J+-+EQ1

EQ1 - How does something so small affect an organism, community, or planet? toc =Angela =


Viruses are tiny, so small that they can only be seen with a microscope, but can affect the organism, community, and planet in many ways. Bad viruses, such as the influenza virus, can cause organisms (us) to get the flu. Then, we cough and sneeze and blow our influenza viruses into the air, and other people take them in. If everyone keeps spreading the virus out, then it can affect a whole community, and possibly the planet! Also, since the viruses can multiply quickly once it released its genetic material into cell, there can be a lot of that type of viruses everywhere, so it is easy for it to get spread to everyone else.

Bacteria can be helpful to us, but also can harm us. A bacterium keeps us healthy and alive, and can help clean up oil spills, and decompose harmful things. Even though bacteria can help us, there are also kinds of bad bacteria, like the Streptococcus bacteria that can cause strep throat, and even pneumonia. Just like viruses, these bacteria can get spread very quickly, and can harm a community within a couple of days! Bacteria reproduces very quickly, doubling in as fast as 20 minutes, and if we aren’t careful, they can spread and spread, until they harm the entire planet. This is a picture of a harmful bacterium. It can cause some harmful diseases. Image: '[|Staphylococcus aureus]' www.flickr.com/photos/47353092@N00/1919750964

Daniel R.: I really like how you worded your answer and it helped me clarify what bacteria can do. I didn't know that bacteria could infect a whole community in just several days.

Hannah: I liked your post because everything was said very clearly. It explained everything very simply and I think you got your point across very well. I also liked how you stressed how bacteria could spread very fast. Very good job (: Mrs. Bugenske: Good summary of what we have learned so far. Let's see how the others add to it. Back to Top =Brandon= Bacteria and viruses can affect the planet in a hole lot of ways, by spreading bad viruses like spreading the Herpes virus. Which is transferred through direct contact from an infected individual. Others can also get it by skin to skin contact during shedding. When other people spread it to more people the number of people with the virus can increase fast. Which can definitely affect a community and can affect a planet. But viruses and bacteria aren't all bad even though most people think that they are. They can help us in many ways like helping to clean up oil spills, and they play an important role in making foods like cheese. They also attack dead plants and animals and turn them into fertilizer for the soil. Bacteria can also multiply extremely fast. Some multiply every 20 minutes! That can affect the planet in good and bad ways. image: Herpes Virus [] This is a picture of the harmful Herpes Virus. It is one of the fastest and easiest viruses to spread

Mrs. B: Nice detailed post! I didn't know what the herpes virus looked like. Glad you also mentioned how they can be helpful.

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=Louise= Something as microscopic as a virus can affect our community greatly. The common cold can be spread quickly. When we cough or sneeze into the air, or on something, we transport those viruses to where anyone can come in contact with it. Then, If the a person who has come in contact with the virus and their immune system doesn't fight it off, the person gets sick. Then they can also infect someone else. Because viruses multiply very quickly, when another person contracts the sickness, there will be even more viruses. If our immune systems didn't fight it off, the they would keep on multiplying and spreading until they killed us all. There are no cures for viruses, only medicines that ease the symptoms. A virus could be helpful if we used it's empty outer pod to transport medicine to certain places, but so far scientists haven't been able to do that yet. Bacterias which are also microscopic can be harmful, and helpful. They also cause sicknesses, but these can be cured with medicine. They can be helpful in how they use fermentation to produce cheese, and yogurt, and clean up oil spills. They also help make antibiotics, and they altered the climate of the earth by producing oxygen, which later many organisms used to respire. So as you can see, something so small can affect organisms, communities, and a planet greatly.

This is a picture of the virus SARS. It was a big problem in China a few years ago.

http://www.jhsph.edu/bin/x/w/sars.jpg

JX: I like your example of how diseases transmitted to each other. I also think your picture is relevant since I still remember the SARS outbreak a few years ago. It spread extremely fast. It is pretty straight forward, so good job. Angela: I like how you talk about how bacteria can be harmful and helpful. I really like your picture. I think it shows that even though it doesn't look like much, it can be very harmful to everyone.

Mrs. B: How does your picture relate to what you write about? You need to explain it. Good to mention that only your immune system can cure a virus.

