What I Know About The Human Body

Over my 15 years I've learned many things about the human body. My knowledge ranges from things as simple as we all have two eyes, one mouth, and a nose (for the most part), and gets as complicated as how we are born, how we grow, and how we live on a molecular level. Besides the work on the human body we've done so far this year in biology (including glycolysis, sexual reproduction, and a quick unit on the kidneys), I have studied the human body briefly in each year of school, but studied it most in depth in 5th grade.

In 5th grade we studied the various systems of the human body: respiratory, digestive, and circulatory. Seeing as this was a whole four years ago, I don't remember very many details, but I have held onto the basics such as the general path food takes through you body (stomach, upper and lower intestines, etc.) and how blood is pumped throughout our bodies. I remember the four sections of the heart: the right and left atriums and the right and left ventricles. I remember how we breath and how we retain the oxygen we need from the air around us (with a little bit of help from the review we did this year). Those are some of the few things that I remember from my studies in 5th grade, but I also know much more about the human body from sources other than school.

From watching various shows and movies, I have learned a lot about the way our bodies function on a daily basis. I have learned what sort of foods we need to eat, what sort of things we need to drink, what sort of exercise we should maintain, and what kind of rest we should be getting to keep ourselves healthy. I know that the brain sends signals to various parts of our body to make us move in various ways. Unfortunately I've learned that bones are strong, but break much more easily when a person is still growing because they are still in a softer state so that they can grow. I learned in 7th grade all about viruses and bacteria that can infect human bodies and have numerous effects on us. I know that bacteria can be fought with antibiotics, but viruses are left solely to deal with our immune systems.

These are just some examples of the random assortment of knowledge that I have obtained over my 12 years of school and 15 years of being a human. I'm sure in our next unit on the human body we will review some of the things I have mentioned, but that by the end of it, this blog post will look like nothing next to the new information I will have learned.

Reflecting on Genetics

After filling out the genetic trait chart in the Human Heredity lab for myself and my classmates, I used the data to predict whether each trait was dominant or recessive. I found that not all of my predictions were correct, in fact only two of my five predictions held true. This surprised me at first, but can be explained by the fact that our class of 14 kids is a very small sample pool compared to the census of millions of people that scientists must have taken to determine genes dominant or recessive. 6 out of 14 kids in our class could taste the PIC strips, so I predicted that it was a recessive trait. However it turns out that PIC tasting is a dominant trait, which didn't surprise me that much because 6 out of 14 is nearly half the class. 11 out of 14 kids in our class could roll their tongues, so it was easy to predict correctly that tongue-rolling is a dominant trait. Only 4 out of 14 kids in our class had attached ear lobes, so it was also easy to guess correctly that an attached ear lobe is a recessive trait. 7 out of 14 kids in our class had hitch hiker's thumbs, exactly half, so I just took a wild guess that it was a dominant trait, when in fact it turned out to be a recessive gene. Lastly and most surprisingly 6 out of 14 kids in our class had a widow's peak, so I predicted that it was a recessive trait, only to learn that it is a dominant trait. This surprised me because I would expect at least half of our class to have a widow's peak if it is a dominant trait, but as Mrs. McCurdy explained, a widow's peak isn't exactly an admirable trait to have, and humans may have evolved through genetic variation so that fewer and fewer people have widow's peaks, even if it is indeed a dominant trait.

I am a tongue roller, have an attached ear lobe, have a hitch hiker's thumb, and have a widow's peak, and unfortunately for the sake of a more interesting pool of data, both of my parents share all of the same traits as me. I was able to deduct a few genotypes of the recessive traits I have from this lab though. Having attached ear lobes is a recessive trait that both my parents and I posses, therefore I know that we all must have an homozygous recessive aa genotype. Having hitch hiker's thumbs is also a recessive trait that both my parents and I posses, so I can conclude that we all must have a homozygous recessive hh genotype. As far as the tongue rolling and widow's peaks go, both my parents and I all have the dominant trait, so we all could be either homozygous dominant TT or heterozygous Tt, but there is no way of telling which without collecting data from previous generations.


