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PHOTOSYNTHETIC SLUGS
1. Understanding Symbiosis

  • Symbiosis: How interactions among microorganisms, plants, and animals give rise to symbiotic relationships.

  • Endosymbiosis: A type of symbiosis where one organism lives inside another, with general benefits for both organisms involved.

2. Transformation of Sunlight into Biological Energy

  • Light-dependent reactions: The initial stage of photosynthesis where sunlight is transformed into biological energy (ATP and NADPH), involving electron transport and gradients with water as an electron source.

  • ATP: Adenosine triphosphate, an energy-carrying molecule used in cells.

  • NADPH: Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, an electron carrier used in photosynthesis.

3. Genetic Interactions in Endosymbiotic Relationships

  • Horizontal Gene Transfer: Transfer of genetic material between organisms not through parent-offspring inheritance.

  • Vertical Gene Transfer: Transfer of genetic material from parent to offspring.

4. The Calvin Cycle

  • Calvin Cycle: A three-phase process that utilizes ATP and NADPH from light reactions to fix carbon dioxide and produce sugars.

5. Isotope Use in Biological Systems

  • Isotope: Atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons (e.g., C-14 used to trace atom movement in biological systems).

6. K-selection vs. r-selection

  • K-selection: An ecological strategy characterized by stable populations, slower growth rates, longer lifespans, and fewer, larger offspring with more parental care, typically found in stable environments.

  • r-selection: An ecological strategy characterized by rapid population growth, short lifespans, and many small offspring with little parental care, typically found in unstable or unpredictable environments.

ORIGIN OF SPEED
Day 2.1: Speed Overview Goals and Objectives

  • Evolution: Change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

  • Natural Selection: A mechanism of evolution where individuals better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

  • Fitness: The reproductive success of an organism in its environment.

  • Population: A group of individuals of the same species living in the same area who can interbreed.

  • Adaptation: A trait that has evolved through natural selection and helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment.

Day 2.3 & 2.4: Phylogeny Goals and Objectives

  • Phylogeny: The evolutionary history of a species or group of related species.

  • Phylogenetic trees: Diagrams representing evolutionary relationships among organisms.

  • Homology: Similarity due to shared ancestry.

  • Analogy (Homoplasy): Similarity due to convergent evolution, not shared ancestry.

Day 2.5: Darwin’s Gap: Genetics Goals and Objectives

  • Mendelian inheritance: The principles of heredity that describe how traits are passed from parents to offspring, based on Mendel's laws.

  • Law of Segregation: During gamete formation, the alleles for each gene segregate from each other so that each gamete carries only one allele for each gene.

  • Law of Independent Assortment: Genes for different traits assort independently of one another during gamete formation.

Day 2.6: Genetics and Meiosis Goals and Objectives

  • Mitosis: Cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth.

  • Meiosis: A type of cell division that reduces the number of chromosomes in the parent cell by half and produces four gamete cells, essential for sexual reproduction.

Day 2.7: Muscle Motion and Sliding Filament Model Goals and Objectives

  • Sarcomere: The basic contractile unit of muscle fiber.

  • Actin and Myosin: Proteins that slide past each other during muscle contraction.

  • Troponin and Tropomyosin: Regulatory proteins that control actin-myosin interaction.

Day 2.8: Cheetah Muscle Function Goals and Objectives

  • Slow-twitch muscles: Muscle fibers that contract slowly, resist fatigue, and are used for endurance activities. They are rich in mitochondria and myoglobin (red muscle).

  • Fast-twitch muscles: Muscle fibers that contract quickly, fatigue rapidly, and are used for short bursts of powerful activity. They rely more on glycolysis (white muscle).

Day 2.9: Cellular Respiration I Goals and Objectives

  • Cellular Respiration: The process by which cells break down glucose and other food molecules in the presence of oxygen to release energy (ATP).

  • Glycolysis: The first phase of cellular respiration; the breakdown of glucose into pyruvate, producing a small amount of ATP and NADH.

Day 2.10: Cellular Respiration II Goals and Objectives

  • Chemiosmosis: The movement of ions across a selectively permeable membrane, down their electrochemical gradient, used to generate ATP through ATP synthase.