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David: I like how you used the article we've read in class to help you answer the question...We can use vaccines to prevent some diseases. =Ryan= Something that is so small that it needs to be measured in NM can effect the larger organism because it can help it or harm it. For example: A virus could spread really fast, when someone gets sick and touches someone it could be transmited, if someone sneezes/ coughs in the air the viruses might attach on the other person’s cell, if a person touches a sick animal it could also be transmited, and if someone touches something contains a lot of viruses they could get sick also. The reason people get sick is because their cells burst and doesn’t exist anymore, and that could cause a problem in you systems. Right now there are no cures for viruses, but there are medicne that treats the symtoms and make you feel better but the virus still exsists. Something that could help and harm is a bacteria, bacteria causes some sickness but there are cures for the bacteria; you use antibiotics and the antibiotics kills the bacteria. However they could help us by making food (cheese), helping use digest and more. There are about over 9000 bacterias in a house, because bacteria could double every 20 minutes!

This photo is taking up space! Title: virus Link:http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/virus.gif

Mathieu: I didn't know that there was over 9000 bacterias in your own home. I also found the diagram intresting because i didn't know there was a plate at the end.

Mrs. B: Nice job adding the different ways that pathogens can be spread. I think maybe you mean to say 9000 different types of bacteria in a home. Remember you have more bacteria in your gut than there are people in the world. You need to explain how your picture relates to what you are discussing.

Back to Top =Harry= I think something like a bacteria/virus can affect a larger organism, community, or planet is by attaching to an object, and spreading to whatever comes in contact with it. For example, a virus latches onto a cell in my body. If I touch a Wii, then the virus will spread to the Wii and contaminate it. There are types of viruses; for example, there is the tobacco mosaic virus. We will never get a disease from that kind of virus, because we are not made of tobacco. Some viruses can affect us, though, so you have to be careful. In short, viruses can only affect one type of species. Try too keep yourself clean of viruses; you don't want to catch the flu, do you? (That doesn't mean you can't pick food off the ground. It's good to be a bit dirty. Once in a while. Getting dirty/eating food off the ground is actually good for your immune system. Tell that to your parents, kids. This is a picture of a pig in China being injected with a vaccine after getting infected with a swine virus that contaminates swine with "blue ear pig disease". Are you sure they weren't giving the vaccine to prevent the disease?

Link: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/08/16/virus_strikes_chinas_pigs_stirring_fears_of_global_outbreak/

Mrs. B: I like how you added that viruses only attach to certain types of cells. I hope that means I could never get "blue ear pig disease"...I don't think I would look very good with blue ears. How does your picture relate to what you posted? You could talk about vaccines and then include this as an example....

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= = =**David**=

Like others said, small micro-organisms can both help and harm the planet/community. Virus could be used to help us later like we read on the article and it could harm you and cause disease in plants, animals, us and cells. This could be something alarming because of ho much it could multiply. Bacteria mostly helps the environment and living things in several ways, bacteria decomposes waste to keep the soil clean and help fertilize food, break down food in our body and many more. They can also cause diseases like tuberculosis but could be cured by anti-biotics, a treatment for bacteria. If anti-biotics is a cure for bacteria, how about a virus? Well, there isn't any treatments yet besides treating the symptoms. But there are such called vaccines that help prevent diseases caused by anything, soem diseases have a vaccine for preventation and some don't. But mostly, you should be keeping quite clean washing hanc etc...but not too clean!!! (like we've read in an article...'dirt is good for you'...dirt could help build healthy immune system...but don't eat them like food!)

Title: The vaccine [] Vaccines could help prevent diseases as a very fast spread disease can coause great trouble in a community of the planet!

Mrs. B: You give a very comprehensive summary of our unit so far, but don't really add a good discussion of something new. Also, your picture does tie to vaccines in your post, but you could discuss a little more about how vaccines can help or have helped in the past with diseases.

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=JX=

A small virus can affect the area around us easily. If one single virus invades us, it can cause absolute devastation if it is the right kind of virus, like AIDS. Anyways, the virus works by attaching itself to one of our cells. It injects its genetic material into it, which orders the cell to make copies of itself. The cell is eventually full of that virus, and the cell bursts. The point of the virus is not to kill the host, but to reproduce. It is better for the virus to leave the cell alive so it can use it again. Unfortunately, the bad viruses usually burst our cells, and when they burst enough, we get sick. When we come in contact with objects, touch other people, or do something else, that person might take in our virus, and it has already spread to one person. Imagine if the next person kept on spreading it. Eventually, the whole world would be infected with it.

