Cool biology topics

Canuker

Canuker

Active member
I have to do a 20 min seminar in my grade 11 bio class thats worth 20% of my final grade. We can write it on any biology topic so i want to pick something interesting.

Anything off the top of your heads?
 
pick some nasty disease

my freshman year bio class was just power points with my teacher talking about the worst possible diseases in the world. i dont know if we learned anything. it was just fucking depressing. like at one point i just didnt want to leave the house for fear of catching a fungus and turning into tree man
 
gene therapy / genetic engineering is pretty cool.it's crazy some of the stuff they can do now
 
you could do invasive species (cane toads, zebra mussels etc.) easy but, not very interesting.
heres a few others im pulling out of my assgenetic testing/ mitochondrial DNAimportance of apex predatorsmercury throughout the food web of whatever ecosystemsome gnarly flesh eating infectionAIDS, morbid but again, easysharks not getting cancer
 
i have to do something similar in my biology class, i need some help coming up with a pressing issue in the biology world, an example being alternate energy. but a lot of people are doing that alredy so any ideas ns?
 
Taysachs disease, Fat accumulates inside infants brains because they don't have the enzyme to emulsify it. Basically it crushes their brain and they loose all motor function and die by age 5. Sad
 
do some type of cancer. SOOOO much info out there since it is a very aggresively studied disease..i did a 30 page independent project on brain cancer and used 10 articles from doctor / medical magazines and journals to cite from. easiest 20+ paper i ever did..but yeah, cancer - pick a type.

GL bro.
 
i did a 30 min presentation in my bio lab at school, i was a bio major, i did it on the different types of jaws of mammals, if u want to take a look at my powerpoint, lemme know, i also did one on the digestive and execretory systems of birds,reptiles,fish, and mammals
 
my teachers a jew and jews are normally the ones who get taysachs so i thought it was funny
 
mycorrhizal fungi, we owe our existence to them. They are also the biggest organisms on earth. hell just write it on rhizospheres' in general, most diverse environment on earth.
 
biomimicry, inventions taking ideas from nature. examples off the top of my head are tiny hairs in geckos feet to help robots climb up walls, and microscopic maze like structures in shark skin to repel all bacteria which are being implemented into hospital walls, equipment, etc.
 
All good idea's, thanks people.

Id like to stay away from cancer and topics like that though. I want to pick something that i can actually enjoy researching, some cool concepts and stuff.
 
i mean sex is like biology... sooo you could research the shit out of boning and present it to your class... chicks will totally dig it hahahah

seriously though
 
Lol i know your serious.

I could do it like on erections (no homo) and make it really akward for everyone in the class.
 
Bioactive/bioresorbable composites. Kind of linked to the biomimcry that valley mentioned. These materials are being developed as the next generation material for hip-replacements etc... The idea is that you create a composite of a plastic (like a type of polylactic acid, such as PDLLA) and a 'bioactive' ceramic or glass (examples; hydroxyapetite is currently used, BIoglass is the name of a series of bioactive glasses).
The composite can be produced as an open cell foam, similar to natural bone. Being an open cell foam like real bone allows cells, fluids etc too pass through the material like real bone. Is also results in the material having a similar stiffness to natural bone so that you don't get massive stress concentrations (like you would with a titanium implant) that can cause the bone around an implant to easily fracture.
Once the implant is put it in the body it starts to break down. But (here's the cool bit) the bioactve glass stimulated cells in the bone (osetoblasts) to produce new bones cells which replace the biocomposite as it breaks down. After a while the composite is completely resorbed just leaving behind new fresh bone tissue.
 
im still an undergrad so im not really hugely involved with any research yet but the big project right now is designing equipment that that monitors brain activity after head injuries. they want to see how the brains signiture changes and eventually be able to tell detect when someone is brain dead and the liklihood of a recovery and what not
 
you could basically pick anything from Biology that sounds cool and people would be interested. if you're good at explaining things and putting things into perspective than anything can be amazing in Biology. There's some really cool shit out there..
 
