Thursday, December 9, 2010

Food and Nutrition

Recomended servings (per day)
2000 calories
50g of protein
300 g of carbs
not really any fat recommended
300mg of cholesterol
25g of fiber
2400mg of sodium

Here are the totals:
Monday: 1688 Calories(84%)
87g of Protein (174%)
182g of Carbs(61%)
63g of fat
118mg of Cholesterol (39%)
2g of fiber(8%)
1184mg of sodium (49%)

Tuesday: 832 Calories(42%)
31g of protein (62%)
81g of carbs(27%)
33g of fat
450 mg of cholesterol(28%)
2g of fiber (8%)
711mg of sodium (30%)

Wednesday:1688 Calories(84%)
60g of Protein(120%)
144g of carbs(48%)
116g of fat
384mg of cholesterol(128%)
5g of fiber(20%)
3575mg of sodiun (149%)


These totals actually surprised me, I thought I was taking in more than I should be, but apparently I am not. The program would not let me put in my height and weight or BMI without paying, so it set it to the standard amounts. I might need more than I take in or less, I don't reall know. I am comfortable with my dietary intake because I really want to lose a little weight. My BMI isn't over at 23.44, but I would like to get it down near 21. This would make me feel better about myself and it would keep my weight a little more stable. THese three days are actually not a good representation of my diet. On Monday at dinner, my parents treated me out to some all-u-can-eat Korean BBQ for my b-day, so that day was actually more than what I would've taken in on a given day. On Wednesday, I did not eat lunch because I was building the gingerbread thing, so it would have been more that day. What I would like to improve, as I said in the first part, is the amount of fiber I need to take in. I am taking in way too little fiber and would like to get closer to the recommended amount. Apart with that, I think taking in a little less fat and cholesterol will help to lower my wieght. Some ways I can cut down on oils but up some of the more important stuff like protein and carbs is to eat almonds instead of candy. I don't usuually snack between meals, but it would help if I ate almonds when I was hungry instead of chips or candy. Another way is to make the 2% milk I drink 1%. That would make a big difference since I drink milk almost every day. The final way is to take in a little more brown rice than I usually do. Brown rice is much healthier than white rice, at the sacrifice of taste. It isn't really a big difference, but taking in more would keep me healthier since it is technically a whole grain.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

MACROMOLECULES

Nucleic Acids
Asthma is caused by the slight mutation of DNA and RNA. It is also genetic, so the reason why I have asthma could be from one of parent's sides, since they both do not have asthma. Unfortunately, there is no cure for asthma so one of the few ways it can be eliminated is to outgrow it.

Lipids
This week, on monday and Tuesday, I played basketball. As we ran our drills, I began to sweat. The sweat contained lipid substances and helped cool my body down. The practice became easier near the end, so by the time practiced finished, all of it dried off or absorbed into my shirt. My dad always tells me to change shirts since sweat drying can get me sick, so when I forgot to, he got pretty mad at me and lectured me about after telling me a ton of times. THe next day, I started coughing and got a little under the weather.


Proteins
So this weekend, my mom is making me get a haircut, shich I do not like,  but has to be done. It is usually itchy after getting my hair cut especially when I cannot go back home to take a bath and wash all the loose hairs out. So I will be cutting off a large amount of the proteins on my head so that it is not long and then after a few weeks it will grow back.


Carbohydrates
Every night for dinner, I always eat rice and then some sort of side dish. A few months ago, my mom swithced from white rice to brown rice because it was healthier, but it doesn't taste as good as white rice. We do not eat all brown rice, but a mix of white and brown, and then eventually we will switch from a mix to all brown rice.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Beavioral Ecology

pheremones

agonistic behaviors

Imprinting and Migation
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Behavioral Ecology

pheremones
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agonistic behaviors
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Imprinting and Migation
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Saturday, September 25, 2010

Saving the Environment

One way that people in general have done to save our depleting environment is by cleaning up after BP's massive oil spill. The oil spill started on April 20, 2010 and killed 11 workers. The leak started spilling oil out into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 1,000 barrels a day, which is approximately 42 gallons of oil  a day. Then, the estimate was raised to 5,000, and then from there to 12,000, and then after that on to a terrifying rate of 100,000 barrels a day. That is 4.2 million gallons of oil each day. After BP stopped the oil leak, the pipe had leaked around an average of 50,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day for a few months, I don't even want to calculate that! The oil spill encouraged hundreds of volunteers and workers to help clean up the whole mess, which was greatly harming sea life, the beaches, fishermen, and even affected some birds. People were helping by taking donations for affected fishermen and taking hair and fur donations for making booms for containing the oil. In these ways the people helped to clean it up and restore the GUlf of Mexico back to the way it was and also to stop harming the sea life.
 
