Burgess Shale

We watched a video for lab called Darwin's Dilemma about the Burgess Shale. The video itself was not all that enthralling, but the pictures of the landscapes were beautiful! The Burgess Shale is located in British Columbia and it is most famous for its fossilization of the soft parts of ancient organisms. Dating back to the Middle Cambrian Period, the Burgess Shale is as old as 505 million years. It was discovered by the paleontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Since then the giant fossil field has produced more anatomically odd creatures than they can even be studied!

Amphioxus...yuck

This gross-looking little thing is called Amphioxus, or more commonly a lancelet. It is a marine critter from the phylum Chordata. Although it is an invertebrate, evidence shows that it is a close relative of the vertebrates. They are found abundantly in warmer coastal waters. Recently, fossils have been found that suggest they were around 525 million years ago. Now, I am not so sure I believe that...

Hitchiti Wild Ginger!

While at the Hitchiti Experimental Forest, we looked at wild ginger. Wild ginger is from the species Asarum. Its leaves are shaped like kidneys or hearts, and in the spring they have a purple hue! It gets its common name because it tastes and smells similiar to a ginger root, although it is not the same. Oddly enough, at the root of the plant one will find a small purplish/brown flower.

Clarks Hill Lake. My Favorite!

Although I have not had the opportunity to visit many lakes in my lifetime, I have spent a significant amount of time at the lake in my hometown, Clarks Hill Lake. Every summer we used to go with friends or family to sunbathe, picnic, or swim. When we had the time to make a day out of it, we would take the boat out and tube until our arms fell off!  Another popular summer activity  was tying up under the Little River Bridge during the evenings and fishing and eating pimento cheese sandwiches until the boat rocking made us nauseous (They say there are catfish as big as Volkswagens under there!). By far my favorite though, was the whole family taking their RVs to the lake campground every Thanksgiving and riding bikes through the trails, sitting around a campfire, playing with all the younger cousins, and (sort of) enjoying the almost annual low country boil! My childhood wouldn't have been the same without Clarks Hill!

Mitochondrial Eve!

According to genetics, Mitochondrial Eve is supposedly our most recent common female ancestor. Since mitochondrial DNA is passed down through the mother without any recombination, it is possible that every living human now would have the same mitchondrial DNA as her. She would have lived about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. She is also the female counterpart to the most recent common male ancestor Y-Chromosomal Adam.

Negative Feedback loops. (Ouch!)

Dr. Rood decided to make everyone cringe in his attempt to demonstrate negative feedback loops during class one day. First he scarfed down an entire Snickers Bar. Then, as diabetics do on a regular basis, Dr. Rood pricked his finger and tested his blood sugar at 5 minute intervals during our 75 minute class period. We used the data in a chart to display the negative feedback loops. Here are a couple more examples of negative feedback loops!

This seems to be a familiar cycle for me.

Jackson Springs Lab!

For this lab we traveled a ways down the road to Jackson Springs Park behind the Baconsfield shopping center. Considering our study of geology, we looked at some of the different rocks that are found in the park. A few of these include quartz, granite, and feldspar. Below are some example pictures of the rocks.

This looks just like our countertops at home!

I remember finding quartz as a kid and thinking I had found some sort of treasure!