Is Sexual Reproduction Important?

I read a part of the book Sex Advice for All Creations by Dr. Tatiana's which compared how asexual organisms and other organism reproduced, and how certain ways of reproduction affected the genetics of organisms. As I read this section, I was posed the question "Is sex important?" At the end of the selective reading, I believe that sex is important for several reasons.
One, asexual species usually become extinct pretty quickly. This causes "scientists to conclude that exclusive asexuality is an evolutionary dead end, a fast track to extinction. Sex, they insist, is essential" (216). There are several reasons for this which will be explored later. In short, without sex, or the mixing of genes, species usually become extinct.
Two, sex mixes the genetic information from one female and one male, which helps prevent diseases and viruses to spread to offsprings. Dr. Tatiana points out "Sex is an advantage because it breaks up gene combination nations: it creates the genetic version of a moving target. With each act of sex, the parasites have to start again from square one" (228-229). If organisms reproduce without sex, which is done by cloning, their genetic information barely changes, only slight changes are caused by mutation, leaving the disease or viruses being able to evolve and maybe cause an extinction of the species
Three, according to the ratchet theory, "asexuals are evolutionary short-lived because, over time, the number of harmful mutations they carry will irrevocably and inevitably ratchet upward" (226). The ratchet theory explains that without the mixing of genes, or sex, will cause the number of harmful mutations to go up each generation of the species, eventually causing them to go extinct.
Finally, sex keeps the whole of the species more healthy than asexual species. This is because "Shuffling genes can help us evade parasites and reduce the impact of harmful mutations" (231). To conclude, even though some species can survive without sex and clone themselves instead, sex shuffles genes, causing the risk of harmful mutations, diseases, and viruses to go down, while asexual organisms have no way to stop harmful mutations to be passed on to the next generation and stop disease and viruses from evolving.
Nothing really confused me in the reading, but one question did come up though, what does celibate mean? I wish to learn about the hormones that cause the need for sex, why some people prefer certain genders over others, and what causes these preferences.

Unit 3 Reflection

This unit was about the cell. We learned about types of cells, prokaryote, which have no nucleus and are bacteria, eukaryote, which have a nucleus and are animal, plant, and fungi cells.
We also learned about types of organelles in a cell and what their function was. The nucleus keeps DNA inside it, controls the cell activities, and determines what type of cell it. The ribsome builds proteins. Vesicles move material around inside the cell. The rough endoplasmic reticulum, which has ribsome stuck to it, makes proteins and membranes that are going to be used in the cell. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum has no ribsomes stuck to it, and it produces lipids and cholesterol which are important in detoxification. The golgi appartus modifies and adds to the proteins that are transported to them via vesicles and sends out the finished proteins to parts of a cell or outside of the cell. The cytoskeleton is the structure inside the cell which gives it it's shape. The microtubles are the big wires that provide compression support. The microfilaments are the thin, small wires that provide tensonial support. The mitchondria generates energy, ATP. The vacuole are sacks that store things a cell might need later. The cytosol contains a solute inside it that dissolves material and fluids. The lysome contains degetsive enzymes inside it that are contained by a membrane. When these enzymes are released, they either break down a vesicles to get material or to kill the cell. Finally, the centriole sets up were other organelles are placed in relationship to itself.
Lastly, we learned about certain processes a cell goes through. It goes through the process of diffusion, which uses no energy, and causes molecules move in and out of the cell from high to low concentration till it reaches equilibrium. Another process only plant cells go through is photosynthesis, which produces 1 glucose, the sugar plants need for energy, and 6 oxygen, which is a waste project, which we need to breathe. The process animal cells go through to get energy is called cellular respiration. 36 ATP, the cell's main energy source, 6  carbon dioxide, and 6 water molecules are produced from this process.
Some setbacks I had was when I had to tell the difference between hypotonic and hypertonic diffusion, which I figured out by remembering hyper goes out and hypo goes in, and having to re-watch the photosynthesis podcast cause I got lost the first time. Some strengths I had were understanding and remaindering the different types of organelles and their functions, and being able to understand cellular respiration faster than photosynthesis.
From the experiences during this unit, I learned to pay closer attention to the vodcasts since they're becoming more complex. Thus makes me a better student since I will pay closer attention to vodcasts, making learning new concepts easier for me.
I want to learn more about the interowrokings of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in more detail. An unanswered question I have is where did the first cell come from. I wonder about how life first started on earth.

