Grantham University

Instructor Brad Wells Introduction to Life Science 5/07/2013

For this assignment made me think a lot about the things that a lot of great men and woman have done scientifically before I start this assignment I want to tell you about some great people that I admire in the scientific world. Those are some of the scientist that I admire first one is Albert Einstein developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century. Another one is Gorge Washington Carver; Carver was born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri, around 1864. The exact year and date of his birth are unknown. Carver went on to become one of the most prominent scientists and inventors of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one of these crops the peanut including dyes, plastics and gasoline. Since I took this course science had made me think about my life a lot Science has improved my life in many ways. First, it's given me a safe and reliable means of controlling my reproductive choices. It's improved my understanding of the nutritional needs of my body and what I feed my daughter. Science has provided many of the modern day conveniences that have become essential to my life like electricity, car, and wireless devices. Science has also given to me a whole idea of healthy and non-healthy food that helps me keep in shape. Now for the assignment is very interesting and I’m excited to write about the information that I know.
The unique physical and chemical properties of water molecules are charged, with the oxygen atom being slightly negative and the hydrogen atoms being slightly positive. These opposite attract each other, forming hydrogen bonds. These are weak, long distance bonds that are very common and very important in Nature. It meets most of our needs without life is impossible. All of our needs that are made available to us by nature are called Natural Resources. The most important requirements that are needed to sustain life on this planet include Air, Water, Food, Energy and Shelter. Life on earth evolved in water, and all of life still depends on water. At least 80% of the mass of living organisms is water and almost all chemical reactions of life take place in aqueous solution. Water in liquid form, it is an excellent medium for carrying chemical and biological compounds. It is also stable as a liquid over a wide temperature range, a temperature range that conveniently accommodates a wide range of biological processes. Water the best way to identifying places where life may exist? Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions. An experiment is an orderly procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Observation is an activity of a living being, such as a human, which is necessary in order to receive knowledge of the world or about the environment through the senses, which often later involves the recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. I don’t think that scientists have changed over time I think the only thing that changed was the technology they used and the technology they use have just got better. Now I’m going to explain the role so called “accidental” discoveries and how it played in the history of science from my understanding of an accidental discoveries are when a scientist have been working on an invention for a while and just could not get it right. Then he starts to try a lot of different things to one just fits to what he or she want I’m guessing that is where the term accidental came from. Some of the world’s greatest inventions were found by accident for example Penicillin was invented by Alexander Fleming this was one of the greatest accidental discoveries in the work is was said that he didn't clean up his workstation before going on vacation one day in 1928. When he came back, Fleming noticed that there was a strange fungus on some of his cultures. Even stranger was that bacteria didn't seem to thrive near those cultures Anther accidental discovery is LSD as a hallucinogen occurred when Dr Hoffman was involved in pharmaceutical research in Basel, Switzerland, hoping to produce drugs that would help ease the pain of childbirth Hoffman catalogued the untested substance and placed it in storage, after finding nothing particularly interesting about it during the initial analysis. It wasn’t until a Friday afternoon in April 1943 when Hoffman discovered the true properties of the compound, inadvertently absorbing a healthy dose of it when handling the chemical at work without wearing gloves. On his bicycle ride back home he observed “an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors”. The major experiments and scientists involved in the discovery of DNA as our hereditary material and its structure? Structure of DNA was introduced in the twentieth century. Before that scientists had spent years thinking about which of the many types of molecules within cells contained the hereditary information. Even though there is a lot scientist that helped with the discovery of DNA. The three personal that are most know for the discovery are James Crick and Francis Watson, and Maurice Wilkins that helped promote the findings of DNA but the facts are it was discovered nearly 90 years earlier by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher. While studying white blood cell. Some would say the role of DNA was one of the greatest discoveries in human history the discovery of DNA he because it helps us in curing diseases, solving crimes, paternity tests, finding the relatedness of species, and much more. most scientists continued to believe that protein, not DNA, was the carrier of hereditary information. This changed in 1944, when biologist Oswald Avery performed a series of groundbreaking experiments with the bacteria that cause pneumonia. Through a series of experiments, Avery and his colleagues found that only DNA could change R type bacteria into S type. This meant that something about DNA allowed it to carry instructions from one cell to another.
Woman of science Woman have been around since the beginning, woman had a very important part of the scientific processes. There has been some very scientific woman thought out the history. That have shaped the and made a better understanding of a lot of scientific factors. Women have worked side by side with the men in their great quest for scientific knowledge and recognition. And as far as were woman are today with I would say they are very successful just like men. Women are treating as equals. Since the 1950’s women have sought to change the traditional role of a man being in charge. Woman where know as a housewife and a mother. A new generation of educated women who are seeking a career as a scientist. After World War II women have developed a more individualistic approach to life.