Jamie+M.

__**Wiki Post #1- Genetics**__

**Epidermolysos bullosa (EB)**
I decided to do my genetic entry on a rare disease called Epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Epidermolysos bullosa is a rare group of tissue diseases that takes over your life by making your skin extremely sensitive. “Butterfly Children” is a term often used to describe younger patients because their skin is as fragile as a butterfly’s wing. EB could cause your skin to blister due to minor injury, heat, or friction from rubbing, scratching or from tape. In severe cases, blisters may form inside your body like on the lining of your mouth or intestines. Depending on the type of EB, the effects of the disease can be mild, disabling, or life threatening, but EB simplex is most common mild form of EB to have.



The worse thing is that you can’t pick fate; it picks you. You can’t naturally change how DNA forms to make up a human being. Most types of Epidermolysis are inherited. Some EB inheritance types are autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive. Autosomal dominant inheritance means that each child from an effected parent has 50% chance of inheriting the faulty gene. Autosomal recessive inheritance is when neither of the parents are affected but they both carry one faulty EB gene and one working copy. Each child can either have a 25% chance of inheriting both faulty gens and having EB, a 50% chance of inheriting one faulty copy and one working copy of the gene (unaffected carrier), and a 25% chance of neither having EB nor being a carrier. Even without family history of the condition, people could still inherit the condition due to a spontaneous genetic mutation. That would take place in either the egg or sperm before fertilization. On the bright side, EB is not contagious because it is a genetic disease.

media type="youtube" key="iuYxGtuBSgk" width="560" height="315" align="left"
 * Here is a video about the life of a butterfly child:**

I find this absolutely mind blowing how a kid can put up with this condition everyday and still have a smile on his face. The fact that just bumping into a wall could make your skin blister is crazy! Having seen the pain and stress that Jonathan Pitre and his mom goes through everyday is simply unbearable to watch.

Unfortunately, there is no cure as of right now, but there is treatment that addresses the symptoms like infection and itching. If patients have a serve cases like Jonathan Pitre, dressings are used to cover the blisters similar like the care received by burn victims. If you are lucky, mild forms may improve with age.



'I consider EB a thing, and I hope that one day, i will defeat it." -Jonathan Pitre
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__**Wiki Post #2- Evolution**__

**Fish turning into land animals?**
It’s crazy how much living creatures has evolved over the years due to situations like environment and breeding that results in a change of genes. Tiktaalik fossils have revealed how fish evolved into four-legged animals. It was a 375 million year old fish that lived in freshwater that had strong hind legs among other land features.

The fossil remains proved how it hauled itself out of the water. Scientists first discovered the Tiktaalik in 2004 while hunting for fossils on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Artic. Several samples of the fish-like tetrapod were discovered by Edward Daeschler, Neil Shubin, Farish Jenkins, and colleagues. The samples included almost a full front half of a crocodile-like creature with a skull around 20 centimeters long. It had a blend of gills, scales, fins and lungs, combined with a movable neck, sturdy ribcage, and crocodile-like head. So that placed the Tiktaalik half between fish and the earliest four legged land animals.

There are still many questions on how the transition happened, but fossils showed that changed in the different time periods. The fish kept on evolving by having a large, robust pelvic girdle, a prominent hip joint, and long ind fins. The powerful fins could have propelled the beast in the water, but also helped it walk onto land.

This picture demonstrates the process that the Tikaalik undergoes:



This video explains how they found the Tiktaalik and its' first steps into being a land animal: media type="youtube" key="yvDQCa7rleI" width="560" height="315"

The transition is simply amazing in the sense that a creature came from living in the water with gills and fins to developing limbs and lungs to carry them on land. Zerina Joanson, a vertebrate palaeontologis said, “Tiktaalik is the one of the most important fish fossils for unraveling the evolutionary transition from fish living in water to tetrapods living on land.”


 * “Tetrapods did not so much conquer the land, as escape from the water.” -Unknown **



http://www.nature.com/articles/nature https://answersingenesis.org/extinct-animals/did-tiktaaliks-pelvis-prepare-fish-to-walk-on-land/ http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/04/neil-shubin-inquiring-minds-tiktaalik-creationist-nightmare http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/meetTik.html
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[] [] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_04 http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fossils-reveal-how-fish-made-transition-water-land
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__**Wiki Post #2- Endocrine System**__

**Pituitary Gland**
Glands are critical for releasing hormones. Without them, your body couldn’t perform daily tasks because there would be no messages being sent to your brain. Glands are located throughout your body, which make up the endocrine system. I’m going to focus on the Pituitary gland because it’s referred as the “master gland”.



It surprises me because the organ is the size of a pea, which makes it extremely small. It is found in the base of the brain that produces many hormones that travel throughout the body. They direct certain processes or stimulate other glands to produce other hormones. In other words, the pituitary gland controls other glands and is vital to the overall well being of a person. The Pituitary Gland produces and stores many hormones from two different sections. The anterior pituitary is the front section where hormones are produced and hormones are stored in the poster (back part) of the gland.




 * Hormones Produced **


 * Prolactin- it stimulates breast milk production after childbirth, so it is secreted in large amounts during pregnancy and breast-feeding. It is also affects sex hormone levels and fertility. So, it is present in males and females.


 * Growth hormone (GH)- This hormone promotes growth in childhood and it helps maintain healthy muscle and bone mass in adulthood. So it focuses is on growth and repair.


 * Adrenocorticotropin (ACTH)- It stimulates the production of cortisol (stress hormone) by the adrenal glands. It helps maintain a good blood pressure and reduce stress.


 * Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)- It stimulates the thyroid gland to create its own hormone called thyroxine. It is crucial in maintaining a healthy metabolism.


 * Luteinizing hormone (LH)- In women, this hormone regulates estrogen and for men it regulates testosterone.


 * Follicle-stimulating hormone- it promotes sperm production in men and stimulates the ovaries to produce estrogen and develop eggs in women. LH and FSH work together to enable normal function of the ovaries and testes.


 * Hormones stored**


 * Antidiuretic hormone (ADH)- regulates water balance and conserves body water by reducing the amount lost in urine.


 * Oxytocin- it causes milk to flow from the breasts in breast feeding and may also help the labor progress.


 * Pituitary Tumors**

A tumor is an abnormal growth of cells that can start nearly anywhere in the body. Almost all pituitary tutors are non-cancerous glandular tumors. Secretory and non-secretory are the two main types of tumors that start in the pituitary gland. Secretly tumors are when the pituitary gland produces too much hormones where as non-secretory tumors produce not enough of the hormone. Both tumors can lead to problems if it was large and interfering with the normal function of the pituitary gland and structures in the brain. It could cause headaches, vision problems, or other health effects.



This video gives a nice visual and details about the pituitary gland: media type="youtube" key="qJj_-3dZ4ZQ" width="560" height="315"


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