Lastly, there were four Mendelian traits I found that surprised me while I was researching whether the traits in this lab were dominant or recessive. The first of the traits which surprised me was dimples. Dimples is a dominate trait, while I only know two people who have dimples, which is why the fact that it is a dominate trait surprised me so much. The second trait which surprised me was tall and short stature. I found that short stature was actually a dominate trait, which surprised me because most of the people I know desire to be tall, but we are naturally supposed to be short. I would have thought that humans would have evolved genetically overtime so that it would be a dominate trait to be tall, but tall stature is listed as a recessive trait. The third trait which shocked me was dwarfism. Dwarfism is a dominate trait, when in fact I am not aware of anyone in my life that has dwarfism. I assume that dwarfism is one of the traits that humans have evolved over time to avoid, because I know so few people who have dwarfism, or who desire to have dwarfism. The last and most shocking Mendelian trait that I found in my research was six fingers as opposed to the normal five fingers. Having six fingers per hand is the dominant trait, when in fact I don't know a single person who has six fingers, which is why it surprised me so much. I would assume that this is a trait that humans have evolved to avoid as well, which is a pattern that I'm starting to see with undesirable traits, and one that I'm sure i'll see more of as we continue with our genetics unit.  

Source for the Mendelian Traits:
http://education.sdsc.edu/download/enrich/mendelian_traits.pdf

HIV/AIDS

           HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is retrovirus as well as an STD (sexually transmitted disease) that infects the immune system and leads to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). 33.3 million people were recorded living with HIV in 2009, and another 1.8 million people died of AIDS in the very same year. While about a third of HIV/AIDS cases originate in Africa, it is a serious problem in the world, and is considered a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).

            HIV is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system and can lead in many cases to AIDS. Once an HIV patient’s immune system is incapable of fighting infections, the patient has AIDS. As soon as a person has contracted AIDS it opens up the opportunity for “opportunistic infections” to infect the body and an infection as harmless as the common cold can end up killing a person.

            There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV 1 and 2 are very similar, except the immune system depletion seems to progress more slowly in cases of HIV-2 than in cases of HIV-1, and HIV-2 seems to be connected to solely Africa. HIV-1 is much more common globally than HIV-2, and generally when the virus is talked about as HIV, it is referring to the HIV-1 virus.

Symptoms:

             A person can live with HIV seeming totally normal and healthy for years before symptoms of infection show. Symptoms of HIV include fever, rash, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodes, all symptoms consistent with the flu. The only way to know for sure if you have HIV is to get tested because, as mentioned previously, a person can live for as many as eight to ten years without showing any signs of HIV infection, so it’s best to get tested if you have any suspicion.

How is HIV contracted?

             HIV is an STD that is passed through bodily fluids such as blood, sperm, vaginal fluids, etc. HIV cannot be passed through bodily fluids such as sweat, tears, or saliva. While HIV is most commonly contracted through sexual activity, it can be contracted in a number of other ways too. HIV can be contracted through using unsanitary needles for injection, sex, breast-feeding, and childbirth. There are other ways HIV can be contracted, but those are the four most common. The best way to prevent HIV is to practice safe sex, limit your sexual partners, and to use sanitary needles. HIV contracted through childbirth and through breastfeeding is harder to prevent, but there are medications a mother who is HIV positive can take before childbirth to decrease the chances that the baby will contract the HIV virus. 

Treatments:

             There is currently no cure for the HIV virus. Medicine can be taken in various regimens to slow and in some cases stop the progress of the HIV virus, but there is no cure to date. Treatments can hold AIDS at bay for many HIV patients, in addition to slowing and stopping the spreading of the HIV virus and the depletion of their immune system. For millions of HIV patients in third world countries treatment is not available, so their HIV most often leads to AIDS, resulting in death. There are treatments available for AIDS patients that can allow the patient to live for up to five times longer than they would without treatment, but death is hard to avoid for AIDS patients because their immune system is incapable of fighting any contracted infections. 

HIV/AIDS on a Molecular Level:

              HIV is a retrovirus, meaning that it has RNA that codes for the synthesis of DNA. The HIV virus injects its genetic information into CD4 cells (also known as T4 cells) which are needed to fight infections. The CD4 cells are a big makeup of the immune system, and without CD4 cells, your immune system is rendered ineffective. HIV is actually a very smart virus for attacking the immune system because the immune system is the thing that is supposed to be attacking the virus, not the other way around.

