Blog #13:

This week, we've discussed the topic of viruses. Many have debated whether or not viruses are alive, but I think that viruses are alive because viruses are consider prokaryotic cells and they are constantly growing and dividing themselves very quick. They also adapt to the surrouding environment (inside our body) very quickly. There are four types of virus cycles, and they are lytic, lysogenic, retrovirus and envelop virus. In lytic cycle is the process that the virus move around and find the bacteria that are beneficial to our body and it injects its DNA into the the host. The DNA inside the host began to break down and eventually break into viruses, after it becomes too much for the cell to store, the cell eventually burst and release the viruses. Examples of lytic cycle is E-Coli. During the lysogenic cycle, the virus DNA become part of the bacteria DNA and it becomes a pro-virus and is inactive for period of times. The cell eventually divide into daugther cells, and the virus become the lytic cycle. Example of lysogenic cycle is Herpes. Retrovirus is a type of virus that is constantly changing, and it usually makes random mistakes. It enters the nucleus and become part of the DNA and through DNA replication, the virus cell become RNA and enter the ribosome and create the harmful protein and the virus spread and divide exponentially. Example of retrovirus is the HIV virus that cause the deadly disease, AID. During the envelop virus, instead of entering the nucleus and become part of the DNA, it went through the ribosome, and example of that is Hepatitis C.

Blog #12:

The weeks that came before the winter break, we learned about meiosis and mitosis. We also talked about enzymes and the reactions they produce. There are two types of enzymes that take place with an enzyme are dehydration reaction and hydrolysis. Dehydration is when a new monomer is being a chain in a polymer, while hydrolysis is when a monomer is being released from a polymer chain and an amount of water is being consumed.
The human body contains 46 chromosomes total. Through the process of meiosis, the cell only contains 23 chromosomes. When it undergoes meiosis the two cells come together to form a complete set of chromosomes. Mitosis is the process that is associated with the sexual reproduction of cells, when the cells divide and the two daughter cells are identical. Cells that go through this process, are identical because an unfertilized egg develops into an embryo using its two sets of maternal chromosomes.