Bacteria are very different from viruses. They can be killed using antibiotics. Unfortunately, we overuse antibiotics, and now, some bacteria can’t even be killed using the strongest antibiotics available. Bacteria reproduce using either binary fission or conjugation. Binary fission makes the exact same kind of bacteria, and it makes 2 out of 1. This can happen about every 20 minutes if conditions are favorable. Conjugation makes variety in bacteria, and this is what makes a select few bacteria immune to antibiotics. Bacteria can grow almost anywhere, anytime. We are exposed to bacteria 24/7, but fortunately, most of them are harmless. Bacteria can do great things, like decompose waste, clean up gas and oil spills, and help us digest food, but they can also harm us, like the bacteria tuberculosis, which can be transferred easily. If one person has tuberculosis and comes into contact with 3 people, who in turn also go in contact with 3 people, imagine what would happen. The world would be infected, fast.

Image location: http://www. darwin.nmsu.edu

Mrs. B: Nice summary and addition of material about how bacteria reproduce. Don't forget that immunity to antibiotics is also associated with mutation, which can happen in any bacteria cell. That mutation would then be passed to the copies made through binary fission. A mutation is just a slight change to the genetic code...it can be helpful or harmful to the cell. You will learn a lot more about this in genetics in 8th grade. You did not explain your picture.

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=Lyle=

Viruses and bacteria are very important in our society and effect it a lot. bacteria and viruses are what spread diseases and make us sick. So if they make us sick and we spread our sicknesses to people in our community which then spreads to our planet then obviously this little things do effect an organism,community and planet.The Bacterial infection or Virus gets spread to us by other people, animals, air droplets, contaminated objects, food or environmental sources.Viruses use your cells as a host to reproduce and then give you the disease, but not all viruses are bad. There are also viruses that help you which also effects our community in a good way. Bacteria can also help us in a good way because only certain types of bacteria harm you, others can help you. Bacteria is used in a good way to make certain foods, decompose things, give plants nitrogen and do many other things. So viruses and bacteria can help us and our community or make is all sick but whatever they do they definitely effect us.

This is a picture of the influenza virus which effects people everyday and can spread easily www.patentlens.net



Mrs. B: Good summary of some of the things we have talked about already. Can you add to the discussion? A little more explanation of how your picture relates to your post would also be helpful.

back to top =Mathieu=

A tiny little bacteria or virus can harm a organism by attacking it straight. It can do this to us humans. One we have been contaminated we sometimes pass it on to people of our family or spreading by touching an object and contaminating it. If for example a whole town is contaminated with that bacteria, then if they leave the town then they will affect people from that town. Soon you got a whole comunity has the bacteria atacking them. In the middle ages, there was a bubonic plague that spread around europ (also know as Black Death) that was a virus, that the humans got from the rats. About 2/3 of the population died because back then they had nothing to cure this disease. Now adays when you have a bacteria atacking you, you take a certain kind of antibiotic and it kills the bacteria and cures you. For viruses there is nothing to cure the virus but we have came up with medications which make you feel better. The way that so many people get infected by viruses and bacterias, is because they spread so quickly. One bacteria can reproduce as fast as every 20 mins. If every bacteria was to multiply every 20 minutes and do that all the time thing about how much that would be. That is the reason so many people get infect by just one type of bacteria. images.businessweek.com antibiotic

Mrs. B: Nice job adding Black Plague to the discussion - that was a nasty one! It was actually the fleas on the rat that would bite humans and transfer the disease. Yuck! Makes one appreciate the nice clean environment we live in, right? You need to explain how your picture relates to your post.