AIDS, 10th grade I did a 5000 word essay on it. It was pretty easy and interesting.

Or gene mutation is pretty interesting.
 
it's fairly common in jewish families. no joke.

and you have so many topics to choose. biology is so broad and like any topic has so much information
 
I have a very cool paper about viral infection of anthrax, causing prolonged survival in the environment. It is interesting because previously we thought that it would just infect a host, and consume the host, and then sporulate in the soils again, and await the next host.

It is a cool topic, but might be out of your league. You would get an A for sure though.
 
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A few good ones in here, any more?

Im pretty interested in things that would have to do with enhancing animals or humans (ive read, although i forget where, that in some countries they are testing how to rpoduce better soldiers)

Bascially anything pretty cool, i was also thinking of possibly doing a project on autistic savants.
 
Enhancing soliders sounds more like out there sci-fi thinking than reality if you mean genetic engineering humans/soldiers. There's no way any Ethics board would allow this sort of research. And if some government was doing this there's is no way they'd let details get public.
If you're talking about improving soldiers' performance chemically then this is a possibility. Look into Modafinil for a start. It improves brain function/focus/alertness and it allows people to keep going/stay focused without sleeping for a long time.
Otherwise there is stuff being developed to help protect soldiers from bleeding out. There is a group somewhere working on a fabric that when penetrated by a bullet/shrapnel etc... releases compounds into the site that react to form a solid foam in the wound that stops the bleeding. This is moving away from biology and more into Engineering/Materials Science though.
 
For "improving" humans/animals...
They managed to reverse color-blindness in monkeys:http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/
They have also been able to give sight to blind mice using stem cells
They managed to restore hearing in deaf guinea pigs:http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=523947

Through gene therapy they managed to "cure" to babies with Scid, a life threatening genetic disorder that forces them to live in sterile bubbles.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/728512.stm
 
I still think tissue scaffolds/engineering is pretty cool but I'm biased as a) I did a research project for my BEng in this area and b) I might be having one put into my knee tomorrow! I'm having surgery to repair/remove part of my meniscus and depending on what the surgeon decides once he has a look through the 'scope I might get a PDLLA based tissue scaffold put in.
If you're interested I've got a couple of papers that I can send you that should give you more than enough info for a 20 minute presentation. They're full on academic papers so aren't the easiest read but I've got two in particular which review the theory behind these ideas, where the state of the art is now and where things are going. One focuses on the meniscus and the other focuses on the ACL.
 
DO IT ON REPTILES!! i just had to teach 2 whole classes as a project in my biology class and reptiles was actually interesting...
 
haha yes i ment something more along the lines of the second thing you mentioned. I dont mean some robo-cop type soldiers. Im not that gulible.

Then again its not that hard to believe that they are working on things such as that, i mean do you realize as the public how easy it would be for a government to hide projects liek that from us, i mean its obvious they do. They could know about the world ending tomorrow and just not tell us. As the general public we are pretty much left in the dark.

lol but whatever, were not talking conspiracys here.
 
RNA interference/post-transcriptional gene silencing

epigenetics (imprinting, X inactivation, heterochromatin/position-effect variegation)

transposable elements

horizontal gene transfer

phenotypic plasticity

cell senescence, the Hayflick limit (ties into cancer)

those are all pretty molecular genetics/biochemistry based, which is my area of interest. look 'em up if you want.

if not, do some cool disease or something.
 


Stolen from my sister..





