So Darwin had A Big Idea ™ which has caused a ridiculous amount of debate/screaming/studying over the past 150 years. Everyone knows that, right? It’s caused so much uproar that recently the Texas school board has had near never-ending debates about the merits of teaching such Big Ideas to poor innocent children. But I (sarcastically) digress. My [...]
A Brundage Web-log
Things Adrienne & Dean Do, Think and WriteBrowsing Posts in Biology GRE
So I’ve taken this week to focus on information required by my microbiology professor :”Know about biofilms and quorum sensing.” No detail on *what* I should know about those two huge topics, but I need to know about them. All of it, I guess. I guess I’ll work on just knowing what I can. Let’s [...]
So for the past few months I’ve been frantically studying for not the GRE, but for my preliminary exams for my PhD. I will therefore be adding blogs that answer potential questions from my prelims in addition to GRE questions. This should be fun for all! My advisors have been giving me “hints” (i.e. “know [...]
Proteins denature under heat stress. This denaturation of proteins causes the transcription of heat shock proteins (HSPs) to deal with the problem. The production of HSPs is rapid, and facilitates repair of the damaged cell. If the temperature remains high, heat shock proteins will remain at a steady-state level in the cell, which is higher [...]
When damage to DNA is sensed, the SOS signal induces over 20 unlinked genes. These genes cope with the DNA damage by remairing the damaged DNA, allowing DNA replication to proceed past the damaged site (translesion synthesis), and stalling cell division to allow time for DNA repair. Normally, the SOS response system is suppressed by [...]
Hello again! Today I’m going to tackle a broad, essay type question that pertains to bacterial movement: Chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is the ability of a bacterium to move along a concentration gradient, either towards an attractant or away from a repellent. The attractant or repellent is termed a chemoeffector, and is monitored by a system of [...]
Welcome Back! A year of research under my belt, and I’m back to answer some more GRE questions. Here’s today’s: An infectious agent that appears to have no nucleic acid is a:A) bacteriumB) bacteriophageC) viroidD) virusE) prion This is one of those basic fact-knowledge questions, although even if you don’t know the exact properties of [...]
Today’s question involves how cancerous cells divide and actually become tumors. Here’s the question: All of the following mechanisms have been shown experimentally to the contribution to the formation of cancer cells EXCEPT:and then there were answers. The basis of this question is the nature of cancer. Cancer is the abnormal growth (and possible spread) [...]
Well, we’re back in business! I’ve decided to focus a bit on microorganisms, since school has started again and I need to bone up on my micro before I have to lecture about it. In light of that, here’s today’s question! In E. coli, induction of the lactose operon occurs when allolactose binds to: A)Galactosidase [...]
Well, vacation is over, and now it’s time to get back to the great subject of biology! Let’s jump right into it, shall we? Today’s question: The addition of colchicine to a culture of actively dividing flagellated eukaryotic cells inhibits all of the following except: (And then there’s a list of answers). Well, I chose [...]