              HIV can infect the body as both a lysogenic or lytic infection. HIV can remain dormant in the body for years without any signs of an infection. In this case, HIV is most likely in a lysogenic infection cycle in which a new HIV virus is synthesized each time the host cell it has infected divides. However, once HIV virus converts into a lytic infection, it can replicate rapidly and be extremely dangerous.

             The HIV virus injects its genetic information into CD4 cells, then the DNA in the CD4 cells act as a manufacturing factory for more HIV viruses. The genetic material from the HIV virus holds the blueprint for the making of more HIV viruses, and as soon as this genetic material is injected into the DNA of CD4 cells, the DNA reads the blueprint and synthesizes more HIV viruses inside the cell. The host cell’s DNA keeps manufacturing new HIV viruses until the cell swells and lyses. After the cell lyses the viruses are released free to travel throughout the body and find more CD4 cells to use as host cells.

            Without being diagnosed and treated, the HIV viruses can continue in this cycle until it has infected all the CD4 cells, and therefore compromised the body’s immune system. Without being able to fight infections, a seemingly harmless infection such as the common cold can be deadly to an HIV positive patient. At this point of HIV infection, the patient has contracted AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). As soon as a person’s immune system can no longer fight infections, they are said to have AIDS. AIDS is not a specific virus, but rather an umbrella term for a compromised immune system due to HIV. Any infection an AIDS patient contracts can kill them, and if an AIDS patient doesn’t receive treatment, they typically die within a year of being diagnosed with AIDS.

Child-to-Mother Transmission:

            The four major types of transmission of HIV are using unsanitary needles for injection, sex, childbirth, and breast-feeding. All of the HIV transmission through breast-feeding cases are documented as mother-to-child transmission. However, there was an interesting epidemic of HIV in a hospital in Libya having to deal with child-to-mother HIV transmission. The mothers were HIV negative prior to childbirth, and all of the fathers were HIV negative too. The question of how the mothers contracted the HIV virus after childbirth is one that had scientists perplexed for a while after this epidemic had broken out. The mothers all tested positive for HIV after childbirth, and all the children tested positive too. But if the mothers hadn’t given the HIV to the children, then was it possible that the children had given HIV to the mothers?

            After many tests and months of research, scientists deduced that child-to-mother HIV transmission was a plausible explanation for the epidemic. The scientists concluded that the babies had contracted the HIV virus from the hospital environment (either through being tested with unsanitary needles or a various number of other explanations), and that during breast-feeding, they had transmitted it to their mothers. It was deduced that the children’s gums must have been bleeding when they were breast-feeding, and that the blood had seeped into the mother’s body via the nipple. This HIV infected blood from the children’s gums that had seeped in through the mother’s nipple was then able to get into their bloodstreams and spread, eventually infecting their CD4 cells and compromising their immune systems. It is a complicated and improbable explanation, but that is how an HIV epidemic broke out in a hospital in Libya through child-to-mother breast-feeding transmission.

Future for HIV/AIDS:

              HIV is a highly investigated and explored topic in the medical world. Scientist all over the world are rapidly trying to crack the case of the cure for HIV/AIDS. The fact that there is no known cure for HIV is propelling the study of the virus faster and further than many other viruses for which there are already known cures. Scientist have come a long way with treatments already, however because HIV/AIDS is a retrovirus, it can mutate and progress rapidly, making it that much harder for scientist to find a cure. The future for HIV/AIDS is somewhat bright because it is such a widely funded and studied topic, and I believe that as our technology continues to progress and evolve we will eventually catch up to this virus killing millions each year.

