Changing Climate- 3rd Blog Post

Well this has been a crazy past 2 weeks since I did my last post. I have procrastinated on working on 20 time due to reasons but I am trying to get back on track.

On my last post I talked about one of my setbacks which was trying to communicate with people that worked/ had insight on my project and that maybe able to help me with getting my topic out there. I finally got a hold of Tim Galleher, the man that came into class weeks ago when we just started 20 time. He reached out and found so local people that worked in the Saratoga Community that may know how to help me. I received and email back from Mr. Galleher with the names of the people, in which I sent an email out to, hoping I can come meet with them and talk about my topic.

I am still very lost on what my final product is going to be, because I am not building or creating anything, i am just trying to let people know that are changing climate is serious and that something needs to be done about it or it will keep getting worse and worse.

I have been doing a little more research ways that people can contributed to helping me. I think I will share some of those on my next blog post, just until I hear back from the people i emailed.

MUSCULAR SYSTEM

The muscular system functions as the movement of bone or fluid, such as blood, it helps maintain our bodies posture and body position, stabilize the joints and to maintain heat generation, especially within the skeletal muscles). To refresh there are 3 types of tissues, there are smooth, cardiac and skeletal. Muscles tissues have properties, limits that they need to follow so they don't get damaged, these properties are excitability, contractility, extensibility and elasticity. The movable portion of a muscle is called insertion, where the origin is the immovable muscle end.  just like in a novel how you have different characters and they are classified differently its the same with muscles. Prime Mover, Anatagonist, Synergist, and fixators are all different classifications of muscle. When you look at a muscle, you have to classify it to a specific because no muscle is really "the same". They way you determine the muscle is based on the direction of its fibers, is it parallel to the midline (rectus), perpendicular to the midline (transversal), or oblique, diagonal to the midline. You also classify a muscle based on shape, size, action, location and number of origins. The anterior part of your body has 40 superficial muscles, that are divided into 12 regions ,were the posterior part of your body has 27 superficial muscles, broken down into 7 regions. 

A muscle is composed of many bundles of tiny muscle fibers, thousands of these fibers are located in 1 muscle, each individual muscle fibers is an individual, contains many myofibers, has a sarcolemma, specialized plasma membrane. The myofibrils "thread like"is what makes a muscle contraction happen. When your muscles contract the myosin and actin filaments slide past one another causing the muscles to shorten. 

Muscle Twitches are broken down into 3 types of muscle fibers: slow twitch fiber, Fast "a" twitch, and Fast "b" twitch. Exercising helps raise your metabolism, strengthen bones, increase your strength and muscular endurance, prevent injuries and improves balance and coordination. YES, its important to keep your muscles healthy so in order to do this you need to exercise regular, eat a healthy diet, don't smoke, listen to your body, and know basic first aid training so you don't hurt

 yourself or know what to do when an injury occurs.

When we go to the gym, we see a lot of people, particularity men lifting big heavy weights trying to bulk up their muscles. Even olymipic athletes we see with these unportional bodies. The question is whether or not they are taking.were taking performance enhancement. Performance enhancements are steroids/ drugs that people take in or to lose belly fat, gain muscle, boost athletic ability, increase body mass. But especially young teens/adults that take theses drugs probably don't know the dangers of them. First off they are ILLEGAL and are a game changer of physical/mental health. Most of the steroids can/will cause psychological differences. These risk can go anywhere from acne, to headaches, high blood pressure, liver damage, heart disease, stunted growth, baldness and so much more. Besides steroids there is another drug known as stimulants which stimulate the central nervous system and increase heart rate and blood pressure. Examples of stimulants are caffeine, human growth hormone, creatine, high protein diet, EPO and many more. The bottom line is don't take any performance enhancement drug, almost all are illegal but some other medications many have these illegal drugs in them!!

To Understand the muscle contractions better click Muscle Contraction Video!!

IF you want to know more about Caffeine and the effect it has on the body click here  It will take you to another blog post so you can understand why Caffeine is so harmful.

Here is a Link to my groups Muscle Contraction Video. I hope you enjoy it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEbFWUDBAx0&feature=em-upload_owner

CAFFEINE 

Steroids are an illegal drug that teens, young adults, athletes will take in hope of building strong, bigger muscles, boost athletic performance, increase body mass and lose body fat. However steroids are very dangerous and can have many side effects/ risk when taking them. In teens especially they may feel they need to do these drugs due to peer pressure, body image, media influences and role models. Steroids can and will disrupt a person mental and physical health. When taking steroids there are lots of health risks for both female and male along with psychological issues that can appear while on the drug. Steroids are appeal for people because they want to look better, in males they want to have little body fat, big muscles and so much more, where for women they want no body fat, a small stomach/waist, tall and much more. No matter what steroid you are taking there will be some kind of risk factor that comes along with taking the drug. Athletes, teens and young adults may also take stimulates instead, stimulants are somewhat similar to a steroid in which it can improve one endurance, reduce fatigue, suppress appetite, and increase alertness and aggressiveness, however stimulates will have similar physical and mental consequences that comes along with the taking it. Examples of stimulants are Caffeine. Erythropoientin, Human Growth Hormone, Creatine, Gene Doping and so many more. Especially for teens we don't fully understand the risks that come along with it, in total any steroid, stimulant, drug is harmful in some way. It messes up our body and our health.  

