What is Health?

 

To me, health is extremely important because without all the necessary nutrients in a person's body, enough sleep, stress alleviation, exercise and social well-being, a person cannot act to his or her full capability. I think I am best at achieving the nutrients my body needs, exercise, and maintaining good social interactions but I need to get more sleep and relax more. In regards to health, I would like to learn more about how nutrients interact with our body to keep us healthy.

Unit 1 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about the basics of anatomy and physiology: the basic biology of a cell, histology, the four macromolecules, and anatomical directional terms. I learned about the complexity of the human body, the different tissue types, and what makes our bodies tick. The tissue lab was very helpful in being able to differentiate between tissue types and how their structures relate to their functions. However I still do not fully understand how to identify the different tissue types as it seems that many of them are connected and related to each other, such as the connection between cuboidal and squamous cells. In the next unit, I plan to make flashcards and relate what we learn to more applications in my own life to help me remember them better. My uncle is fascinated with cytology and has always loved to talk about specialized cells and each one's specific organelles. Now I can understand and even discuss with him the minute details of our body.

Electronic devices and handwritten notes used in conjunction to enhance the learning experience.

Tissues, tissues, tissues!

There are four types of tissues: epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous, all that have their own function and are each unique and essential to the body. Being able to physically view the different types of tissues and their different types was helpful in better understanding the characteristics of the tissues and was really interesting. Epithelial tissue was either stratified or simple and although there are only three types- squamous, cuboidal, and columnar- each one was distinctly different. For example, in 400x magnification, the cilated columnar depicted a few columnar cells protruding from its base layer of cuboidal cells. Muscle cells were 'neater' since some showed parallel fibers with intercalated discs. There are three types of muscle tissue in the body: skeletal, smooth, and cardiac. Looking at the connective tissue, I could see the extracellular matrix and the specific cells. The dense collagenous bone was mostly parallel to allow for the high density of the tissue which makes it strong enough to be bone, and the collagen fibers were clearly seen. The nervous tissue was packed together with a large amount of cells that I could see through the microscope even at x400 magnification. However, I noticed the nerve fibers between the cells and the nuclei in each cell. The neurons are like this so they can easily and quickly transmit signals to different parts of the body. The tissues in our body all have a specific purpose to aid our body, whether we realize its purpose or not!

 

Left: Compact bone cell (connective tissue)

Right: Nervous tissue cells in greater detail

The Science of Fat (Adipose Cells)

Adipose cells are essentially fat cells in connective tissue that are composed of triglycerides and fatty acids. There are two types: white adipose cells and brown adipose, both with quite differently, yet related characteristics. The main function of white adipose cells is to be a major storage for fat. Due to this, the other organelles typical of a eukaryotic cell are found in white adipose cells  are significantly smaller compared to the large vacuole. This vacuole is what makes the shape of the cell, takes over 90% of the space in a cell and is filled with lipid. On the other hand, brown adipose cells burn lipids to generate heat for the organism. Unlike white adipose cells, brown adipose cells store triglycerides in multiple cell vacuoles instead of one large one and they contain a lot of large mitochondria as well as common organelles seen in other eukaryotic cells.


See http://anatomyandbeyond.blogspot.com/p/works-cited.html for works cited.

Brown adipose cell (left) White adipose cell (right)

To Be Sweet or Not to Be Sweet Lab

In this lab, I tasted different types of carbohydrates: sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose to determine each one's sweetness. Through this lab, I found that the number of rings in a carbohydrate corresponds to the sweetness of the carbohydrate. For example, cellulose and starch formed long chains and were the least sweet while glucose and fructose, which each had only one ring, were the sweeter. Where these carbohydrates are naturally found also relates to its sweetness. Since cellulose is found in vegetables as a major energy source, and most vegetables are not sweet, it makes sense that cellulose would not be very sweet either. On the other hand, fructose is found in fruits, which are supposed to be bait for animals to eat their fruit and spread the seeds, logically, fructose would be sweet. It was! Turns out, the way that humans taste sweetness is through taste cells on taste buds on a person's tongue (NPR). The way that people normally taste is different from the way that our body senses sweet tastes. We actually have sweet receptor proteins in our taste cells which go on to send certain signals to our nervous system and brain. What has been recently discovered a few years ago is that other organs in our body can sense sweetness as well. However, back to the tongue and its taste buds. They have gustatory receptor cells which go on to send signals to the brain (How Stuff Works). These receptor cells are what determine how your brain will react to those flavors. This is a factor in how each person senses different tastes and the extent of how sweet, sour, or bitter it is to them.


Fun Fact: Your taste cells have a lifespan of around 10 days

Works Cited

"Adipose Tissue." Adipose Tissue. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/adipose/adipose.html>.

"BIOdotEDU." BIOdotEDU. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/ahp/LAD/C4d/C4d_adipose.html>.

"Adipose Cell | Biology." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.britannica.com/science/adipose-cell>.

"Transdifferentiation Properties of Adipocytes in the Adipose Organ."Transdifferentiation Properties of Adipocytes in the Adipose Organ. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/297/5/E977>.