20 Time Reflection

Wannabe Sweden
individual reflection 

The idea of my topic came to mind starting off with a Facebook video titled "Sweden Has no trash" or something of that sort. The video was about how Sweden is able to recycle 99% of its garbage resulting in only 1% of their trash making its way to a landfill. After I watched the video, I was intrigued by how an entire country was able to recycle so much of their garbage. I learned that Sweden was able to recycle so much due to their WTE (waste-to-energy) plants. These plants burn some of its unrecyclable wastes and convert it into usable energy that is able to provide heat to 810,000 households. I kept this video in the back of my head, and when the project of 20 Time was presented, I thought of doing this topic for the project. At that time, I knew I wasn't going to be able to do anything enormous like building a WTE plant; I knew I had to narrow it down to something simpler. I did a lot of research on the recycling revolution in Sweden. It turns out that the WTE plants are only half of the reason Sweden is able to recycle so much of their materials. The other half was in thanks to the citizens of Sweden. The citizens of Sweden play a large role by disposing of their trash in an organized manner. Sweden's citizens separate their wastes into metals, plastics, compost, and other materials. This way, it is much easier and efficient for items to be recycled and for the WTE plants to burn some of the trash. Although I won't be able to construct a waste to energy plant in Saratoga in the near future, there's still other ways to improve my community. 

The next challenge for my 20 Time project was to figure out what to do, specifically. I knew I wanted my project to be based on Sweden's recycling revolution, but I was having trouble narrowing the topic down to a smaller idea. After doing more research I came to the conclusion that I wanted to base my 20 Time project off of recycling because it's the catalyst of Sweden's recycling success. America has a recycling rate of about 35%, so there's a lot of room for improvement. I wanted some way to teach recycling tips and techniques that was free and easily accessible for my audience. I decided to make a website (https://jasonmoon007.wixsite.com/wannabesweden) that would give a general overview about Sweden's recycling revolution and their WTE plants. Also in the website would an explanation on how a large part of Sweden's success is attributed to their citizens who put in a lot of effort to recycle effectively by organizing their wastes into their respective containers. Additionally, I would add recycling tips such as what materials are considered plastic and belong in the plastic recycling bin, paper in the paper recycling bin, metals in the metals bin, and things of that sort. The first step in following Sweden's 99% recycle rate is in the hands of the citizens, our community, to recycle and dispose of everything properly.

Overall I think I did a good job finding a topic that interests me, doing a lot of research on said topic, and finding a way to link to the topic to a project where I can influence my community. I did a lot of research to find out as much as I can about the WTE plants in Sweden and how the process works and decided to do my project on recycling. I've been keeping up with the workload by publishing my blog posts (1, 2, 3, 4) on my blog, keeping readers updated on how far I've gone in my project and what I have accomplished. One of my strengths throughout this project was my commitment. One thing I have discovered about myself through this year, enrolled in the anatomy course, is that my effort is proportional to my interest. I realized, that some of the units where we covered organ systems that were less interesting to me made me pay less attention and put in less effort into the lecture notes, homework readings, and labs. For example, I really liked the nervous system unit and was really intrigued by the woman living without a cerebellum. On the other hand, I didn't find much interest in the muscular unit, so I didn't put in as much effort or find as much liking in the readings. I was really glad that for 20 Time, we were allowed to pick any topic we wanted. This way, I was promised a topic that was personally interesting to me. I used this to my advantage so I would want to do more research and put more effort into what I am doing. One weakness that came to my attention right away was when I started making my website. I noticed that I have no experience in making websites, so I had no idea where I could make my website or how to design one. Luckily, there were a lot of websites where I could design my website, and the designing process was surprisingly simple. That was the major concern going into the project, and I'm glad it wasn't too large of an issue. If I were to start the project again, I wouldn't change a thing, because I had a lot of enjoyment researching Sweden's recycling revolution and getting to design my own website with my own ideas from scratch. 

River Clean Up Service

The river clean up service started with driving to the location, arriving at 9 am. We turned in our forms and were briefed on the schedule, equipment and some dangers such as poison oak. The group picked up gloves and trash pickers and started walking along the path, beginning our adventure of cleaning the river. We walked along a trail next to the river, but there wasn't a lot of trash alongside this path. However, the ledges along the path contained a lot of trash including chip bags, paper, and cups. As we walked further along the path, we got closer to the river and were able to get next to it. There was a lot of trash in the bushes next to the river that was the usual chip bags and paper. One of the more interesting I found was a baseball. At around 10 am, they called us back to the tent we first met up in and relaxed with some water and popsicles. I was honestly disappointed that the cleanup service ended early because I found myself actually really motivated to collect all the trash I could. One thing I took away from this experience is that I was really disappointed in all the people who were too lazy to hold a piece of garbage until they found a trash can and too selfish, making other people cleaning up their mess since they don't care about their impact on the environment we share.