Another way that people are helping our community is by driving hybrid cars.Many car companies have started to come out with hybrid vehicles, which use less gas and are mainly powered by electricity. THe most commonly known hybrid, the Toyota Prius, has been a sensation all over the world. From Japan, to America, and even Europe, the Prius is one of the top sold hybrid vehicles. Hybrids will get more mile to the gallon, which means less gas to fuel the car and being able to go farther on a single tank of gas. After the Prius, companies such as Honda and Nissan, as well as The Big Three of GM, Chrysler, and Ford have jumped into the mix. Next year, GM plans to reveal its new electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt. This car runs almost purely on electicity, being able to go a whopping 200 miles on a single tank! Other car makers are also coming out with electricle cars, such as Nissan's Leaf. The eco craze has even spread to exotic car companies such as Ferrari. Using less fuel in our cars is a huge step towards saving our planet's ozone. The less emissions we produce, the less we harm the environment.
Prius Twins

One way that we can help our community is closely linked to the topic above, and that is that we should carpool. When there are less cars on the streets, there are less emissions being absorbed into the air. As a class, we should try to find other stundents that live near us so that we may go with them to school instead of going separately to the same place. Carpooling will help the ozone even more and we may also save extra trips for our parents, so that they may go straight to work or they don't have to drop us off, saving their time and saving the earth. Its a win-win situation for everyone. The next step after carpooling would be for us to carpool in electric cars!!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Summer Vacation

This summer, I went to China for vacation. The first place I went to was Hong Kong, which was very busy. After Hong Kong, our family went to Beijing. We went to many places in Beijing, including Tian An Men Square, the Sunmer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven. One place inparticular was really cool. We went to the Great Wall of China. Inerestingly, at the end, after we finished going on to the wall and got back down, there was an area where there were bears. They never said what kind of bears they were, but they were really cool. It costed $3HK to feed them a little basket of carrots, and around $8HK equals $1, so it was pretty cheap. The cage type think was lower than the ground so that they could not get out. There were wooden platforms to sleep on, and stairs that they could walk up and down on, but the main attraction was the pole structure that stood in the front of the feeding area. Most of the bears were just sleeping, but two of them were attracting many people. One was standing on top of the pole structure, which is about 20 ft high compared to where they could stand,  and the other was standing on the ground. You could throw carrots into their mouths, and if you were not too off they would stretch their necks and catch it, which sometimes it looked like it was impossible. The one on the floor was just picking up all the leftovers of the people who threw bad. We were there for about a half an hour, buying 5 or 6 baskets to feed them.
After we visited Tian An Men Square, we had some spare time, so we went to the zoo to see some Giant Pandas. They were really large, and there was information on the walls about their rarity and about how some of them appeared at the 2008 Olympics. They were really interesting, mostly because almost all of them were sleeping. It was really funny because some would roll over, but some of them just did nothing. One panda was actually eating when we were there, and w got to see how they ate the bamboo leaves. The panda would just grab it with its paws and start to eat the shoot. When he finished, he got up, grab another, and then just plopped back down. After visiting the pandas, my sister really wanted to stop by the penguin exhibit, so we did, but it wasn't really that interesting.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Honors Bio #1

First, I played with my dog. She is always sitting around sleeping, but today she was in the mood to play. I ran around the house as she chased me, and then I trapped her in a room. She started to bark frantically at me, wagging her tail ferociously as she barked. I then proceeded to jump at her and grabbed her whole body. She started to kiss my face rapidly and then she ran away again. We both benefited from it, as she is always so cute and she likes to play sometimes.
The next encounter was with a stupid moth. It kept flying around our kitchen, and it finally tried to go into the fridge when I opened it. I shooed it out of the fridge, and then it flew off. I looked for it for a while, and then I found it on the lower part of our ceiling. I then jumped up with my fingers facing up and almost touched it. I tstill stayed there, so I jumped a few more times until I smashed it. It is good we don't have moths anymore, but I had to kill it, so I benefited but it didn't.
Another encounter was with some spider during enrichment. Some of the boys were trying to get it, but it hid between the metal bar and the wood of the desk. They tried to use the corner of the book to push it out, but they failed. They werre about to try it again, and then the bell rang. So in all, we were indifferent from the encounter, but the spider benefited by not being killed and being able to live another day.
Then, there was some wierd thing on the pavement near my house. It was black and it was jumping. My guess is that it was a jumping spider, but it was dark so I couldn't tell for sure.I believe it had eight legs, I was kinda scared of it getting on my clothes(yes I have arachnaphobia) so I just kinda back away from it. Nobody really benefited, the jumpy thing is still alive since I didn't smash it, and I'm kind of scared by it, so I guess it benefited and I was indifferent.
The last encounter is pretty amazing. My dad brought me to our front yard and showed me a rabbit he saw while getting the mail. It was white, with reddish eyes, and was chewing on some of our plants. I tried to catch it, but it keep running away. I once scared it off our yard onto the neighbor's house, only to find that it hopped back to our house again. I think it will make its stay here for the night, and I'll try to catch it tomorrow. I guess the rabbit benefited from the encounter, since I feed it vegetables. I didn't et anything from, but I just wanted to catch it before the coyotes do.