Sources:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/basic/index.htm

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_HIV_AIDS_virus_follow_the_lytic_or_lysogenic_cycle

http://www.mediprimer.com/Immunology/hiv_aids/126.html

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/18/2301.full

The Link Between Laron's and Cancer

           While most of the things you hear related to cancer are in a negative light, such as alcohol and smoking, Laron's disease has a positive connection to cancer. People who have Laron's disease are immune to cancer and diabetes. Laron's disease is cause by a mutation in the growth hormone receptor (GHR) which leads to the production of insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF1). People who have mutations in both GHR genes tend to have Laron's disease and in result have little production of IGF1.
Now that scientists know that small amounts of IGF1 can lead to immunity of cancer and diabetes, the question may be posed, why don't we all have IGF1 taken out of us? Well the fact is that successful tests have been conducted on animals, but there are too many risks involved for testing to be conducted on humans. After reading this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41632071/ns/health-aging/, I had conflicted feelings about the new discovery about the link between Laron's and cancer. My initial thoughts while reader were, if we know how to be immune to two diseases that are killing millions of people each year then why don't we just do it already. But then I realized that surely immunity of cancer and diabetes couldn't come that easily and without other risks. 
           One particular line stuck out to me in this article, "Everything is inter-related in our bodies. In general, I panic when people jump to conclusions too fast"-Felipe Sierra. I agree strongly with this statement, and I feel that it's a shame that we now have the resources to become immune to cancer, and yet we have to wait yet again for more research to be conducted before we can actually implement the findings in humans. It's almost like scientists are teasing us by releasing this information to the public, but I also think that this study gives us hope for the future. If we now have a link between Laron's and immunity to cancer and diabetes, further research and tests can be done until scientists are confident enough that we can use this information to make humans immune to cancer without overwhelming risks. I left reading this article with a positive view on the future for cancer, and believe that with our ever-progressing technology, scientists will be able to uncover more links between gene mutations and cancer, and eventually be able to cure this horrible disease.


Sources: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1045987/Immune-cancer-The-astonishing-dwarf-community-Ecuador-hold-key-cure.html


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41632071/ns/health-aging/

Breast Cancer: An Overview of The Disease Killing Thousands

Dawson Jones

9-McCurdy Biology

2/14/11

Breast Cancer: An Overview of the Disease Killing Thousands

What is Breast Cancer?

            Breast cancer is a disease that forms from cancerous cells in the breast. The cancerous cells are most commonly found in the lobules of the breast, which is where the milk is produced. Cancerous cells can also sometimes be found in the ducts of the breast, which are the pathways that carry milk from the lobules to the nipple. Breast cancer can also manifest in the cells of the fat tissues of the breast, but it is much more commonly diagnosed in the lobules or ducts.

            Breast cancer is found in women the majority of the time, but men can still get the disease. Less than 1% of breast cancer cases diagnosed are in men, so it is much more prevalent in women. 207,090 new cases of breast cancer were detected in women in 2010, 39,840 of the cases resulting in death, while 1,970 new cases were found in men, with 390 cases resulting in death. Breast cancer has the highest rate of death among cancers in women, which may lead you to believe that breast cancer is hard to treat, but it is simply because about 28% of cancers diagnosed in women are breast cancers.

How do you get breast cancer?

            1 in every 8 women in the United States will develop breast cancer before they are 80, which is about 12% of the female population. However, there are many things that can raise that percentage risk, such as family history of breast cancer, reproductive history, high alcohol consumption, old age, and being of certain races that are more prone to developing breast cancer. There are also many factors that can lower that percentage of risk such as a healthy diet, exercise, and many others.            

            The way cancerous tumors are formed on a molecular level is that most commonly one of two genes, either BRCA1 or BRCA2 is mutated in your DNA. The mutation of these tumor suppressor genes can be inherited from family genes, which is why women who have had a family history of breast cancer are at a much higher risk of developing breast cancer. When BRCA1 or BRCA2 are mutated, they go through a process of cell replication and division called the cell cycle at a much faster rate because the tumor suppressor genes have been mutated and therefore deactivated. Tumor suppressors in normal cells keep the cell cycle in check and make sure that it stops at its various checkpoints throughout the cycle to ensure there are no mutations, but once BRCA1 or BRCA2 are mutated, they replicate rapidly with no checkpoints, resulting in the growth of a tumor in the breast.