8reflection

Muscular System Reflection


In this unit, we covered the muscular system which consists of all the muscles in the body and how our muscles move by contracting and relaxing. The main functions of the muscular system are the movement of the bones and fluids such as blood, maintaining body position, and stabilizing joints. Muscles are classified as prime movers, antagonists, synergists, and fixators. These classifications differentiate how the muscle moves and if they contract or relax. Muscle contractions include many bundles of muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber contains myofibrils and each myofibril is lined up with sarcomere. Muscle contractions are a complicated process that starts with sending an impulse to the muscle. Then a multitude chemicals such as Ca 2+, ATP, and Phosphate are released and the myosin binds in a pulling action which makes the muscle contract.

I think that this unit was extremely in depth and we covered how muscle moves down to every detail. As a result, there isn't anything I have questions on. However, I do feel like the way the muscle contracts is a little complicated. I was wondering if there could maybe be an easier way for muscles to move. I couldn't really think of a more effective way for muscles to move, but it was something interesting for me to think about. 

I think I was able to learn a lot and grow a lot throughout the last two units, the muscular system and the skeletal system. I really liked these units, because it was really relatable to me since I had a lot of injuries that consisted of broken bones and joints. I also always wanted to know how a muscle was able to move since it is such a important function in our daily lives, but it's always overlooked and taken for granted. I was glad to finally able to understand how muscles work. 

Blog Post 4

Throughout the project, I have learned a lot about recycling, especially the massive impact it can have on our community and our world. The positive effect of recycling can be immeasurable if there is the contribution from every community. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I have been recycling wrong for a large majority of time in my life. I was very timid to throw away food whenever it had drinks or food on it, but I recently learned through this experience that a lot of food and drinks can go into the recycling bin. 

The next step in my process is to create a website that will list a lot of tips on how to recycle better. A large majority of the American population don't recycle for many reasons. One of the reasons is that they are afraid of putting something that shouldn't go in the recycling bin into the recycling bin and harm the recycling system. They would just rather put everything into the garbage bin since there's no requirement for what goes into a landfill. I want to make a website so people can learn the proper way to recycle and all the requirements and restriction when it comes to throwing away our garbage.  

One setback I discovered in this experience is that finding a site that allows you to create your own website and design how you want it is pretty difficult. I have found a few sites that allow me to design my own website, but the software is pretty difficult. Luckily, this setback is not incredibly troubling, and it will probably just take a little more time. 

I can apply the things I researched about my topic to my school and communicating by sharing all the information to help my fellow students and neighbors recycle. I can easily share this information through the website. 

What Happens When You Stretch

"When you stretch the muscle fiber is pulled out to its full length sarcomere by sarcomere."
-I thought it was pretty cool that when you stretch, you're muscle fibers are being pulled to the maximum length. I always thought that stretching was limited by how far our bones will allow us to go and their joints, but it's actually the maximum length the muscle can reach.

"Picture little pockets of fibers distributed throughout the muscle body stretching, and other fibers simply going along for the ride."
-It's cool how our muscle works as a multitude of individual pockets or fibers. When movement occurs in the muscle, a few of the fibers are doing the work and the rest are just following along the fibers causing the moton.

"Some sources suggest that with extensive training, the stretch reflex of certain muscles can be controlled so that there is little or no reflex contraction in response to a sudden stretch."
-I know that the body comes with a lot of issues when you are born, but in many ways, we can train our body to get better at certain actions and overcome some weaknesses. I like how this example of the strectch relfex allows us to overcome a negative aspect of our muscles if we practice extensive training.

Relate and Review

The stretching of the muscle occurs in the sacromere which is the basic unit of contraction in the muscle fiber. When a sacromere contracts, the area between the thick and then myofilaments increaes, and when the sacro mere stechted the area of overlap is gone. the nerves in our muscular system allow us to know where parts of the body are in comparison to the body through the proprioceptors. The stretch relfec occurs when the muscle is stretched and so are the muscle spindle. This triggers the stretch reflex that tries to resist the change in muscle length. Other aspects of stretching in the lengthening reaction and the reciprocal inhibition.

