Microbe Mission B/C

[kalithepianist]

Has there actually been a test that directly asks the symptoms of a specified disease? I'm not sure if it's worth my time to put 80328031 symptoms associated with each disease on my notesheet, etc....

Does anyone have the sheet of vocab we are supposed to know? i suspiciously never got that.

Are you referring to the training handout?

[Starapollo1]

[quote="kalithepianist"]Has there actually been a test that directly asks the symptoms of a specified disease? I'm not sure if it's worth my time to put 80328031 symptoms associated with each disease on my notesheet, etc....

At some invitationals I have had to identify a pathogens and then list its symptoms. At state I even had to list the specific pathogens that cause each disease (it might not have been as bad if they had used only diseases off the disease list but they used tons of different diseases not found anywhere on scioly.org or soinc.org
Of course the whole situation could be avoided if all test writers were forced to read the rules/training handout before writing the test... lol

[butter side up]

Has there actually been a test that directly asks the symptoms of a specified disease? I'm not sure if it's worth my time to put 80328031 symptoms associated with each disease on my notesheet, etc....

I've seen some, but I've found the best way to go is to just write down the distinctive symptoms and recognize patterns for the rest. For example, most of your bacterial diseases will be accompanied with a fever, and if you know it is respiratory, you can usually assume that there will be coughing and mucus production.
On our disease detective cheat sheet, we did something similar- for the symptoms, we developed a "usual suspects" list (diarrhea, nausea, etc.) for the food-borne diseases, and then just put 'us' under symptoms for which they applied, plus anything distinctive.
I've found that it isn't necessary to know every one of the umpteen million symptoms for all the diseases- if you can write down the symptoms that make the disease unique and learn the pattern symptoms (there really are only like six or seven patterns to learn) then you should be fine.

[frogzorz]

To anyone and everyone who competed in Microbes at Solon, does ANYONE know what the device was at station 1? You know, that thing with the holes in it and the various tubes and such? I was pushing that button on the top for like 30 seconds. But, seriously, we had no idea what it was, so I just wrote that it was a centrifuge and it separated the microbial cultures from the sample....and I'm 99% sure that's incorrect. So, if anyone can tell me what it was, I'd be eternally grateful.

[FullMetalMaple]

Agreed, while Disease Dectives is for that purpose they add it anyway. Being in both events dose help due to very slightly similar premises. For me I kind of like it but oh well. I do think it would be wiser to remove it as said before.

I wouldn't say Disease Detectives is for that specific purpose. Microbe Mission diseases are more in-depth rather than overarching. We're supposed to know the specific microbiology of the disease, rather than its epidemiology. Microbe Mission also focuses on more than food-borne illnesses. (Granted, I haven't actually competed in the event, but since I was supposed to, I've done my basic research.)

I like the diseae aspect because it gives the event more depth (as I stated early on the forum). However as far as the specifics (i.e. identify this protozoa. OR what are the symptoms for -insert disease here-) I think they should have fewer diseases. My idea would be giving us the disease list as normal, requiring us to learn what type of organism is responsible for them, and then selecting one or two from each bracket (so two bacterial, two viral, two protozoan, etc) and then ask more in depth questions over those.

I agree - I enjoy having the disease aspect, even though it relates to only one percent or so of microbes. Microbes are major agents of disease, making it short-sighted to throw out the disease part of the event. I do like your idea of selecting only a certain few diseases to focus on in more depth, though. I would also like event supervisors to stick to the disease list we're given - it's tiresome putting a bunch of others on my cheat sheet in case they come up again.

To anyone and everyone who competed in Microbes at Solon, does ANYONE know what the device was at station 1? You know, that thing with the holes in it and the various tubes and such? I was pushing that button on the top for like 30 seconds. But, seriously, we had no idea what it was, so I just wrote that it was a centrifuge and it separated the microbial cultures from the sample....and I'm 99% sure that's incorrect. So, if anyone can tell me what it was, I'd be eternally grateful.

I (obviously) wasn't at Solon, but it sounds like a centrifuge to me just from your description.

[illusionofconfusion]

Question completely unrelated to current topic:
So algal blooms are large accumulations of algae. Algal blooms can damage an ecosystem because they use up all the oxygen in the water. However, algae are also photosynthetic, producing oxygen, so I am wondering how algae can both consume and produce oxygen.

[FullMetalMaple]

Question completely unrelated to current topic:
So algal blooms are large accumulations of algae. Algal blooms can damage an ecosystem because they use up all the oxygen in the water. However, algae are also photosynthetic, producing oxygen, so I am wondering how algae can both consume and produce oxygen.

Don't worry about the unrelated question - the current topic has been brought up before, anyway...

I believe (don't have my awesome book with me at the moment) algae consume the oxygen in the water because their massive growth restricts the amount of light getting to the phototrophs, keeping them from producing oxygen. Actually, IIRC, plants will also consume oxygen in darkness. They can choke off the growth of other organisms, as well. When this happens, bacteria will consume oxygen while decomposing the organisms.

While they're still alive and flourishing, however, algae will produce much oxygen.

[SciBomb97]

Sitting in 9th grade biology right now. We are learning about bacteria.
It is somewhat boring to sit in class.

[frogzorz]

Sitting in 9th grade biology right now. We are learning about bacteria.
It is somewhat boring to sit in class.

I am SO glad I took that over the summer...
Also, biology never taught me what peptidoglycan or lipoproteins are...

[Starapollo1]

Question completely unrelated to current topic:
So algal blooms are large accumulations of algae. Algal blooms can damage an ecosystem because they use up all the oxygen in the water. However, algae are also photosynthetic, producing oxygen, so I am wondering how algae can both consume and produce oxygen.

Don't worry about the unrelated question - the current topic has been brought up before, anyway...

I believe (don't have my awesome book with me at the moment) algae consume the oxygen in the water because their massive growth restricts the amount of light getting to the phototrophs, keeping them from producing oxygen. Actually, IIRC, plants will also consume oxygen in darkness. They can choke off the growth of other organisms, as well. When this happens, bacteria will consume oxygen while decomposing the organisms.

While they're still alive and flourishing, however, algae will produce much oxygen.

I believe what you guys are getting at is eutriphication? In eutriphication, excess nitrates and phosphates lead to increased algae growth, termed algal bloom. Then aerobic bacteria break down the algae, but being aerobic, they use the oxygen in the water to do it. With little oxygen left in the water, many of the plants and animals left in the water die off.

Hope that helped!