Monkeypox Virus



Report by: Kamber Biss







































Abstract



I wanted to write a research paper of a rare virus that isn’t well known by most people in the United States due to its low infectious rate in the U.S. I did some research on the internet on rare viruses, and came across Monkeypox virus. It interested me because it was originally found in monkeys in 1958, and was thought to only be found in monkeys until the virus was found in an African squirrel, which is now believed to be the monkeypox virus’s natural host. The monkeypox virus has very similar symptoms of smallpox, but usually less severe. Monkeypox has most reported cases in western and central Africa near the tropical rain forest. Most cases were reported in Zaire.









































































Monkeypox Virus



A virus is a debate-able subject of it relevance in life as living or non-living. A virus cannot produce on its own, does not have a metabolism, and is non-cellular. With all that listed, you would assume it would be a non-living particle. However, once a virus is in tacked with a host, stages of replication begin and can occur quite rapidly.

Most viruses have a nucleocapsid, which includes a protein capsid and the nucleic acid. The protein capsid is a protective shell that surrounds the nucleic acid. Every virus’s genome is either DNA or RNA, never both. The DNA and RNA can be single stranded or double stranded depending on type of genome. Some viruses contain an envelope outside of the capsid, which is a mock version of the host’s cell membrane. Viruses with only with only a nucleocapsid are referred to as naked viruses. Viruses that contain an enveloped are referred to as enveloped viruses.

Enveloped viruses are protected from acid and digestive enzymes that allow the virus to survive in the digestive tract of it host. They have proteins attached to carbohydrates that lie on the outside of the envelop. These are called spikes, which are important in the attachment phase of reproduction.

Viruses have three common shapes. Polyhedral is many sided. Helical, such as influenza virus, is shaped like a rod. Complex is shaped like a spider.

The first step in the stages of replication is called the attachment stage, sometimes referred to as the adsorption phase. The virus receptors, or spikes, attach to the receptor sites of the host cell. If a host cell doesn’t contain receptors for that virus, the host cell is resistant to the virus and can’t be infected.

The second step is the penetration stage. In this stage, the virus or the genome of the virus enters the host’s cell cytoplasm. Then the uncoating process begins. Followed by the uncoating process, the viral synthesis stage occurs. This process of this depends on the genome of the virus. In DNA viruses, the DNA is transcribed into mRNA that goes into the cytoplasm and is translated into early viral proteins. The virus then makes multiple copies of the virus’s DNA. The copies are then transcribed into mRNAs. They get transported into the cytoplasm for translation into late viral proteins. They are then sent to the nucleus for the following stage. In RNA viruses, the RNA stays in the cytoplasm. It creates its own replication and translation of viral proteins. In some viruses, the RNA does go into the nucleus to replicate viral proteins, and then sent back to the cytoplasm for the translation.

The next stage is the assembly stage. Proteins surround the nucleic acid to form the virus’s nucleocapsid. If the virus has an envelop, it will create envelopes in the next stage.

The release stage is the last stage of replication. Some viruses will leave without cell death. Some viruses will leave and the cell dies. When a virus contains an envelop, it will exit the cell with a budding off process. In both naked viruses and enveloped viruses, the release stage results with new viral particles that are released.

Monkeypox virus was first identified in 1958 in monkeys. Monkeypox got its name because it was thought to only be found in monkeys. Then the monkeypox virus was found in an African squirrel, which is now thought to be the natural host. The virus can also infect rats, mice, rabbits, and on rare occasions- humans.

Monkeypox virus is from the genus Orthopoxvirus. It is a zoonotic viral disease and is found in humans mostly in small villages in Western and Central Africa in the tropical rainforest. Most cases were found in Zaire. The first human illness was in Zaire in 1971. A second outbreak occurred in Zaire once again in 1996-1997. In February through August of 1996, 71 clinical cases of monkeypox occurred in 13 villages in Africa. Mostly in the Katako-Kombe area. Six people died during this outbreak. By 1997, 92 people were diagnosed with monkeypox.

In June 2003, an outbreak occurred in the United States. Several residents who have had close contact with prairie dogs became infected with monkeypox. On June 7, 18 residents of Wisconsin, 10 in Illinois, and 1 in Indiana had been infected with monkeypox. By June 9, the Center of Disease Control and Prevention released they had 22 cases of suspected or confirmed cases of monkeypox. By June 11, that number grew to 54 people; 20 in Wisconsin, 10 in Illinois, 23 in Indiana, and 1 in New Jersey. No deaths have occurred from this outbreak in the United States.

