Mrs. Kelly's Protein Sleeve

This year I am taking Biology, and I became especially interested in protein synthesis (the making of proteins).  And who wouldn't be?  (That's a rhetoric question, by the way.)  Proteins are made by two processes, translation and transcription.  In translation, an RNA strand (messanger RNA, or mRNA) bonds to one side of an unwound portion of DNA, the part that codes for the protein.  Next, the mRNA travels out of the nucleus and into a ribosome where tRNA -- a chain of three nucleotide bases with an amino acid on the end -- bond to it (the mRNA).  These amino acids then bond to each other, at which point they disconnect from the tRNA (which go back to pick up another amino acid specific to them).  After this has happened for a while the result is a long chain of amino acids.  This chain folds up into a specific shape, and there you have it, a protein!

Of course, simply learning this and drawing diagrams is not enough.  No, something this cool needs to be recorded for posterity.  So, for Christmas, I made my wonderful Biology teacher a knitted coffee cup sleeve with a model of protein synthesis on it (see the pictures below)!  Isn't it cool?  (Again, this is a rhetorical question - of course it's cool! ;))  I have never before considered myself a science nerd, but this project might just change that. :)

A portion of the DNA unwinds.

Transcription:  a strand of mRNA bonds to one strand of the DNA helix.

Translation:  the tRNA bonds to the mRNA, creating a chain of amino acids.

The amino acids fold into a specific shape and voila:  a finished protein!

The complete (and color-coded) process of protein synthesis (probably simplified, but what I learned in Biology)!  The little "X"s represent the nucleotide bases Adenine (yellow), Thymine (brown), Cytosine (blue), Guanine (green), and Uracil (tan).  The DNA is purple, t/mRNA is blue, the ribosome is red, and the amino acids and protein are represented by the bright, variegated yarn (blue, green, pink, and yellow).

Katie the Knitter

Lately Katie's been doing a lot of knitting.  Yesterday she decided to try doing something with two colors, and the result was this (it's a heart):

I'm so proud of her!  She wants to try my fair isle pattern next, but I think we'll go with something simpler. ;)

My New Mowing Style

While I was mowing this afternoon, I decided that I need to get back to posting (I was going to try for at least one post a week this summer but never actually started... :P).  So I will write about mowing today, and hopefully in the future the posts will be more frequent and maybe even interesting!

Usually I mow around the edge of the lawn, with the circle of un-mown grass getting smaller and smaller until I finally have to start going at it from different sides to try to get rid of it.  (It's usually a rather weird shape at this point as well!)  My mom has suggested doing more of a Zamboni style, and today I finally tried it.

(I just found out while looking up the spelling that the name "Zamboni" is actually trademarked!  So not all ice resurfacers are Zambonis.  And if you have no idea what I'm talking about you can look at this Wikipedia link about ice resurfacers, which are really very cool machines!)

Anyways, today I decided that it was time for something new and tried a funky way of mowing on the side yard that didn't work the way I was hoping.  So I tried a different method on the front lawn, and this, though different from my usual way of mowing, was successful.  From what I remember of watching the ice being smoothed over after ice skating lessons, I knew that I was using something like the method that the Zamboni (or I guess I should say "ice resurfacer") used.  I just looked up a diagram now, however, and found that I was mowing with the exactly the same pattern as the ice resurfacer  uses (O.K., "ice resurfacer" sounds weird...I think that I'll just say "Zamboni" from now on!).  It's pretty cool, and instead of explaining it, I will simply present a diagram:

So I learned something practical from ice skating lessons!  If you have a rectangular yard or part of a yard, why not try it?  If you do, let me know how it works for you!

Summer 2010

This summer has been much busier than normal for me.  Usually, my family will go camping once or twice during the summer, and occasionally we have taken a "real" vacation, such as going to South Dakota or visiting out-of-state cousins.  I don't usually go anywhere on my own, however, or at least I didn't until a few months ago.  I was planning on blogging about each of my trips, but when I got back I had told the stories so many times to all of my family members that I didn't really want to write them up again!  As you may have noticed, I seem to have this problem where I feel like I should blog about a certain event, so I don't blog about anything else until I have finished the "required" post. :)  This has certainly been the case with my summer!  But I feel like it can't go completely unrecorded, so here is a short summary of my life for the past couple months:

Schoenstatt High School camp began my summer, and I can't think of a better way it could have started!  We put on a camp for Hispanic kids who live in the area during the afternoons and prepped for it in the morning.  Every day with the kids ended with water games, and at the end of the week we had a family picnic which concluded with a water fight that I believe I could describe as a water war.  I also learned a lot and was very inspired by the week!