  • Fermentation: An anaerobic process that breaks down glucose to produce ATP in the absence of oxygen, producing less energy than cellular respiration.

Opioid Crisis Overview
3.1 Opioid and Pain Physiology Objectives / Day 1: Pain Overview

  • Pain (Physiology): An essential sensory experience signaling potential harm or damage, crucial for safety.

  • Nervous System Structure: Composed of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, responsible for sensory processing, information integration, and motor responses.

  • Neurons Structure: Basic functional units of the nervous system, consisting of dendrites, a cell body, and an axon, capable of generating action potentials.

  • Nociceptors: Specialized sensory neurons that detect and transmit pain signals to the brain (ascending pain pathway).

  • Descending Pain Pathway: A neural pathway originating in the brain that modulates pain signals, often reducing pain perception through the release of endogenous opioids.

  • Opioids: A class of compounds, including natural (endorphins, enkephalins, dynorphins) and medicinal substances, that bind to opioid receptors and mimic the body's natural pain-reducing effects.

  • Endogenous Opioids: Naturally produced opioids within the body (e.g., endorphins), involved in pain regulation and reward.

  • Opiates: Naturally occurring opioids derived from the opium poppy (e.g., morphine, codeine).

3.2 Signaling Mechanisms Objectives / Day 2: Cell Signaling Overview

  • Four Signaling Mechanisms: Autocrine (cell signals itself), gap junctions (direct cell-to-cell contact), paracrine (local signaling to nearby cells), and endocrine (long-distance signaling via hormones in the bloodstream).

3.3 Central Dogma Objectives / Day 3: Central Dogma Overview

  • Central Dogma: The fundamental concept that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to protein (DNA →\to RNA →\to Protein).

  • Transcription: The process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA template.

  • Translation: The process of synthesizing proteins from an mRNA template.

3.4 DNA-Protein Synthesis Objectives / Day 4: Gene Structure and Transcription Objectives

  • Genetic Code: The set of rules by which information encoded in genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid sequences).

  • Codon: A sequence of three nucleotides that forms a unit of the genetic code in a DNA or RNA molecule.

  • Promoter: A DNA sequence that initiates transcription of a particular gene.

3.5 RNA Processing Objectives

  • RNA Processing: Modifications to RNA molecules after transcription, including splicing (removal of introns), capping, and polyadenylation.

  • Exons: Coding regions of a gene that are expressed and retained in the final mRNA.

  • Introns: Non-coding regions of a gene that are removed during RNA splicing.

3.6 Transcription/Translation Activity Review Objectives

  • Ribosomes: Cellular organelles responsible for protein synthesis (translation).

3.7 Ligand Binding and Signaling Objectives

  • Ligand Binding: The specific interaction between a signaling molecule (ligand) and its receptor, initiating a cellular response.

  • Agonists: Drugs that bind to receptors and activate them, mimicking the effect of a natural ligand.

  • Antagonists: Drugs that bind to receptors but do not activate them, thereby blocking the action of agonists or natural ligands.

Ecotox Module: Sex and Reproduction Overview
Day 1: Sex Determination Goals and Objectives

  • Sex Determination: The mechanism by which the sex of an individual is established, which can be genetic (e.g., human XY) or environmental (e.g., temperature-dependent in reptiles).

  • Haploid: Cells containing a single set of unpaired chromosomes (e.g., gametes).

  • Diploid: Cells containing two complete sets of chromosomes, one from each parent.

Day 2: Asexual Reproduction Goals and Objectives

  • Asexual Reproduction: Reproduction involving a single parent that produces offspring genetically identical to itself.

Day 4: Hormonal Interactions Goals and Objectives / Day 5: Estrous Cycle Feedback Goals and Objectives

  • Hormonal Regulation: Control of physiological processes by hormones, often involving feedback loops.

  • Estrous Cycle: The recurring physiological changes induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian females, involving ovarian cycle stages.

Vibrio and Climate Change Module Overview
Key Concepts for Review

  • Miasma Model: A historical theory of disease causation, positing that diseases were caused by 'bad air' or noxious fumes.

  • Vibrio cholerae: A bacterium that causes cholera, an acute diarrheal illness, often linked to environmental challenges and specific transmission pathways.