Cardiac Muscle Cells

Cardiac muscle cells are rectangular shaped cells connected by regions called intercalated discs. The cardiac muscle cells are located only in the heart and contain one nucleus and lots of mitochondria, which account for the energy of the cell. It does not have the same organelles as the typical eukaryotic cell; it is missing many. These muscle cells help to pump blood throughout the body, developing the ability to spread electrochemical signals so all of the cells in the heart can pump at the same time. The intercalated disks connecting the cardiac muscle cells keep the cells together under the strain of pumping blood every single day. Cardiac muscle tissue can also set its own contraction rhythm because there are pacemaker cells that stimulate the other cardiac muscle cells. Although there is usually nervous system stimulation to regulate the heart beat, when there is no stimulation, the cardiac muscle cells can also produce a regular heart rhythm. Cardiac muscle cells are one of the three types of muscle tissue.

Sources:

JENNETT, COLIN BLAKEMORE;SHELIA, "cardiac Muscle." A Dictionary of Biology. 2004, Michael Allaby, "cardiac Muscle." A Dictionary of Nursing. 2008, and "cardiac Muscle." World Encyclopedia. 2005. "Cardiac Muscle." Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2001. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"Pearson - The Biology Place." Pearson - The Biology Place. Pearson Education Inc., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Taylor, Tim. "Cardiac Muscle Tissue." InnerBody. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Adipose Cells

Adipose cells, also known as fat cells, is a type of connective tissue that contains large globules of fat. There are two different types of adipose cells: white and brown adipose cells. White adipose cells, also known as adipocytes, contain large globules of fat, a very small amount of cytoplasm, and flattened nuclei that are not located in the center of the cell. Brown adipose cells, on the other hand, contain fat globules of different sizes, a large amount of cytoplasm, lots of mitochondria, and round nuclei that are located in the center of the cell; adipose cells do not have all the organelles of the typical eukaryotic cell. Both brown and white adipose cells are polygonal in shape, but their size differs depending on the amount in a person's body. Whenever someone gains weight, the number of fat cells in his/her body increases, and the fat cells fill up with fat and increase in size. Whenever someone loses weight, the number of fat cells stay the same, but they shrink in size.
Adipose cells are most commonly located right underneath the skin, between muscles, around the kidneys and heart, behind the eyeballs, in abdominal membranes. They fill up space between organs and tissues and provide structural and metabolic support, functioning as a cushion against trauma for the tissues of the body. Most of the organs in the human body are wrapped in a layer of fat to protect them from trauma. Adipose cells are also used in the storing of fat that comes directly from our diet. When food is eaten and it is not burned as energy, it is stored in the adipose cells, used when exercising for a long time. Adipose cells help to protect our body and store the fat from our diet.
(all information taken from http://study.com/academy/lesson/adipose-tissue-function-location-definition.html)

Sweetness Lab Write-up (yum~)

In this lab, I first took notes about eight different sugars (sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose), drew their structure, and tasted them, ranking the sweetness level and texture of the different sugars. Before, I predicted which sugars would taste sweet and which would NOT taste sweet, but it seems that my predictions turned out wrong. 

Will Taste Sweet: sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose

Will NOT Taste Sweet: galactose, lactose, starch, cellulose

After tasting all of the sugars and comparing the sweetness level to the number of rings in the sugar, I noticed that the more rings there are in the sugar, the less sweet it becomes; all of the sweeter sugars were monosaccharides, and the sugars with the lowest sweetness levels were polysaccharides. I have also seen and heard of a few of the carbohydrates that I tasted today, like sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, lactose, and starch. I already knew that sucrose was plain table sugar, and I had seen fructose in high fructose corn syrup, which is added into candy gummies for sugar. I have also seen maltose in malt beer and lactose on milk cartons, as a warning for people who are lactose intolerant. Lastly, I have eaten starch in my mother's own corn soup, in which she puts corn starch to make the soup more viscous. 

Humans can taste sweetness and other types of taste through taste buds on the tongue. According to Sarah Dowdey on howstuffworks (http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/parts/tongue2.htm), every taste bud has fifty gustatory receptor cells, which respond to different tastes: sweet, savory, bitter, etc. When the food/stimulus touches the gustatory cell, it sends a message to the brain, which interprets the sensation as taste, whether it be sweet, sour, etc. These cells vary from person to person, depending on what the person ate right before or how sweet the foods they normally eat are. The varying gustatory cells explain how different people can rank the sweetness level of the same food/sugar differently.