            Breast cancer has various stages that measure the degree of the development of the disease. A chart of the stages of breast cancer can be found at the bottom of the following page: http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/what_is_bc.jsp. If breast cancer goes undiagnosed and moves up through its stages, it has the potential to spread from the lobules and ducts of the breast into the fat tissues of the breast, and eventually into the lymph nodes, which is where the cancer can metastasize. When breast cancer metastasizes, the tumor of mutated cancerous cells enters the lymph nodes, located underarm, which usually fight infections in your body. A piece of the tumor can break off into the blood stream, which can then transport it into any part of the body where it can continue to grow and spread. Catching breast cancer in its early stages is crucial because once it metastasizes, it becomes increasingly harder to cure.

Symptoms and Treatments:

            Most of the symptoms of breast cancer can be detected on the surface of the breast, or in the fat tissue of the breast. Symptoms include lumps in the breast, substances other than milk secreting from the nipple, inverting of the nipple, peeling nipple skin, a change in size and or shape of the breast, and irritation of the skin over the breast such as flaking, redness, and indenting.

            Breast cancer can be a very treatable cancer depending on what stage it is in. The key is to have it diagnosed before it reaches the lymph nodes and has a chance to metastasize. There are a number of ways to go about treating breast cancer, the first of which is surgery. There are two major types of surgery, lumpectomy and mastectomy. Lumpectomy is known as the breast-conserving surgery because the surgery only cuts out the tumor in the breast. Mastectomy is a more serious surgery, which involves removing the entire breast. Mastectomies are more effective and ensure that the breast cancer will be completely removed, however they are unnecessary in some cases of breast cancer when the tumor can be easily located, isolated, and removed without completely removing the breast. In both cases of surgery many women choose to undertake breast reconstructive surgery, which is simply a form of plastic surgery that replaces the breast, but is very painful.           
           Chemotherapy is a form of treatment that targets and kills all cancerous cells in your body. It is a commonly used treatment for post-surgery patients to ensure that all of the cancer cells were scooped out, but can also be used to shrink the tumor before surgery is conducted. Most breast cancer patients take chemotherapy in many combinations of two or three chemotherapy medicines. These forms of chemotherapy are called chemotherapy regimens, and are very effective against breast cancer, killing all cancer in 30-60% of patients treated.

            Radiation Therapy, more commonly known as radiotherapy, is also commonly used in patients after surgery to ensure that all of the cancerous cells have been removed. Radiotherapy is the process of high-energy light beams being concentrated on the site of the cancer, which damages the DNA of the cells so that the cells cannot replicate, and eventually die off. However radiotherapy also has negative effects on the cells that it must travel through before it reaches the cancer site, but it is most effective on the cancerous cells because the regular cells are able to repair the damaged DNA, while cancerous cells fail to do so.

            Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy are the three most common treatments for breast cancer, but there are many other treatments being tested and developed in labs that may prove to be more effective. The death rates of women diagnosed with breast cancer have been decreasing steadily since 1990 as a direct result of more effective treatments. Breast cancer is a highly studied and explored cancer, and the future looks very bright for the advancement of treatments and cures for the disease killing thousands.

Bibliography:

http://www.breastcancer.org/

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/breast-cancer/DS00328/DSECTION=symptoms

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/breast

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics.jsp
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/what_is_bc.jsp

Breast Cancer: An Overview of The Disease Killing Thousands

Breast cancer

Photosynthesis

I had always known photosynthesis as "the way plants breathe"but this past week I found out that it is much more than just that; Photosynthesis is the way that plants obtain their energy. The plants convert photon rays from the sun into many molecules of ATP through a complicated and mind-boggling process, which I will do my best to take you through now. Photosynthesis has two stages; The light and dark reactions (although dark reaction is not exactly the most accurate term because indirectly it needs light to power it, so we'll call it the light independent reaction.) 