More Effective Joint

A Better Wrist

Abstract

I choose to modify the wrist as the joint for my project. I first researched the most common injuries that occur in a wrist which was spraining a wrist. Then I followed the layout of the write up provided to fill in the information needed for the bones, ligaments, tendons, nerves, and blood vessels in the joint. Afterward, I started thinking up different ways to prevent wrist sprains from occurring and the best solution seemed to be adding cartilage behind the wrist to add protection and still allowing flexibility and taking up little room. Then I added in all the necessary extra material needed to support the new cartilage such as nerves and blood vessels.

Overview

The joint that is being redesigned is the wrist. The wrist connects the hand to the forearm and is responsible for a multitude of human activities such as grabbing, pulling, pushing, and lifting ourselves and objects.

Bones

The wrist is made up of bones including the distal ends of the radius and ulna and the 8 carpal bones along with the proximal ends of the 5 metacarpal bones.

Ligaments

The wrist has a very complex arrangement of ligaments that are classified as extrinsic ligaments, intrinsic ligaments, and interosseous ligaments. The most important ligaments in the wrist are the collateral ligaments. There are two collateral ligaments, one on each side of the wrist. They connect the wrist to the forearm. These ligaments help stabilize the wrist and keep it from bending too far to the side.

Tendons

There is a multitude of tendons that run across the wrist that first start as muscles in the forearm. The tendons that cross the palm side of the wrist are called flexor tendons. These tendons curl the fingers and thumb and bend the wrist. The tendons that run along the back of the wrist are called extensor tendons run through multiple tunnels called compartments. The compartments are lined with fluid to prevent friction between the tendon and the compartment.

Nerves

The main nerves in the wrist come from the radial, median, and ulnar nerves. The radial nerve runs along the thumb side of the forearm, and it gives sensation to the back of the hand. The median nerve travels through the carpal tunnel. It gives nerve supply to the thenar muscles of the thumb and also sends sensory fibers to the palm and first three fingers. The ulnar nerve runs through a separate tunnel called the Guyon’s Canal. The ulnar nerve branches out to supply sensation to the pinky and ring finger along with smaller muscles in the hand.

Blood Vessels

Large blood vessels run through the wrist to supply the hand and keep up with its mass number of activities it completes every day. One of these blood vessels is the radial artery that runs across the front of the wrist near the thumb. The ulnar artery runs alongside the ulnar nerve. The ulnar and radial artery arch together in the palm of the hand to supply the hand and its fingers with blood.

Wrist Sprain

By far, the most common injury in the wrist is a sprained wrist. Wrist sprains are common in athletes, motorcyclists, gymnasts, and others. A sprained wrist occurs in many athletes and in a lot of daily movement. All it takes to sprain a wrist is a second of loss of balance that causes someone to fall. A common reaction to a fall is to stick a hand out and break the fall. Doing so applies a lot of force to the wrist bending it a little too far backward towards the forearm. This force can tear the ligament that connects the wrist to the carpal bones, or in worse cases, break the ligament. Minor to moderate wrist sprains can heal on their own, but require some time to rest the wrist, icing it, or compressing it. In severe wrist sprains, the ligament can snap, requiring surgery to repair.

Design

One design feature I could add to the wrist to prevent injury from wrist sprains is by adding a layer of cartilage on top of the carpal bones to the distal ends of the radius and ulna bone covering the wrist. Adding a layer of cartilage here will make the wrist more firm by making it harder to bend the wrist too far backward. Cartilage is firm and flexible so it will be able to protect the wrist from injury while also allowing the wrist to continue its multitude of motions. Since the cartilage is connective tissue itself, it won’t require any extra or new tendons or ligaments. The radial nerve already runs through the back of the wrist to provide sensation for the back of the hand. However, the cartilage will require an additional blood vessel to run through the wrist since the existing blood vessels only run through the palm side of the wrist. This new blood vessel can run alongside the radial nerve and borrow the tunnel that the nerve travels through. Now the new cartilage can be formed to protect the wrist from future wrist sprains while being supplied with new blood vessels that take up as little room as possible.

Diagram

Discussion

Most wrist sprains are caused by a fall that bends the wrist too far backward and tears the ligaments. I thought about adding more bones around the ligaments to give it more structure and prevent damage. However, adding bones will require additional ligaments since ligaments are required to connect bone to bone. I then thought about adding muscle behind the wrist to soak up the impact when a person falls. But muscles are useful in protecting the body from their function is strictly movement. I wanted to add a strong material to could defend the wrist from being pushed too far back, but was also flexible enough to allow the wrist its flexible range of motion. I thought about adding cartilage to the wrist since it's a bendy firm structure used the ear and nose. Cartilage could prevent damage when a person falls since it can restrict the hand from bending too far back.

