Scioly.org

does anyone know a good way to identify whether a picture of a parasitic worm under a microscope is a pinworm compared to a hookworm? I've had trouble telling them apart

earthbot25 wrote:does anyone know a good way to identify whether a picture of a parasitic worm under a microscope is a pinworm compared to a hookworm? I've had trouble telling them apart

A good way to tell the two apart is by looking at the ends of each worm, the hookworm looks the same on both sides, however, the pinworm has an end that is much longer and thinner than the other side, i know I'm only in division B, but i hope this helps


Farewell Microbes

So... Designer Genes/Heredity for next year. What does everyone think of genetics as opposed to microbes?

Emerald Lily wrote:So... Designer Genes/Heredity for next year. What does everyone think of genetics as opposed to microbes?

I am so amazingly psyched for genetics. It is my absolute favorite thing in the entire universe. (Or at least in the top three.) I also think that this, depending on how it is run (test vs. station, etc.) that it has the potential to be much more standardized and better within the rules, whereas Microbe had the tendency to be annoyingly vague, and have such a huge spectrum of questions and topics.
Does anyone know anything about the format of this event?
And does anyone find it odd that the B division has a "serious name" for the event (ie: Heredity) and the C division has the amusing name? Usually if there is a less serious-sounding name, it is either in both levels or just in B division. (Not really important, I just found it a little strange.)

Emerald Lily wrote:So... Designer Genes/Heredity for next year. What does everyone think of genetics as opposed to microbes?

Well, I don't like genes as much as microbes mainly because I liked the diversity of topics that could be covered in microbes/I probably have a bunch of non-bio events to do for next year, but I think besides checking the wiki here is some rules from NC in case you haven't seen it (though, idk how much this will be like the real rules): http://www.sciencenc.com/event-help/rul ... Crules.pdf

butter side up wrote:

Emerald Lily wrote:So... Designer Genes/Heredity for next year. What does everyone think of genetics as opposed to microbes?

I am so amazingly psyched for genetics. It is my absolute favorite thing in the entire universe. (Or at least in the top three.) I also think that this, depending on how it is run (test vs. station, etc.) that it has the potential to be much more standardized and better within the rules, whereas Microbe had the tendency to be annoyingly vague, and have such a huge spectrum of questions and topics.
Does anyone know anything about the format of this event?
And does anyone find it odd that the B division has a "serious name" for the event (ie: Heredity) and the C division has the amusing name? Usually if there is a less serious-sounding name, it is either in both levels or just in B division. (Not really important, I just found it a little strange.)

Yeah, I have to agree Designer Genes has more potential to follow the rules. I didn't like how Microbe Mission could either be incredibly easy or very difficult; I always had to study obscure topics such as quorum sensing in detail because I never knew if they would show up, only to get questions such as, "Which microbe is involved in the production of yogurt?"

With Designer Genes, I'm hoping questions will be difficult but based on the rules. I'm also crossing my fingers for lots of karyotypes. So glad to have this event my senior year!

Also, maybe C division got the punny name because they think high schoolers would be more interested in designer jeans... lol, I don't know. It is strange. Earlier in the year, when I was wondering if this event would come back, I said something about it and my fashionista friend literally thought we got to design jeans as a Science Olympiad event. *facepalm*

I must say, I'm pretty disappointed that microbes is leaving, I feel like I will enjoy heredity but not to the same extent that I did microbes. Don't get me wrong though, I'm very excited for genetics.

Judging from past experience (in NC we had this event this year), the tests will still probably be really easy or really hard. The thing is just about every decent team will be strong on the genetics concepts, so it just comes down to a few really obscure questions about specific diseases (which could be any of them unless they add a disease list like the one Microbe had) or techniques.

I looked at the tests in the Test Exchange Archive; from the looks of them, we won't have a specific list of diseases, if this event is run as it was in the past. I think the majority of the disease questions require Punnett squares and calculating the chance that the offspring will carry the gene for the disease in question. For diseases caused by nondisjunctions (trisomies and monosomies), we could see those in karyotypes.

I also think we'll see a lot of color blindness and calico cats (yep, they can be male - they just have to have Klinefelter's syndrome).

hmm...I just hope that the event stays in lab practical format...as opposed to a written test