Can you explain the clinical significance of deciphering protein trafficking pathways within cells and the relevant molecular biology techniques to...

Proteins are important biomolecules that carry out various structural and enzymatic processes in cells and living things. They are also responsible for transporting other molecules in and out of cells, as well as acting as signal molecules for cell-cell communication. It makes sense that these molecules (and others such as lipids) are transported between different compartments within the cell itself, as well as from cells to their environment for the proteins to carry out their functions where they are needed.

Briefly, proteins are synthesized by ribosomes from mRNA templates and are then brought to where they are needed via protein targeting signals attached to these proteins. Proteins are brought into the nucleus and other organelles (such as the mitochondria), or remain in the cytoplasm, or are secreted out of the cell (via the secretory pathway involving the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, and vesicles).

Being able to elucidate protein traffic within cells helps us understand how cellular processes work. This is very useful as it helps scientists identify what errors in the normal process are responsible for certain diseases. If proteins are not transported to their proper localizations, it could cause problems such as the loss of certain cellular functions that the protein facilitates and the excess accumulation of said protein, which could cause all sorts of complications (such is the case for Alzheimer's disease).

In terms of techniques used to study protein trafficking and localization, fluorescent tags and fluorescence microscopy are commonly used. Proteins of interests are usually exogenously expressed along with fluorescent tags (or other tags) and viewed microscopically to determine where they are localized after translation. Co-immunoprecipitation may also be used, as it determines whether a protein binds or interacts with the protein of interest. This can be used when trying to find what protein is involved in trafficking other proteins. Of course, mutation may also be used in support of co-immunoprecipitation. When a protein is mutated, it would be unable to perform its original function due to differences in amino acid composition and structure. This can confirm whether or not a suspected transport protein is indeed responsible for protein trafficking, as it cannot transport the protein once it has been mutated.

In "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," who is coming over Jordan to carry the speaker home?

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is an African-American spiritual, a song written in a distinctive style combining Christianity with the slave experience. Spirituals are influenced by African musical traditions. While spirituals were originally monodic (all singers sang a single melody in unison), they have evolved to include intricate choral harmonies. 

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" may actually have been written by Wallis Willis, a member of the Choctaw tribe. It was popularized by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University and became increasingly popular in the 1960s as part of a folk and protest song movement. 

The song is narrated in the first person and takes the form of direct address, with the speaker asking the "chariot" to swing low and "carry me home." The home in question is Heaven. Specifically, the speaker states:

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see...

A band of angels coming after me,

The angels are crossing the Jordan River to take the speaker home.

What type of graph would be appropriate for visualizing a data set of dissolved oxygen vs number of fish observed?

Since we have two variables that may bear some relation to one another, a scatter plot is probably the best option for visualizing this data.

A scatter plot would show us whether there is any relationship between the two variables, and give us a place to start in devising models to analyze and predict that relationship.

For example, if all the points lie close to a straight line, we have a linear correlation, and we could run linear regressions to understand the relationship between the two variables. But if they follow a different shaped curve such as a logarithmic curve or a parabola, this won't be picked up in a linear regression even though it could be a real effect.

The hardest part in this case would be to determine which variable to put on the X axis, normally the independent variable, and which to put on the Y axis, normally the dependent variable. There are plausible theories that would make causation run both ways: Perhaps fish survive better in highly-oxygenated water, so more oxygen causes more fish; on the other hand, perhaps large fish populations deplete the oxygen in the water, so more fish causes less oxygen. Both effects could exist, and drive the system toward an equilibrium---in which case we might observe no correlation despite the two variables being closely related. (This happens in economics all the time; price and quantity are almost never directly correlated, even though price and quantity drive each other directly by supply and demand.)

What is the main conflict in Trouble by Gary Schmidt?

Stating the main conflict of this book is a bit difficult. Schmidt intricately weaves a few major conflicts throughout Trouble, and I believe different readers will see a different main conflict.  

One central conflict is definitely a man vs. nature conflict. Henry and the other three climbers struggle to climb Katahdin. As with all mountain climbing, it's dangerous. The group is risking their lives, so I would be remiss to think this part of the story is not a central conflict.  