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=Daniel R.= Something as small as a virus or bacteria have an enormous effect on an organism, a society, and even the planet! This is because of the ways they behave and what actions they perform. First, viruses are just small particles that invade cells, multiply, and leave, sometimes causing the host cell to burst. This may sound insignificant, but as more viruses are produced, more cells are being invaded. Numerous amounts of viruses can at the very least cause the organism to become sick with the lack of cells that have burst. Also, viruses are very easily spread, able to travel on a sneeze, a cough, a bite, or even get to another person by contact. Without the aid of medicals, the whole planet could die in several days! What did society do before medicine? Plagues and their own immune systems.....?--Mrs. B Luckily, we have vaccines, which can prevent these sicknesses, and also medicines which help get rid of, or lessen the symptoms of a virus. However, viruses aren’t only bad; they are also helping scientists discover many things, such as controlling the cure for some cancers. They have learned that injecting a virus with this cure can work by itself to cure the cancer just by doing what it normally does, multiply! Bacteria, on the other hand, have even more positive and negative influences on the planet. First of all, some bacterium start diseases in organisms, and they can continue to spread throughout the society. However, they can be treated by antibiotics, which ironically contain various bacteria and some other chemicals. (I think you mixing this up with vaccines. --Mrs. B) Meanwhile, most of the bacteria in the world actually help us. One major use for them is for oxygen and fuels. Back when the earth was still anew, there was hardly any oxygen in the air, but over thousands of years, bacteria have recycled the carbon dioxide gas in the air into oxygen through photosynthesis, enabling organisms that use respiration to start thriving. Also, the bacteria that died during that time became the fossil fuels that we use today for many tasks. Additionally, we use bacteria in some foods to create yogurt, pickles, and more. Finally, bacteria have claimed the title of nature’s recyclers, for their abilities to decompose harmful substances in the ground, on the earth, and even in our digestive system! If it weren’t for bacteria, we would probably not even be here right now. This is how viruses and bacteria have a huge effect on the world. Image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/343441848_6960620360.jpg?v=0 This image relates to my answer because it shows how viruses multiply and how they can be a threat/benefit to the society. Back to Top

=Hannah= Viruses and bacteria can very easily spread and affect a larger community. They are microscopic, even smaller than the cells inside our bodies! They can spread when someone has direct contact with an infected person, someone has contact with a contaminated object, or contact with an animal. An example of contact with an animal is malaria (protozoan). A person can get malaria when an infected mosquito bites a person, injecting malaria parasites into their blood. Viruses reproduce by entering a cell and injecting its genetic material into the cell. Then the viruses genetic material takes over the cell's functions and the virus replicates itself. In the right environment with enough food, bacteria can replicate almost every 20 minutes!!! There are vaccines to prevent such diseases but there is no cure for viruses, only bacteria. Viruses can spread through disease. For example if someone had the flu, and he sneezed and coughed into the air, other people could catch it. Then it could spread and spread, possibly around the whole world! http://www.enviroblog.org This is a picture of antibiotic pills. They can treat bacteria by preventing its growth and reproduction. They don't work on viruses because viruses are not living, and so therefore antibiotics have no effect on viruses.

Mrs. B: Can anyone tell the name of the "malaria parasites" Hannah is talking about? They were part of our Protist Lab.

=Owen= Something so small like a virus or bacteria can infect an organism, community, planet because they reproduce. If one virus enters a cell that virus multiplies and then exits the cell. Then each of those new viruses will do the same thing until there are millions of that virus. If this virus is bad then it can cause an epidemic or a pandemic by spreading from person to person and town to town. One example is sars in asia. It started as with one guy in an elevator in hong kong coughing. The other people caught it then spread it to other people until it became an epidemic. This picture is a virus that causes sars. back to top

=Josephine=  Viruses, bacteria (and protozoa) are something that is so small that so we can’t see it with naked eyes. However, they are capable to destroy a cell, an organism and even a community. (Planets in fictions) How viruses do it was invade a host cell, insert its genetic material and force the cell to reproduce more viruses. The new viruses then leave the cell. Some were harmless to the cell but some burst the cell when they leave. Viruses are born to multiply; new viruses will find more host cells. And you, the organism will started to feel ill if a lot of your cells were killed. Virus causes mild diseases like common colds but also causes extreme deadly diseases such as AIDS and SARS. There is no medical treatment, so your body immune system has to fight alone with virus. Bacteria, different then viruses, they are living and can reproduce by themselves. This single prokaryotic cell can multiply every 20 minutes (multiply by two) if they have enough food and was surrounded by the right environment. Sometimes, the substance called toxin produced by bacteria can make you sick when it leak into your cell. Bacteria cause deadly diseases like, tuberculosis, black plague or more common diseases like strep throat. Protozoa are bigger than bacteria and virus in size. It also causes dangerous disease like Malaria, which was spread by mosquitoes. All of the above can be spread by direct contact, touching infected object or animal, communicate through air, or in a bad environment. That is why we need to stay home when we are sick, because your sneeze, cough or even breathe brings bacteria/ viruses into the air, and other people can get infected too. Viruses and bacteria are not all harmful, though. Bacteria can be helpful by breaking down foods in your stomach, making yogurt and other food product. The oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere was made by archaebacteria billion years ago. Also the fuel gas we use every day was made by bacteria. Viruses can be really helpful to cancer patients if their genetic material was switch into cancer medicine. They can deliver medicine to specific cells.