Biology: Classsifications

We looked at our eggs from last week.  The egg on the left was soaked in water, and the water molecules moved from the area of greater concentration (the pure water) through the membrane into the are of lesser concentration (the egg). That egg was swollen.

The egg on the right was soaked in corn syrup.  There was much more water in the egg than in the corn syrup, so the water moved in the opposite direction, leaving us with this weird shriveled egg.

You may recall that we also soaked an egg in brine, but that was identical to the water, probably because the salt was able to pass through the membrane as well.

Then it was on to classification.

We talked about how and why humans compulsively classify things, and the difference between Aristotle's sock drawer and the sock drawer of Linneaeus.

 Carolus Linneaus, OTH, must have had his socks organized by the colors in the spectrum and then alphabetized by country of manufacture!  He was the father of our modern classification system.  If you can't read the headings in the picture, they are (down) Kingdom, Phylum, Class Order, Family Genus, species, and (across) cat, lion, dog, octopus.

We only had one Biology class this week because the other family was sick. I love it when people get sick and don't come.  That's not sarcasm, that's microbiology.  Or virology, in this case, because we got hit by a cold anyway a few days later.

I don't love it that they're sick, of course,  I just appreciate it when someone lets me know that their kids are sick and gives me the chance to opt out.  Most of the time it doesn't matter much, but when I'm planning to visit my folks, it matters a lot!