BIO 10 - Biology Lab; Tuesday: 15:00 hours to 17:50 hours
Characteristics of Cells & Domains of Life: Part 1
Biologists use microscopes to study things that are too small to be seen with the unaided eye. The light microscope is a sophisticated tool that when used properly enables one to maximuse resolution at incremental magnifications. The numbers on the objective lens may be confusing but
Care and Handling of the Microscope:
* A microscope is a delicate piece of equipment and should be treated with care.
* Use two hands when carrying the microscope. Place one hand around the arm of the microscope and the other under the base for support.
* Carry the microscope upright and close to the body.
* Place the microscope flat on the table, but not too near the edge where it might be knocked off.
* DO NOT slide the microscope back and forth on the lab table.
* If it becomes necessary to clean the lenses on the microscope, ask your facilitator for a piece of lens paper. Other materials, such as paper towel, can scratch the surface of the lens.
Magnification is how much an image is enlarged under a microscope.
Magnification: the increase of an object's apparent size.
Increased magnification just makes things look bigger, but does not allow you to see more details.
Resolution
(take your pick)
Resolution is the amount of detail you can see in an image. You can enlarge a photograph indefinitely using more powerful lenses, but the image will blur together and be unreadable. Therefore, increasing the magnification will not improve the resolution. This is also known as the resolving power.
Refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image.
Resolution is the ability to tell two points apart as separate points. If the resolving power of your lens is 2um that means two points that are 2um
apart can be seen as separate points. If they are closer together than that,
they will blend together into one point.
The magnification is something
different - the ability to make an object larger. If the resolving power of a
microscope is poor, it will just magnify a blurry object.
Resolution: the power to show details clearly. Resolution allows the viewer to see two objects that are very close together as two objects rather than as one.
In a compound microscope (as we have), the wavelength of the light waves that illuminate the specimen limits the resolution. The wavelength of visible light ranges from about 400 to 700 nanometers. The best compound microscopes cannot resolve parts of a specimen that are closer together than about 200 nanometers.
Total Magnification
To figure the total magnification of an image that you are viewing through the microscope is really quite simple. To get the total magnification take the power of the objective (4X, 10X, 40x, 100x) and multiply by the power of the eyepiece, usually 10X.
Bacteria are microscopic unicellular prokaryotic organisms characterized by the lack of a membrane-bound nucleus and membrane-bound organelles. A recently proposed system classifies the Archaebacteria, or archaea, and the Eubacteria as major domains above the kingdom level.
Bacteria were the only form of life on earth for 2 billion years.
Bacteria are remarkably adaptable to diverse environmental conditions: they are found in the bodies of all living organisms and on all parts of the earth—in land terrains and ocean depths, in arctic ice and glaciers, in hot springs, and even in the stratosphere. Our understanding of bacteria and their metabolic processes has been expanded by the discovery of species that can live only deep below the earth’s surface and by species that thrive without sunlight in the high temperature and pressure near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. There are more bacteria, as separate individuals, than any other type of organism; there can be as many as 2.5 billion bacteria in one gram of fertile soil.
Characteristics
Bacteria are grouped in a number of different ways. Most bacteria are of one of three typical shapes—rod-shaped (bacillus), round (coccus, e.g., streptococcus), and spiral (spirillum). An additional group, vibrios, appear as incomplete spirals. The cytoplasm and plasma membrane of most bacterial cells are surrounded by a cell wall; further classification of bacteria is based on cell wall characteristics (see Gram’s stain). They can also be characterized by their patterns of growth, such as the chains formed by streptococci. Many bacteria, chiefly the bacillus and spirillum forms, are motile, swimming about by whiplike movements of flagella; other bacteria have rigid rodlike protuberances called pili that serve as tethers.
Some bacteria (those known as aerobic forms) can function metabolically only in the presence of free or atmospheric oxygen; others (anaerobic bacteria) cannot grow in the presence of free oxygen but obtain oxygen from compounds. Facultative anaerobes can grow with or without free oxygen; obligate anaerobes are poisoned by oxygen.
Reproduction
In bacteria the genetic material is organized in a continuous strand of DNA. This circle of DNA is localized in an area called the nucleoid, but there is no membrane surrounding a defined nucleus as there is in the eukaryotic cells of protists, fungi, plants, and animals (see eukaryote). In addition to the nucleoid, the bacterial cell may include one or more plasmids, separate circular strands of DNA that can replicate independently, and that are not responsible for the reproduction of the organism. Drug resistance is often conveyed via plasmid genes. 6
Reproduction is chiefly by binary fission, cell division yielding identical daughter cells. Some bacteria reproduce by budding or fragmentation. Despite the fact that these processes should produce identical generations, the rapid rate of mutation possible in bacteria makes them very adaptable. Some bacteria are capable of specialized types of genetic recombination, which involves the transfer of nucleic acid by individual contact (conjugation), by exposure to nucleic acid remnants of dead bacteria (transformation), by exchange of plasmid genes, or by a viral agent, the bacteriophage (transduction). Under unfavorable conditions some bacteria form highly resistant spores with thickened coverings, within which the living material remains dormant in altered form until conditions improve. Others, such as the radioactivity-resistant Deinococcus radiodurans, can withstand serious damage by repairing their own DNA.
