Check this out! Wicked cool . . . http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/knots-0920.html I suppose it gives new meaning to when a person says he or she is "all knotted up inside."

Lucy and Bigfoot

ugly baby...jeeeez

my sister was telling me about that Lucy character. I guess she took this class on bigfoot. Yeah, that's right...a whole class on bigfoot. She knows all there is to know. She knows about Lucy too.

Pretty interesting.
k byeeee!

Lucy's "Baby"

This isn't really relevant to stuff we're talking about in class, but I thought it was an interesting discovery.

Scientists have unearthed the world's oldest human child - an amazingly complete fossil that dates to beyond 3 million years ago. Human evolution is not a topic we will cover much (if at all) in class and is something I wish I knew more about simply because I find it intereting to think about. If anyone is interested in this topic I have a pretty good book you could take a look at and there are a few websites out there I am sure we could dig up.

Anyways, here's the link to the National Geographic story:

World's Oldest Child

This is wicked cool!

Just testing to see if I signed up the right way. See y'all tomorrow. : )

Archaea

You may remember from class that one of the three domains of life is the Archaea (the other two are Bacteria and Eukarya). Members of Archaea are prokaryotic organisms that are usually found in extreme environments - in fact they are often called 'extremophiles'. They are found in areas of high salinity, temperature, acidity, or alkilinity. Others are found where oxygen levels are extremely low or non-existant (anoxic environments). Some very cool and very different biology going on with them (but not THAT different, which makes them even more interesting). Here are a few websites if you are interested in learning more about them:

Triumph of the archaea (an older article by Carl Zimmer, an exceptional science writer)

Intro to the Archaea

WikiPedia article on Archaea

Some biologists think that the Archaea are the base of the tree of life - that the earliest living things were Archaea (or Archaea-like) and that all other living things evolved from them. Recently there has been some debate over this sentiment as DNA evidence has come out to suggest that this may not be the case. Biology is full of mysteries and unsolved puzzles and the Archaea are one of them.

AP Bio Blog

Hi all -

Not sure how this site will work, but I thought it would be a good "central" online home for any news and events, interesting websites and info, and otherwise helpful stuff for the AP Biology class and exam. There is so much to cover in this class that sometimes the really fun details get pushed aside (like the ecology of the Archaea). Hopefully this blog will allow us to explore and discuss some of these things.

I've never run a blog like this before so I am unsure exactly how it works - you may be able to start new posts as well as comment on them, but I don't know that for sure. Only the members of our class are members of this blog so we are not a completely open community ("outsiders" can read this, but can't comment on it). I'll let you know about any particularly useful info posted here during class.

Some ground rules for posting/commenting:
1) keep it clean
2) keep it relevant
3) keep it respectful
4) keep it fun/interesting/useful

Major violations to the above rules will result in walking the plank into an Archaea-infested pool of water.

Finally, I'm sure that the structure of this blog will evolve over time to better suit its function (which I am also sure will evolve). Remember, science is a process and is constantly moving and changing. Scientists need to be like sailors - ready to change course when necessary. We can't change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust the sails.