Wood Frog Biology

In chapter one it talks about how hemachromatosis is a hereditary disease and it’s the most common genetic disease for people of European descent, in which the body can't register that it has enough iron. So it keeps absorbing as much of it as possible, and this can have very, serious side effects (including death). Iron is very important for bacteria, cancer, and other things to grow. The way this disease is most easily treated is blood letting. Looks like all those crazy blood-letting, leech-sticking doctors weren't mistreating everyone. What is the author's argument for why this disease stuck around? To really simplify things: during the black plague in Europe, people with more iron in their system were more likely

The first disease Moalem discusses, hemochromatosis, is a hereditary disorder that he himself lives with. It causes excess iron buildup throughout the body, damaging “the joints, the major organs, and overall body chemistry” (p. 13). Hemochromatosis can lead to “liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infertility, psychiatric disorders[, ...] cancer” (p. 13) and, in the end, death. Although it is more common in some communities than others, today the low-penetrance disease only manifests in 1 in 200 people.

Hemochromatosis is a deadly disease in which the body believes that it never has enough iron. The body, as a result is that iron is not filtered out through the intestines, it is always entering the body. This iron runs out of places to be stored, and is spread throughout the body. These iron stores eventually end up changing the body and causing damage to major organs and joints. Hemochromatosis can lead to cancer, heart failure, and a plethora of other problems.

Take hemochromatosis, a hereditary condition that causes iron to accumulate in a person's body. A person having hemochromatosis

Hemochromatosis, also called iron overload, is a disease when the body absorbs too much iron from the food we eat and most often affects the liver, heart, pancreas, and skin. It is usually caused by genes in the body that mutate keeping them from working. Some signs and symptoms of this disease are weakness, joint pain, low libido, and/or if the disease has progressed to far diabetes or heart failure. Hemochromatosis is one of the more difficult diseases to diagnose because many symptoms are nonspecific and usually many people don’t show as many symptoms except elevated iron levels in their blood. Most will be treated with blood transfusions until the normal level of iron is reached. If diagnosed early the prognosis is excellent with possible checkups or phlebotomies.

This external stimulation kick starts the thawing process. The first organ found to thaw is the liver. This is due to the high concentration of glucose in the livers of wood frogs that was utilized as cryoprotection in cells during the freezing process. Shortly after the liver begins to thaw, the heart begins its thawing process, with a detectable heartbeat and blood flow to the skin following thereafter. As the heart starts to pump blood, it begins to raise the temperature of the other organs and tissues in the body as well, returning their functionality. Some of these specific functions include spontaneous breathing and hind leg reflexes (Layne, 1991). A study of thawing frogs using a quick freeze technique, which consisted of a 5C thaw after 7 days of being frozen, frogs remained unresponsive with low O2 consumption for the first four hours after thawing, showing that complete return to core organ functionality does not happen instantly. Not until after 3 hours post-freeze does the frog see an increase in CO2 production, signifying that an increase in metabolic activity is occurring as the

Survival of the Sickest, written by author Dr. Sharon Moalem, is a book discussing why evolution has not allowed for the destruction of certain diseases. He states that these deadly diseases, such as Anemia, Hemochromatosis, and High Cholesterol, are in fact tools that evolution used to help the human race survive. He explains how these diseases helped fight against more dangerous and life threatening sicknesses such as, Malaria, the Bubonic Plague, and Vitamin D deficiency related illnesses. The main idea of this book is a simple one. Evolution did not necessarily favor adaptations that made us better. Instead, it favored adaptations that helped us survive. Even if these adaptations would end up killing us in the long run.

Another case was the wood frog. During winter, wood frogs have been observed to go in to a state of frozen animation. During this state the frog stops it’s breathing, brain activity, and heartbeat. As observed in other organisms, Type 1 diabetes gives a critical advantage to its carriers during freezing temperatures, by increasing the body’s blood-sugar

Although scientists have identified genes as being one of the factors contributing to obesity, knowing what specific genes involved would be helpful. The Friedman group decided to try and find those specific genes with a series of breeding experiments of mice. The genes were mapped out and the group found a 650-kilobase segment on mouse chromosome 6 to be responsible and named it the ob gene (for obese)(Marx). This means scientists have found a gene responsible for the obese mice which became an important step in finding treatment options for what is now looking like a complicated issue. The next question to answer was whether this gene was being produced in adipose (fat) tissue. This would help determine if the gene was responsible for creating the unneeded fat. The search paid off as one gene was found being

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal’.” - Martin Luther King Jr. Not every law is right. Just because a law or a government allows something, it does not mean that what they allow is right. It is important for people to take a stand and fight for justice. Laws could prevent someone from doing what is right. A government could be doing wrong to it’s people, making them suffer. Governments could be taking away what rightfully belongs to someone as well.

Today it is now wide spread to about 400 million people, about 4% of the world population. It is mainly found in Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean. It is affecting 1 in 10 African Americans in the United States. It is diagnosed through mainly drugs, such as Aspirin. It is treated through terminated drug use, transfusion, and medicine if infection follows. The disease had helped understand the cause of hemolytic anemia in people, and the cause of anemia in the first place. If the gene were suppressed, it can stop one from getting

Hemochromatosis is a genetic disease in which there is too much iron that builds up in your body, this is referred to as an iron overload. Iron is an essential nutrient found in many foods but can be toxic to our bodies if we have to much. “Normally, humans absorb about 8-10% of the iron found in foods that they eat.” People with Hemochromatosis can absorb up to four times more iron than a normal human being. Since our bodies have no natural way to get rid of the extra iron, it gets stored in your body tissue including the liver, heart, pancreas and many other areas of our body can also be infected by this iron overload.

Epigenetics can be hereditable or environmental factors that affect the expression of genes and lead to changes in gene expression. Unlike genetics, epigenetics does not only have to do with which genes are passed down to the offspring and the DNA sequence. The environmental conditions of the offspring’s parents impact the genes in their eggs and sperms by “switching on” certain genes and “switching of” others (Dowshen). Since the genes expression of the gametes are affect, the phenotypes of the offspring will change. Even in a person’s lifetime, environmental factors such as stress, chemical exposure, and diet can continue to impact gene expression through DNA methylation. During DNA methylation, a methyl group is randomly added to a 5-carbon cytosine ring, making 5-methylcytosine and these groups inhibit transcription. (Cheriyedath). Due the fact that transcription is not possible, the expressing of the genes in that section of the DNA strand will be suppressed. The attachment of the methyl group to DNA is not determined, which means that

Iron is one of the important minerals that is required for our bodies to function properly. Most of the iron in our body is found in the blood such as haemoglobin, approximately 60 -70% of the human body’s iron is found in the haemoglobin, a protein in the blood that transports oxygen. Iron is also present in muscle tissue and some enzymes. There are two types of iron in the body which are “Heme Iron” from animal products and “Non-Heme Iron” vegetables and

Frogs, toads, caecilians, and salamanders are the members of the class Amphibian (amphi- meaning “on both sides” and bios- meaning “life”). These members always require water for reproduction. Most Amphibians undergo metamorphosis, which is a usually degenerative pathological change in the structure of a particular body tissue. And, in the case of Amphibians, it is the changing of a tadpole into