In May of 2003, another outbreak occurred in the United States. Every person that was suspected of monkeypox reported being around prairie dogs, which were investigated and found most of the prairie dogs were sick. In late November, 2006, monkeypox virus was found in Gambian rats in Florida, which now considered the cause of the spreading of monkeypox to prairie dogs in 2003.

The cause of monkeypox is transmitted through direct contact with animals that are used for food, through small lesions on the skin, or oral mucous membranes, or through respiratory tract. Humans can also get it though direct contact with the infected animal’s blood, or body fluids. The spread of monkeypox between human to human is thought to be rare, but is possible by respiratory droplets during face-to-face contact, or with direct contact with human body fluids, bedding, or clothing.

The symptoms of monkeypox are very similar to smallpox, but usually much milder. One difference though is monkeypox causes swollen lymph nodes. The incubation period can range from 10-14 days, usually 12 days. An infected person will begin with a fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, a general feeling of discomfort, and exhaustion. Sometime between 1-3 days after the fever, the infected person with develop a rash, usually on the face but it is not uncommon to see a rash on other parts of the body.

In the outbreak in 2003 in the United States, patients usually experienced a fever, headache, chills, and sweats. About 33% experienced a nonproductive cough. Patients also experience a rash on the head, arms and legs, on bottom of hands and feet.

Monkeypox virus replicates in the lymphoid tissue, much similar to smallpox. The monkeypox virus localizes in the mononuclear phagocytic cells. It is then released into the bloodstream of its host, and then localizes in the skin cells of the virus’s host.

As of right now, there is no safe and proven treatment for monkeypox virus. The smallpox vaccine has been believed to help reduce the risk of the monkeypox virus. The United States Center of Disease Control and Prevention recommends people that are in close contact with animals carrying the virus or infected individuals receive the smallpox vaccination to help protect against the monkeypox virus. People who have been in contact with the virus from an animal or person can receive the vaccine up to 14 days after exposure. People in Africa have been advised to lower their food intake of squirrels and monkeys. Other than that, the only other method of prevention is to be careful of infected animals, wash your hands after contact with infected animals, and avoid intimate contact with infected humans.

Monkeypox is a good example of a changing virus. It was first only infecting animals, but had learned to infect humans. The outbreaks in humans are considered mild, and the death of humans caused by monkeypox is very rare. I believe the virus will become more susceptible in humans as the virus mutates and becomes smarter, because we all know viruses can change. The United States Center of Disease Control and Prevention website has continuous updates of this virus and its outbreaks. So monkeypox is still a concern, but is not yet very common in the United States as it is in Western and Central Africa.



























Bibliography



http://www.bact.wise.edu/themirobialworld/animalviruses.html

This website discussed the Stages of Replication in detail. It also discussed the shapes and structures of viruses. Mostly just animal viruses though. It did discuss plant viruses too, but I found that information useless for my topic.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/pox/2000/monkeypox_virus.html

This website discussed the basic information of the monkeypox virus. It went over the genus of the virus, the most commonly infected place for humans (Zaire, Africa), and a brief description of the symptoms of the virus.

www.cdc.gov/ncidod/monkeypox

I found this site to be a very creditable source. It did just give a brief description of the virus about the causes, signs and symptoms, the spread in humans, and the treatment and prevention, but I found it help me link my other information together because it filled in the missing information. Many sources I looked at recommended going to this website for more information of the virus.

Wikipedia, free encyclopedia

This source discussed the outbreaks in humans in the United States. It was very informative with dates and numbers.

http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0048673.asp

This website gave very detailed information about the people who developed this virus, and how it spread to various places in Africa to many people. It gave dates and numbers for a good understanding at how the disease spreads.
 
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