A week after Schoenstatt I went on S.W.I.M.  This was such a great experience!  Every day was different, and everything that we did was really fun, whether it was cleaning at a home that houses new migrants temporarily, collecting food for their food shelf, swimming, or having "intense prayer" nights.  Since I haven't been on any other missions I can't say for sure whether or not it has prepared me well for them, but I know that S.W.I.M. has certainly helped my relationship with God and I am sure that I will be happy for the experience should I chose to go on other missions.

My last trip this summer - helping out on the 7th grade campout! - was not really a "trip" per se, but I was gone from Monday to Thursday, so I think it counts. :)  I was on the "Eyes" team (aka, music) and I enjoyed it immensely!  This year was the first time I could help out, and I hope to do this again for the next couple years!

So, there is the away-from-home summary of my summer.

Ain't We Got Fun

A little movie that Amanda and I made with the Mac:

Stripey: the miraculous transformation

About half a month ago, my little brother Nathan brought home a tiny monarch caterpillar (about the size of an inchworm) that he had found on our neighbor's milkweed plants.  We had had a monarch caterpillar before and had creatively named it Stripey, so Nathan's caterpillar was Stripey James.  Stripey James ate like crazy, and in a week or so he had at least doubled in size!  Soon, he crawled up to the top of his cage and made some sort of spiderweb thing.  To this he attached something else, to which he attached himself (I am a little unclear on the details), after which he hung upside down in a 'J' shape: a sign that he would soon become a chrysalis.

Stripey James hung there all that day.  The next morning, someone in our family noticed that Stripey was hanging straighter, and that his antennae were hanging limp, and from reading about monarch caterpillars we knew that something was going to happen.  We all gathered around the cage.  There, before our eyes, Stripey became a chrysalis!  It was an extraordinary feat: you see, monarchs shed their skin four times, which is the signal for them to do that whole J thing described so vaguely in the first paragraph.  Once they are hanging there, they shed their skin one last time.  This time, instead of still looking like a caterpillar, they come out all green, and their legs and antennae come off, too (disgusting, I know - it wasn't quite as bad as it sounds)!  Stripey, being a monarch caterpillar, did this very thing.  After a couple of hours, he began to look more chrysalis-like.  At the end of the day, the caterpillar was gone, and all that was left to show that he had ever been there was a beautiful green chrysalis, hanging from the top of the cage.

For 11 days Stripey stayed in the chrysalis.  Then, as we were getting ready to leave for church this past Sunday, I noticed that there was a butterfly in the cage!  Unfortunately, we missed this last emergence (I think that's a word...), but it was still so amazing to see that caterpillar become something so different!  When butterflies first come out of their chrysalises they are all fat with some sort of fluid.  They then pump this fluid into their wings, which are all squished up, to make them so large and beautiful!  It was too bad that we missed this, but seeing the caterpillar become a chrysalis was already such a treat that we were not too dissapointed.

We gave Stripey some sugar water, and after mass we let him go.  Nathan put his finger down into the cage and Stripey crawled onto it for one last good-bye before flying off high into the tree-tops.  The whole thing was so incredible!  I think that no atheist can ever have watched a monarch caterpillar become a butterfly.

Stripey in a 'J'

                                                                                    

Stripey as a butterfly!

Cute Things Kids Say

My Mom:  Maggie, is your mom home from her errands?
Maggie:  No, she doesn't know Erin.

Andrew:  Look - bird!
Mr. Bittner:  Yes, it's a robin!
Andrew:  No, just bird.

(My siblings were going to Grandma and Grandpa's house to sleep over, and they were going to bring cereal for breakfast.)
My Mom: Is everyone happy with Life? (meaning the cereal)
Katie:  I am! (meaning her life!)

Comment with your own cute things!