Plant Cell

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-are-some-organelles-in-the-cell.htm

Animal Cell

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0312_Animal_Cell_and_Components.jpg

Egg Diffusion Lab

In this lab, we took two eggs that had been soaked in vinegar for two days, measured their weight and circumference, placed one in deionized water and the other one in sugar water, and after two days, we took them out and remeasured them.

The class date shows very little change with the egg soaked in deionized water, the average in change in mass being -0.44% and the average in change in circumference being 7.78%.

For the egg soaked in sugar water, the average in change in mass was -45.9% and the average in change in weight being -22.1%. This big change was caused by passive diffusion, which is the process when molecules move in or out of the cell depending on the situation, from high concentration to low concentration and requires no energy. The movement from in or out of the cell is decided by the concentration of solvents and solutes in and out of the cell. Since solutes cannot move in or out of a cell, solvents move so that the cell can reach equilibrium. Since sugar is a solute and water is a solvent, the egg loses water so that it can reach equilibrium, causing it to shrivel up.

Cell's internal environment changes because of passive diffusion. If there is a higher concentration of solutes outside the cell membrane, solvents moves out of the cell, which is called hypertonic, which is what happens to the egg in sugar water egg, and causes it to shrivel up. If there is a higher concentration of solutes inside the cell membrane, solvents move inside of the cell, which is called hypotonic, which is what happened to the egg in vinegar, and caused it to grow. If there is an equal concentration of solutes and solvents inside and outside of the cell membrane, which is called isotonic, the solvents move in and out of cell, replacing each other so they stay in equilibrium, and do not change in size. Cells diffuse so they can reach equilibrium because that means everything is evened out in and out of the cell, which is the cell's goal.

This lab demonstrates hypertonic diffusion because the egg in the sugar water had more solutes, which was the sugar, outside than inside, which caused solvents to leave the egg, causing the egg to lose water and other solvents, making it shrivel up and become smaller.

The salting of roads to make snow melt affects plants near the salted roads. They start to shirvel up because of the salt. They shrivel up because they have more solutes, the salt, outside than inside, so solvents leave the plant to reach equilibrium, which in turn, causes the plant to shrivel up and maybe die.

I would want to test if putting a shriveled up egg in deionized water, would give it's size back. I would want to test this to see if hypertonic diffusion can be reversed completely or if it has lasting affects.

Egg Macromolecule Lab

In this lab we asked the question can macromolecules be identified in an egg cell. We found that the egg membrane have proteins, which had a 10 on our color scale, which was from 0 to 10, 0 being no color change and 10 being a very dark color change. The reason for proteins to be found in the membrane is because the egg membrane represents the cell membrane, which has protein channels spread throughout the cell membrane, letting bigger molecules in and out of the cell, and thus, the sodium hydroxide and copper sulfate mixture detected them. We found that the egg yolk had lipids, which had a 9. The reason for lipids were found in the yolk is because the egg yolk represents nuclei of a cell, which has a nucleic membrane made of lipids, thus the egg yolk would contain some lipids and would be detected by Sudan 3. We found the egg white contains proteins, which has a 10. The reason for proteins to be located in the egg white is because the egg white represents the cell's cytoplasm, which contains many organelles. Some organelles are used to create proteins, and have proteins inside of them going through process, so that explains why proteins are found in the egg white and why they were detected by the sodium hydroxide and copper sulfate mixture.

Our data for the egg membrane supports our hypothesis, if the egg membrane has monosaccharides and polysaccharides, then it will turn from blue to green or orange for monosaccharides, which gave us a result of 8, and brown to black for polysaccharides, which gave us a 3. But there could have been some errors because the egg membrane might have been accidentally touched by human hands. Our data for the egg yolk supports our hypothesis, if the egg yolk has lipids in it, it will turn from red to orange, which gave us a result of 9. But there could have been some errors because maybe the same amount of solution wasn't used for each test tube. Our data for the egg white supports the protein part of our hypothesis and disapproves the lipid part of our hypothesis. Our hypothesis states that if the egg white has lipids and proteins, it will turn from red to orange for lipids, which gave us a 0, and from blue to purple for proteins, which was a 10. Some errors that could have happened is the data may have been recorded wrong for color change, like a slight change of color wasn't given a 1 or 2, but a 0. Due to these errors, in future experiments I would recommend to try to be more precise with measuring, being more observative, and trying to contaminate things.

This lab was done to demonstrate the molecules that can be found in an egg cell. From this lab I have learned that types of macromolecules can be found in certain parts of a cell which helps me understand the concept of were certain macromolecules are located in the cell.  Based on my experience from this lab I can understand what certain types of food have certain molecules.