurred without our control, relating to the entire purpose of having reflexes which protect us by not sending signals all the way to the brain.

My eye in normal light

My eye once the flashlight was shown in my eye.

The first reflex we tested was the photopupillary reflex, which is supposed to make the pupil smaller in response to intense light. We tested this by closing both of my eyes and shining a flashlight into one, while the other while the other remained in the dark, and found that this reflex did happen(as seen from the photo evidence). This reflex worked because the sensory neurons detecting light(photoreceptors) only had to send a message up to the spinal cord, where it then bounced back to stimulate the ciliary body of the iris to contract in response.

The second reflex was the patellar, or knee jerk, reflex. Our knee is supposed to flinch or jerk outwards in response to a hard hit at the knee, and sure enough, after a test of this reflex, my knee did move without my intention. This reflex worked because the motor sensors in my knee were routed only to the spinal cord, after which the message to kick the leg was sent immediately through the motor neurons without my intention. Afterwards, we tested the reflex after doing 30 squats, and the reflex was less observed, due to the fatigue in  my muscles preventing the reflex from occurring super quickly.

The blink reflex was the next to come(in which we are supposed to blink in response to an oncoming object), and the test in this lab involving it included throwing a cotton ball at my eye with plastic wrap in front of my face. The sudden missile aimed at my face induced me to blink(uncontrolled by me whatsoever), showing that when unexpected things happen our reflexes really do help avoid disaster. Like all of the other reflexes, the blink reflex was induced by the quick timing of sensory neurons, the spinal cord, and motor neurons contracting the eye.

The plantar reflex, or the reflex in which your toes contract with the uncomfortable sensation of having a pen dragged up the sole of the foot, was unfortunately not observed in my test. A possible reason for why the reflex didn't occur in me could be that I was already thinking and anticipating the pen to go up my foot, so the surprise factor did not work as well as it should have.

Lastly, the reaction time test that we conducted was about dropping a ruler between my fingers and seeing how long it took for me to catch it. In the data table, below, you can see that my average reaction time was 0.28 seconds, which set the basis for the second test that we did.

This time, we would be testing the same thing but with the distraction of texting in our other hand, and, as expected, my reaction time was slower than it was before, and the average time was 0.33 seconds. This occurred most likely because the brain was so preoccupied with texting that it was unable to see the yardstick as quickly, and the sensory neurons in turn started the reflex to grab later than before.

Unit 6 Reflection

This unit was about the nervous system in its entirety, and some key themes and understandings were that the brain, although specialized to some extent, can be adapted to new environments and situations in order to better serve the body, and communicates within itself to divide up the work that needs to be done; dysfunctions of the brain are able in many ways to teach us how the brain normally works; and lastly, that the brain needs to be able to work with many other parts of our nervous system in order to truly function at its best.

The Clay Brain

We first started off by learning about the main parts and functions of the brain, the center of our nervous system. The brain is structured from bottom to top by the spinal cord, hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain, and the closer parts are to the spinal cord, the more basic its movements and functions are. Then there are the parts of the brain, which include the brainstem(comprised of the medulla oblongata, pos, and midbrain); the cerebellum, which controls the body; the thalamus, which sorts data and sends it where it needs to go; the hypothalamus, which maintains homeostasis; the posterior pituitary, which sends out hormones; the cerebrum, which is in charge of integration; and the cerebral cortex, divided into 4 lobes and controls higher function thought and action. Those four lobes are the frontal lobe, which is involved in speaking  and is the "executive; the parietal lobe, in charge of sensation; the occipital lobe, in charge of vision; and the temporal lobes, which include auditory areas. As seen from the article "A Woman With a Hole in her Brain", loss of a certain part of the brain can result in a lack of ability to perform functions that that part of the brain does. The Sheep Brain Dissection also documents our journey in learning about the anatomy of the brain, as well as the Clay Brain.

