Ten points from ETC

Above is the diagram illustrating how ETC(electron transport chain) works.

And below is my ten points concluded from the lecture(role playing).

1. PSⅡ and PSⅠ both need to absorb light in order to excite the electron, which is gained from water, and transport it.
2. The pathway of electron throughout the process is water -----> PSⅡ-----> PQ-----> b6f-----> PSⅠ-----> Fd------> FNR------> NADP
3. Two hydrogen ions was released when the water break down outside the  PSⅡ. Hydrogen ions also enter PQ to form PQH2. To form the neutral NADPH, hydrogen ion enters to play the role to balance the electron. Large amount of hydrogen ions go through the ATP synthase to slow down its spinning motion in order to form ATP.
4. The process of breaking down molecules by light is called photolysis.
5. Gaining electron of a molecule is called oxidation; losing electron of a molecule is called reduction.
6. Chemiosmosis is the movement of chemicals from high concentration to low concentration through a  selectively permeable membrane. The process of releasing ATP is chemiosmosis.
7. The one help to make ATP is called ATP synthase.
8. It is important that the oxygen leave the water molecule at the beginning, because it will come back again.
9. ETC happens in thylakoid lumen.
10. When the spinning motion of ATP synthase slows down by hygogen, a phosphate come to take away the ADP which has two phosphate atoms in it and from ATP which has three phosphate atoms in it.

Pig Dissection

We did a dissection on fetal pigs on Wednesday and Thursday. Here is a record of what we did and what we found out in the lab.

Wednesday was our first day to dissect the pig. Honestly speaking, it was my first time to dissect an animal, and it was even more interesting than I imagined. As an non-experienced dissector, I felt lucky and glad to learn the anatomy and gain both the knowledge and practical experience at the same time.

Our group got the smallest pig, but it wasn't lack of anything. Here is the overview of our result in the first day.

After we got our pig, the first thing to do was to examine its gender. Because there was a urogenital opening at the lower body, we believed it was a female, which was proved by the two ovaries we found.

ovary

After cutting the lower body open, we first isolated the liver in the middle.

liver

Then we got the small and large intestine, spleen and stomach.

small and large intestine

stomach

spleen

We isolated the two kidneys from deeper at the two sides of top of the intestine. They were cut both cut into half accidentally, and we saw the difference between medulla and cortex.

kidney

On the second day, Thursday, we began to dissect the upper body , including the brain, of the same pig.

When we open the upper body, we saw the heart was surrounded by the two lungs at back.

heart

lungs(shaped like to embrace the heart)

Then we got to work on the brain. To get the brain out, we needed first to open the very hard skull which had the job to protect the brain inside. We tried to cut from the top middle side of the skull carefully, but it was difficult to control the intensity to ensure the skull can be widely opened and the brain was not injured at the same time.

At last, we just got the mushy brain like this(probably because our pig is immature).

brain

There is the brain from the group which successfully got the one.

what the brain should look like

Finally, we also get one eyeball out. It was a tiny round ball in front of the brain.

This experience of dissection is fun, unique and also informative for me. By dissecting the body of fetal pig, I practically see what the organs look like and where they are. I think this is more meaningful because the organs in pig are quite similar to human.