20% second blog post - Climate Change

Well good news! We have gotten a fair amount of rain since I posted last. Even though the weather was a little warm, every little bit of the rain helps. Having this rain has helped extremely. In the sierra mountains we received a good 50+ inches of snow, which will help us as it starts to melt. I have leaned that our climate change has gotten worse over the years, and  it won't stop until people start to make a change. Every person needs to do a little something to make that difference. I have leaned that this is a hard topic, trying to get people to change things in their daily life as in changing lightbulbs in their house to LEDs or walking to school instead of driving (saying that you live within walking distance...) is not always possible. I have had a little setbacks, i haven't been able to talk to as many people as i wish too but i am going to try to do that this weekend when i go to Tahoe. I am still trying to figure out the next step in this, i am still debating whether i talk to people or how to get this awareness out there. My honest opinion is that people know that this climate change we are experience is bad, we have seen that with this ongoing drought that we have been experiencing over the past few years. I think a major thing/problem is that its going to be hard to make people change their daily routine around just to help me with this. The other thing that i learned about climate change that is scary is that mostly likely it will never be solved. Even though if people do make small changes in their daily life, climate change will probably get a little worse more and more over the next years.

CHICKEN DISSECTION ANALYSIS

In this dissection we cut apart the thigh, wings, legs, breast to get a closer look at the tendons and the muscles. The Brachioradialis was a muscle that was located in the wing, along with the tendon located in the wing as well, this is what makes the chicken able to fly (open and close their wings). The physical and functional differences in the tendons of the insertion compared to the origin is that the tendon of the insertion has more range of movement compared to the origin. Compared to the lectures that we have leaned on the Muscular System, chickens in a way are similar to the way our muscular system works. They have very similar muscle groups that function similarly to the ways humans do, because that is what allows them to have movement. There breast as well as their gluteus maximus/ gluteus minimus is very prominent, it has a lot of "meat" to it. The quadrieceops, located in the thigh is what helps the chicken with the ability to extend it legs out (the movement of the legs), however the biceps femoris is what actually allows the flexing of the legs. The Semimembranosus also located in the thigh, also the thigh to extend. The chicken have a fair amount of muscle, just like us. In their wing the tricep tendon helped with the flexing of the elbow (we have a cool video of it below). Chickens also have major muscles in their body that are very important (even though all muscles are important). Each section of their body usually has a main muscle component. As so the Peroneus longus- its the primary superfical muscle on the lateral side of its leg (drumstil)(outside of its leg), the Gastrocnemius is also a primary muscle of the dorsal medial side of the drumsitck (back on the inside leg, closer to the midline of the chicken). On the wings the Flexor Carpi Ulnaris is the largest muscle located on the posterior side of the wing (lower part to be exact), this muscle is located away from the thumb of the chicken and it job is the flexing of the chickens hands. A cool fact about chicken and humans and all their muscles is that humans can move their metacarples where a chicken can not do that. 


The chicken muscles and human muscle similarities :

1. chicken and humans have the same type of tissue and cartilage
2. In the chicken wing, chickens have triceps, biceps as do humans (located in the forearm). In the arm both chicken and humans are held together by tendons, which allow us the movement to move are arm in and out. 
3. The bone structure is also similar. Chickens humerus is also attached to the shoulder just like a human and they also have a radius and a ulna. 

What Happens When We Stretch 

"The stretching of a muscle fiber begins with the sarcomere the basic unit of contraction in the muscle fiber. As the sarcomere contracts, the area of overlap between the thick and thin myofilaments increases. As it stretches, this area of overlap decreases, allowing the muscle fiber to elongate" This quote shows us and lets us understand what exactly is happening as the muscle 

us being stretched. As we begin to stretch a muscle the sarcomere within the muscle fibers (also the basic unit

Of a muscle contraction) starts to contract and over lap with the myofliaments. 

“The nerve endings that relay all the information about the musculoskeletal system to the central

Nervous system are called 

Proprioceptors” Proprioceptors are responsible for the perception of one's own body position and movement. They help detect any change that happens within movement in all of your body (helps detect force and tension). The proprioceptors are found in all nerve endings of the joints, muscles, and

Tendons.

“There are two kinds of muscle fibers: intrafusal muscle fibers

 and extrafusal muscle fibers” Extrafusil fibers are the ones that contain myofibrils and are usually what we are referring too when we say muscle fibers. Intrafusal fibers are also called muscle spindles

 And lie parallel to the extrafusal fibers. Muscle spindles are also known as stretch receptors and are also the primary proprioceptors in the muscle.

Another muscle that comes into play when we are stretching is called the golgi tendon organ. This organ is located in the tendon near the end of the muscle fiber.

A pacinian corpuscle is another type of

Proprioceptor this is located near the golgi tendon organ. The pacinian corpuscle is responsible for detecting changes in movement and pressure within the body.

When we stretch a muscle we are stretching the muscle spindle as well. It is easier to stretch a muscle that is relaxed than one that is contracting. When you stretch you want to hold that stretch for a prolonged period of time to allow this lengthening reaction to occur, which is  helping the stretched muscles become relax. It is easier to stretch, or lengthen, a

muscle when it is not trying to contract.