We next learned how the brain works together to communicate and divide up the work amongst its various different parts. the whole idea of brain lateralization is that the brain "divides and conquers" when it conducts neural functions and cognitive processes between the right and left hemispheres of "A Woman Perpetually Falling". Other important characteristics of the brain are sensory areas, which contain the homunculus(the perception that your brain has of your body in accordance to the sensitivity of various parts of the body), and motor areas, which control muscle movement(where the right and left hemispheres come into play again).
the brain to make processes more efficient. The two sides(which control opposite halves of the body under a contralateral division of labor)communicate through the corpus callosum that connects the two. Contrary to this school of thought is the idea of brain plasticity, where parts the brain are able to take on functions of their missing or dysfunctional neighbors because the brain adapts and evolves in different environments constantly; this can be evidenced by the examples found in the reading

My Senses graphic organizer

Th mechanics of senses were discussed next, and we learned about special(or organ-specific) and somatic(or body) senses, which are received by receptors of all types. Sensory adaptation is the occurrence where our receptors are exposed to stimulus for so long that you no longer receive the message. The main specific senses were discussed, such as sight/vision, hearing, smell, and taste, and the corresponding organs, receptors, and sensory cells were identified as well. dissected a sheep eye in order to learn more about how light travels through the eye, and the functions of the different parts of the eye. Dysfunctions of sight include myopia(near-sightedness), hyperopia(far-sightedness), glaucoma, and cataracts; for hearing a choclear impact may be required allow sound waves to stimulate the auditory nerve. Taste and smell are lesser known for their dysfunctions, but we discussed how they(and sight and hearing) work as well. For this part of our learning, we

Neurons, probably the most important part of the nervous system, followed senses, and we learned that the 3 functions of the nervous system are sensation, integration(processing of sensory input), and motor function. The nervous system is divided into the central and peripheral nervous systems, the latter of which is divided into the sensory and motor divisions. The central nervous systems comprised of the brain and spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system is made up of the surrounding nerves. The sensory division carries nerve impulses from the body to the brain, and the motor division carries nerve impulses from the brain to the muscles and glands. Subdivisions of the motor division are the somatic nervous system which consciously controls skeletal muscles, and the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary or autonomic events. The automatic nervous system is at last divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic, which wither produces a change or the opposite that change. Neurons themselves have 5 main parts: dendrites, axons, axon terminals, the synaptic cleft, and the synapse. They are classified according to function or structure, but all of them conduct electrical signals much the same way. The nerve impulse starts off in the resting state, until something sets it off for depolarization(a switch between positive and negative charges). Depolarization occurs and propagation sends the signal across the neuron until it reaches to axon terminals to release neurotransmitter, and then the neuron is again repolarized to do its job once more.

Lastly, we covered the disorders of the CNS and PNS. Some diseases of the CNS are meningitis, an inflammation of the meninges, and epilepsy, a condition of the brain causing seizures. PNS disorders include the shingles, a reemergence of the chicken pox virus, and neuralgia, the sharp shock of pain that follow the path of a nerve. Addiction, believe it or not, is a disease as well, as it meddle with the brain's structure, pathways, and chemicals to create craving, compassion, loss of control, and continued use despite consequences in addicts.

Readings that we did this unit were "A Woman With a Hole in her Brain", "A Woman Perpetually Falling", both articles that discussed the topic in their title and relate to brain dysfunction, anatomy, and plasticity. Others included "How to Become a Superager" that explained how some elderly people could retain their younger minds through challenging themselves mentally all of the time(again, related to plasticity and evolution of the brain), "Fit Body Fit Brain" that discussed(like the previous one) how exercise can improve one's brain capacity, and "How We Get Addicted" that addressed the numerous ways that addiction can be considered a disease(relating to our nervous system disorders notes).

Definite strengths this unit included keeping up with readings and participating in class, but some weaknesses were seen in putting things off till the last minute and having a lot of work to make up. Studying for the test, too, was definitely not the best I could have done, which relates to my New Years Goals of trying to come up with better studying techniques. I did try to try new things this unit with drawing diagrams to help me study(mostly of the nervous system), but the main problem that occurred was the lack of time I had to prepare. Next time, I'll endeavor to invest more time into properly studying for the test. To end on an inquisitive note, some things that I am curious about are what parts of the brain/how much of the brain can be lost until brain plasticity is no longer able to occur, and how headaches occur.