Prevention

Wrist sprains are generally hard to prevent since they normally occur in unpredicted accidents. However, tools such as wrist guards and tape can be used to prevent the wrist from bending too far backward causing a wrist sprain.

Works Cited

Phillips, Benjamin Z., Md. "Wrist Joint Anatomy." Overview, Gross Anatomy, Natural Variants. Medscape, 28 Oct. 2016. Web. 09 May 2017. <http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1899456-overview>.

"Wrist Sprain." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 09 May 2017. <http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/wrist-sprain#1>.

Wrist Anatomy." Wrist Parts & Anatomy | Houston Methodist. Houston Methodist, n.d. Web. 09 May 2017. <http://www.houstonmethodist.org/orthopedics/where-does-it-hurt/wrist/wrist-anatomy/>.

Code, Keith. A Twist of the Wrist. Glendale Calif.: Code Break, 2002. Print.

Wrist X-ray picture

"Scapholunate Advanced Collapse Wrist." Wikimedia Commons, 27 Oct. 2012. Web. 9 May 2017.<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scapholunate_advanced_collapse_wrist.jpg>.

Wrist guard picture

Liew, Cheon Fong. "3M Futuro Reversible Splint Wrist Brace." Flickr. Yahoo!, 24 Nov. 2011. Web. 09 May 2017. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/liewcf/6393617505>.

Chicken Dissection Analysis

Chicken Dissection

We started with the dissection procedure by first removing the chicken from the bag and drying it. The next step was to remove the skin, and we did this by slitting the skin along the midline of the skin then peeling the skin off. We then made an incision through the pectoralis major along one side of the sternum and opened the pectoralis major to see the pectoralis minor beneath it. We turned the chicken around and made a slit along the backbone and removed the skin to the base of each wing. Now we can see the trapezius and the latissimus dorsi. We then removed the wing from the chicken to examine the muscles within the wing. We slit the skin on the ventral side of the wing and peeled off the skin. We then moved on to examine the muscles of the thigh and drumstick. We spread the legs apart and slit the skin on the inside of the leg all the way from the abdominal opening to the hock, and peeled off the skin. We then applied the same procedure and skinned the drumstick.

Muscles play a role in movement by contracting and relaxing to move body parts. An example of this is the pectoralis major muscle that allows the chicken to fly. This muscle runs from one side of the sternum through the shoulders to the humorous. The bones help in movement by supporting the body and giving it structure. The role of the tendon in movement is connecting the muscle to a bone so that the movement can be compacted and the muscle and bones can move together instead of the muscle dragging the bone.

Some physical and functional differences in the tendon of the insertion compared to the tendon at the origin is that the tendon at the origin is probably tighter and stronger than the insertion since it is the immovable end of the muscle. The tendon at the insertion is probably is looser to allow more movement of the muscle from the insertion towards the origin.

An example of a difference in chicken muscle compared to human muscles is that the chicken pectoralis majors are much larger in proportional size to its body than the pectoralis major to humans. Another difference is that the biceps of the chicken in the wing are a lot smaller compared to the biceps in humans proportional size to human arms. Another difference in chicken muscle compared to human muscles is that in chicken muscles, the muscles in the drumstick are about the same size as the muscles in the thighs. However, in humans, the muscles in the thighs are much larger than the muscles in the calves.

This pin in the middle is the sternum.
The pin on the left is the pectoralis minor.
The pin on the right is the pectoralis major.
















The pin on the left is the trapezius.

The pin on the right is the latissimus dorsi.

This pin shows the deltoid.
The biceps brachii is on the cranial side of the upper wing.
The triceps humeralis is on the inferior side of the upper wing.


















The pin on the top shows the triceps humeralis.
The pin underneath it shows the biceps brachii.
The pin on the left is the flexor carpi ulnaris.
















The pin on the top is the sartorius.
The pin on the far left is the iliotibialis.
The biceps femoris can be found on the medial inferior section iliotibialis.
The semimembranosus is inferior and medial to the biceps femoris on the edge of the thigh.
The semitendinosus is anterior and medial to the semimembranosus inside the thigh.
And the quadriceps femoris is on the inside of the thigh and lies medial to the sartorius.

The gastrocnemius is represented by the pin and is on the posterior and medial side of the drumstick.
The peroneus longus is on the lateral side of the drumstick.
And the tibialis anterior is under the peroneus longus.