Samantha Brown's Digital Scavenger Hunt Set #2

Well, the picture above shows me and the reason this picture relates to biology is due to my eyes. My visual acuity, the ability of your eyes to distinguish fine detail, stinks. I can’t see anything! Well, I’m exaggerating I can see something’s. Three of the most common visual problems are farsightedness, nearsightedness, and astigmatism. I am afflicted with nearsightedness and cannot see very far away, at all. What this mean for my eyeball is that it is longer than normal. The lenses can’t flatten enough to compensate, and it focuses on distant objects in front of the retina, instead on it. 

Plants are both autotrophs and producers which means plants provide themselves with their own food while also acting as an ecosystems food supply. The chloroplasts within the plant cells capture light energy from the sun and convert this energy into chemical energy which is then stored as sugar and other organic molecules. Since Plants produce organic molecules from inorganic molecules they are also known as photoautotrophs. Plants are not the only photoautotrophs though, other organisms like photosynthetic bacteria and algae also fall under this category. 

I love seeing rainbows luckily they are part of the electromagnetic spectrum called visible light. The electromagnetic spectrum shows the full range of wavelengths from the very short gamma rays to the very long-wavelength radio waves. Wavelengths are the distance between to crests of two adjacent waves. Visible light is the radiation that eyes pick up as color. Visible light only a small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum and consists of wavelengths of 380nm to 750nm. 

This picture of Italian dressing is the perfect example of hydrophobic molecules (water-fearing) and hydrophilic molecules (water-loving). Oils are pretty much liquid fat and fats are made out of large lipids composed of two smaller molecules, glycerol and fatty acids. Anyway, lipids are nonpolar molecules which make then hydrophobic; therefore, oils are hydrophobic and the oil separates from the vinegar, which is mostly made up of water. 

Fats are not the only type of lipids in existence, for example phospholipids, steroids, and waxes. This image displays a candle, which is made of wax. Waxes consist of one fatty acid linked to an alcohol and are more hydrophobic than fat, which would explain the many uses of wax. Many fruits even have a natural wax coating as do many insects like ants. The waxy coat on insects helps them not to dry out. All waxes are organic compounds, naturally and synthetically made. 

So, there is a group of chickens and one rooster hanging around where I live. The rooster can be pretty intimidating, not going to lie, especially after its owner explained how they attack people. I feed them and took a couple pictures with my phone. Anyway, chickens have a pecking order which is an example of a dominance hierarchy. A dominance hierarchy is a ranking of individuals based on social interactions. Once this hierarchy is established the member of the group are pretty much stuck with there status. Chicken’s, like this one, establish pecking orders by pecking each other. Once the dominant hen has been decided they have access to food and water first and is not bothered by the other hens. The alpha hen also gets the best nesting sites. 

The ocean is a very important aspect of the world, especially since life originated in the sea. The oceans consist of 75% of planet’s surface and affect the world significantly. Their evaporation provides for most of the earth rainfall and the ocean temperatures have a major effect on the climate. Photosynthesis by marine algae and cyanobacteria supplies a portion of the world’s oxygen. In the picture above the intertidal zone and photic zone of the ocean can be observed. The intertidal zone is the area of shore where land meets ocean and the photic zone is a relatively small portion of the ocean that is exposed to a significant amount of sunlight and where photosynthesis occurs. The intertidal zone is home to many different types of organisms such as mussels, algae, barnacles, suspension feeding worms, clams, crustaceans, and small fishes. 

After a light shower of rain, water droplets collected upon the leaves within this picture. A water molecule has two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to one oxygen atom. Water molecules are polar because oxygen is one of the most electronegative of the elements, attracting the shared electrons in H2O much more strongly than does H. In a polar covalent bond, the pulling on the shared electrons toward Oxygen makes the molecule partially positive and partially negative. Water also consists of Hydrogen bonds, a weak yet crucial bond that gives water is unusual properties. Hydrogen bonds allow water to be cohesive while also allowing for water to have a much higher surface tension. Hydrogen bonding even helps moderate temperature because it give water more resistance to temperature change. Due to water resistance to temperature change the ocean temperature remain stabilized and water helps regulate the body’s internal temperatures.