The light reaction takes place in the chloroplast organelle of a plant cell, specifically in the thylakoids (the small disks as can be seen in the diagram at the right.) Photons (light rays) from the sun enter into the thylakoid specifically into special protein lodged in the membrane of the thylakoid called photosystem two (PHII). The energy from the photon ray excites an electron that is sitting at the bottom of PHII, and makes it shoot up to the top of PHII. Then the electron falls down a gradient to another special protein, also lodged in the membrane of the thylakoid, called photosystem one (PHI). As the electron falls down to the bottom of PHI, it releases some energy which is used to pump a Hydrogen ion across the thylakoid membrane from the stroma to the lumen. The electron then is excited by another photon ray which enters into PHI, and rises up to the top of PHI. The energy from the electron is used to phosphoralize an NADP plus molecule into an NADPH molecule. The NADPH molecule also takes in the electron, and then is transported to the Calvin Cycle where it will eventually be used to synthesize ATP. You may be wondering how the electrons in PHII and PHI are replaced, and that has a simple explanation. There are water molecules that the plant has obtained either through it's roots or from the air that are in the lumen of the thylakoid. PHII is a powerful enough protein that it can oxidize water into two Hydrogen ions (made up of one proton and one electron each), and one oxygen gas molecule. The oxygen gas is released as a by-product of photosynthesis, the Hydrogen ions stay in the lumen and add to the build up of Hydrogens in the lumen until they are pumped back through the ATP synthase, and the electrons enter PHII and then are excited by the photon rays. 

That sums up the light reaction portion of photosynthesis, and it can be summarized in the diagram at the right. The inputs of the light reaction include water, and sunlight, and the outputs are NADPH, ATP's (which are synthesized in by Hydrogen ions being pumped through the ATP synthase which is also lodged in the membrane of the thylakoids) and oxygen gas.

The second half of photosynthesis, called the Calvin Cycle, which takes place in the stroma of the chloroplast, can be conducted without the presence of light, but it needs the ATP's and NADPH's that were produced in the light reaction to fuel it. Remember when i said that i had always thought photosynthesis was simply the way plants breathe? Well this is where that comes into play. Plants "breathe" carbon dioxide, and CO2 is one of the main inputs into the Calvin Cycle. The most important output of the Calvin Cycle is a 3-Carbon sugar, and in order to obtain a 3-Carbon sugar, 3 CO2 molecules must enter the Calvin Cycle at a time, so it is often explained in increments of 3 Carbon Dioxide molecules at a time. The carbon dioxide meets up with a huge complex protein called Rubisco, which latches onto the carbon dioxide molecule and brings it to the start of the Calvin Cycle. The Carbon Dioxide molecule merges with a RuBP molecule (Ribulose 

Biphosphate), which is a 5-Carbon molecule. Together they make a 6-Carbon molecule, but it is a very unstable one, so it quickly breaks into two 3-Carbon molecules. 2 ATP's and 2 NADPH's are used per 3-Carbon molecule to fuel the rearrangement of the 3-Carbon molecules, until they are in the form of a pyruvate. One of the 3-Carbon molecules then drops a Carbon, and then the 2-Carbon molecule reconnects with the other 3-Carbon molecule and forms a 5-Carbon molecule. Another ATP comes and rearranges the 5-Carbon molecule into a molecule of RuBP, and then another Carbon Dioxide molecule enters, and the cycle starts all over again. For every three Carbon Dioxide molecules that enter the cycle, one 3-Carbon sugar is secreted. Glucose is the ultimate goal, so 6 Carbon Dioxides must cycle through in order to obtain one molecule of Glucose. The inputs of the light independent reaction include Carbon Dioxide, ATP, and NADPH, and the outputs include Glucose. This glucose then goes through cellular respiration in the mitochondria of the plant, and eventually ends up making tons of ATP. The entire Calvin Cycle, or light independent reaction, can be summed up in the diagram below.

That is the entire process of photosynthesis in all of the boring laborious details, but there are some cool aspects of photosynthesis too: 

Did you know..?

Pine trees and other conifers have evolved to grow in a triangle shape because of photosynthesis. The tree's shape exposes most of its needles to the sun, especially the ones near the top of the tree, enabling it to produce enough energy to grow taller. (http://www.ehow.com/facts_5412442_weird-photosynthesis.html) 

Africa's desert Tree Tumbo plant only has two broad leaves and can live for almost 1,000 years with exposure to little rainfall.(http://www.ehow.com/facts_5412442_weird-photosynthesis.html) 

In 2001, a group from Westwood High School in Austin, Texas, won a contest from the Science Songwriters Association for the song "Photosynthesis Boys Are Back."

Read more: Weird Facts About Photosynthesis | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5412442_weird-photosynthesis.html#ixzz1AZ9nwAkF