Nutrition
Most bacteria are heterotrophic, living off other organisms. Most of these are saprobes, bacteria that live off dead organic matter. The bacteria that cause disease are heterotrophic parasites. There are also many non-disease-causing bacterial parasites, many of which are helpful to their hosts. These include the “normal flora” of the human body.
Autotrophic bacteria manufacture their own food by the processes of photosynthesis and chemosynthesis (see autotroph). The photosynthetic bacteria include the green and purple bacteria and the cyanobacteria. Many of the thermophilic archaebacteria are chemosynthetic autotrophs.
Beneficial Bacteria
Harmless and beneficial bacteria far outnumber harmful varieties. Because they are capable of producing so many enzymes necessary for the building up and breaking down of organic compounds, bacteria are employed extensively by humans—for soil enrichment with leguminous crops (see nitrogen cycle), for preservation by pickling, for fermentation (as in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, vinegar, and certain cheeses), for decomposition of organic wastes (in septic tanks, in some sewage disposal plants, and in agriculture for soil enrichment) and toxic wastes, and for curing tobacco, retting flax, and many other specialized processes. Bacteria frequently make good objects for genetic study: large populations grown in a short period of time facilitate detection of mutations, or rare variations.
Pathogenic Bacteria
Bacterial parasites that cause disease are called pathogens. Among bacterial plant diseases are leaf spot, fire blight, and wilts; animal diseases caused by bacteria include tuberculosis, cholera, syphilis, typhoid fever, and tetanus. Some bacteria attack the tissues directly; others produce poisonous substances called toxins. Natural defense against harmful bacteria is provided by antibodies (see immunity). Certain bacterial diseases, e.g., tetanus, can be prevented by injection of antitoxin or of serum containing antibodies against specific bacterial antigens; immunity to some can be induced by vaccination; and certain specific bacterial parasites are killed by antibiotics.
New strains of more virulent bacterial pathogens, many of them resistant to antibiotics, have emerged in recent years. Many believe this to be due to the overuse of antibiotics, both in prescriptions for minor, self-limiting ailments and as growth enhancers in livestock; such overuse increases the likelihood of bacterial mutations. For example, a variant of the normally harmless Escherichia coli has caused serious illness and death in victims of food poisoning.
A diverse group of bacteria (prokaryotes), sometimes called the archaea and considered a major group unto themselves. Archaebacteria are contrasted with the Eubacteria, from which they differ biochemically in the arrangement of the bases in their ribosomal RNA and in the composition of their plasma membranes and cell walls. There are three major known groups of Archaebacteria: methanogens, halophiles, and thermophiles. The methanogens are anaerobic bacteria that produce methane. They are found in sewage treatment plants, bogs, and the intestinal tracts of ruminants. Ancient methanogens are the source of natural gas. Halophiles are bacteria that thrive in high salt concentrations such as those found in salt lakes or pools of sea water. Thermophiles are the heat-loving bacteria found near hydrothermal vents and hot springs. Many thermophiles are chemosynthetic (see chemosynthesis), using dissolved sulfur or other elements as their energy source and iron as a means of respiration. Archaebacteria emerged at least 3.5 billion years ago and live in environments that resemble conditions existing when the earth was young.
Diatoms
What are diatoms?
Diatoms are delicate unicellular organisms that have a yellow-brown chloroplast that enables them to photosynthesize. Their cell walls are made of silica almost like a glass house. The construction of the cell wall, called the frustule, consists of two valves that fit into each other like a little pill box.
Protista or Protoctista [pr?"toktis'tu] , in the five-kingdom system of classification, a kingdom comprising a variety of unicellular and some simple multinuclear and multicellular eukaryotic organisms. Protists, which are eukaryotes, have cells that have a membrane-bound nucleus, DNA that is associated with histone proteins, and organelles (e.g., mitochondria and chloroplasts). A recently proposed system of classification designates the eukaryotes as one of three great groups of life (beside bacteria and archaea) and places the protists within it.
It has been hypothesized that the organelles in protists descend evolutionarily from specialized symbiotic bacteria living within the cells of other bacteria, contributing at least in part to the transition from prokaryotic (bacterial) cells (the earliest form of life on the planet, dating back at least 3.5 billion years) to early eukaryotic cells (the cells that define protists, dating back 1.5 billion years) and the more complex life forms of later plants and animals.
The protists comprise a very diverse group of organisms. They include some algae, the protozoans, and multicellular or multinucleate autotrophs, such as the water molds. Many have flagella that enable them to move about. Before the advent of modern biochemistry and the electron microscope, these organisms were fit into the plant and animal kingdoms. It is now thought that, although green plants probably evolved from the green algae and animals from some other early forms, most modern protists have followed independent evolutionary lines. There are approximately 60,000 living species of protists. (from infoplease)
Introduction to SLIME MOULDS kingdom Protoctista (Protista)