There is conflict within the group, too. Henry wants to do the climb alone, but his best friend won't let him. Chay Chouan also wants to climb with the group. He is the guy who was supposedly driving the car that killed Henry's brother. Lastly, Henry's little sister wants to join the group. If you've grown up with younger siblings, you know there's conflict when they always want to "tag along."  

Internally, Henry struggles to come to terms with the real person his brother was. Henry idolized his older brother Franklin, but Henry learns Franklin wasn't all that wonderful to other people.  

There are other conflicts present throughout the book too, and a central theme of the book focuses on the book's title—Trouble. Trouble and conflict can't be avoided. The key to living well is appropriately managing and dealing with trouble.

What is the theme and purpose of the story "Royal Beatings" by Alice Munro?

The theme of "Royal Beatings," a complex story with multiple shifts in time (as Rose looks back many years later on her childhood), is the cruelty lurking beneath the surface in relationships and the way that cruelty can come to the surface so quickly. At the end of the story, Flo, Rose's stepmother, administers a "royal beating" to Rose on a Saturday when Flo can't go to town. Munro writes of Flo's emotions that day, "The wrangle with Rose has already commenced, has been going on forever, like a dream that goes back and back into other dreams." Flo's reasons for beating Rose seem to arise partly out of her own frustration, with her restive feelings in early spring and her anger over customers' unpaid bills, but Flo's rage also seems to arise almost out of her unconscious, like a dream. The story recounts the horrific yet mundane ritual in which Flo asks Rose's father to beat Rose and then makes up for the beating with a tray of delicious and lovingly prepared foods.

In a similar way, the story tells about the senseless beating the butcher, Tyde, receives from young men in the town because they hear the rumor he impregnated his daughter, who is deformed from having had polio. They beat and whip him until his night clothes and the snow around him turn red, and he dies shortly thereafter. The men in town are moved to extreme violence by the whisperings of a rumor, which is almost definitely false. A year after they are convicted, the young men who carried out the beating are set free.

The purpose of this story is to reveal the violence that lurks behind the surface of ordinary lives and the ways people use violence to vent their own frustrations. Flo vents her frustrations on Rose, yet she clearly also loves her stepdaughter; the "useless young men" in town beat the butcher, even though they don't even particularly care what he did with his family. People resort to beatings and violence with little provocation or reason.

In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, what makes Gulliver leave his house?

Gulliver leaves his childhood home in Nottinghamshire in order to acquire an education.  He attends a school in Cambridge called Emanuel College from age fourteen to seventeen.  After this, as the third of five sons, he is sent to be an apprentice to a doctor in London.  He studies as much as possible, but he eventually leaves this home in order to continue his formal education in medicine at Leyden.  When he returns to London, he leaves home again, at the suggestion of the man he had formerly apprenticed, in order to be the doctor on board the Swallow, a ship on which Gulliver travels for over three years. 

Later, after Gulliver marries and sees his medical practice fail, he leaves home to go to sea again and travels for six years more.  At this time, he determines to remain at home, but when he cannot make another business work, he goes, again, to sea, and thus begins his journey to Lilliput.

In The Joy Luck Club (Chapter 1 to 8): With reference to the life and experiences of An-mei, discuss how the writer conveys the importance of...

An-mei's story, "Scar," speaks to the importance of tradition and the way in which it marks people. She says that her mother was a ghost, someone the family wanted to forget because she had brought shame to the family by becoming the concubine of a man. Her grandmother told An-mei when she was a young child, "When you lose your face, An-mei...it is like dropping a necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it" (page 44). An-mei remembers the time when her mother left the house in shame, as a number-three concubine, and wanted to take An-mei with her, which the grandmother prohibited. At this moment, An-mei spilled a vat of hot soup on herself, which caused her to have a scar on her neck. This scar is a memory of her mother, which An-mei carries with her even when the actual memory of her mother has been forgotten. The scar is also a symbol of the way in which An-mei has been marked by tradition and history. Though she doesn't remember her mother after her mother leaves, she is forever marked by the connection to her mother and her mother's past.

Later, when her mother returns, An-mei sees her mother slit her arm and pour her own blood into the soup to try to save her grandmother's life, in vain. An-mei thinks, "This is how a daughter honors her mother...You must peel off your skin, and that of her mother, and her mother before her" (page 48). In other words, a daughter is forever connected to her mother and her ancestors through her own skin. This is the way in which tradition and culture forever affect An-mei and the women in her family.