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.

Bad Bacteria: Escherichia Coli

Escherichia Coli, more commonly known as E. coli, is a bacteria that can be found in the large intestine of warm-blooded organisms. It can be totally harmless, and in some cases helpful by producing vitamin K. However, there are also many other cases where E. coli can be a harmful bacteria, and in some cases even lethal. Harmful E. coli usually only causes mild disease in humans, but it can be life threatening to children, the elderly, and immunocompromised people.





          E. coli is a fairly simple structured bacteria. It is a bascillus bacteria meaning that it is rod-shaped (see the picture to the right). The inner part of the cell contains cytoplasm, and in the cytoplasm DNA is stored. There is a cell membrane that surrounds the inner components of the cell, and many, but not all E. coli bacteria have a flagellum.


          There are many different strains of E. coli, some harmful and some harmless. Each strain is different in it's characteristics. There are many different strains of E. coli because E. coli is strongly drug resistant and is constantly evolving to avoid the antibiotics that are used to try and fight it (such as streptomycin or gentamicin.) The strong drug resistance of E. coli can make it hard to fight, but when diagnosed early on, there are many existing drugs that can identify, locate, and exterminate the harmful strains of E. coli in you. E. coli can cause a variety of diseases, and also a wide range of severity of these diseases depending on age, immune system effectiveness, how early it is diagnosed, and how well and properly it is treated.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli
http://www.lbl.gov/Publications/Currents/Archive/Mar-05-2004.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/cellular-microscopic/cell1.htm