NAME: Christian Abella

CLASS: Science 3
DATE: 4/22/14
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

PROBLEM: If trisected, which piece of a planarian will regenerate first?

HYPOTHESIS: If trisected, then the midsection will regenerate first.

THEORY:

Planaria are flatworms that reproduce sexually. Because planaria are
hermaphrodites, which means that they have both reproductive systems,
female and male, they can both produce eggs. 2 worms would have to carry the
sperm to another planaria and both would need to lay the eggs. The offspring
will have genetic diversity between both planaria. The eggs would be fertilized
in the inside of the planaria or the outside of the planaria.

Planaria are flatworms that reproduce asexually as well when
conditions are less than ideal. When there is not enough resources or the
conditions of the environment are bad, or even if there isnt another planaria
around, planaria can reproduce by tail dropping or fragmentation. On a rock,
the planaria tightens the muscles and diverges until it splits apart. When a
planaria fragments, it divides into 3 things, the anterior, the middle, and the
posterior end. When they are produced, they are not genetically diverse and
are clones.

Planaria reproduce asexually by regeneration. The planaria contain
30% neoblasts, which are totipotent stem cells. Totipotent is when a cell can
turn into any cell. When the planaria splits, the neoblasts gets a signal to
gather together where the splitting happened creating a blastema. Then the
neoblasts start dividing and differentiating to create a replica of the piece that
split. If the planaria was trisected, the mid section would regenerate first
because it is the larger piece of the three and it would have the most neoblasts.












Data:


Conclusion:

In this lab we trisected a planaria flatworm into three pieces, an
anterior, a midsection, and a posterior. I hypothesized that the midsection
would regenerates first before the others. My data shows by day 9 the mid
section had regrown its tail and head back. At the 9
th
day the midsection was
the most pigmented The ghost tissues have regenerated mostly compared to
the other sections. In the whole 7
th
Grade 49% or 38 of 78 of the midsections
grew first. In 3
rd
period 7 of 13 or 54% of the mid sections grew first. In
conclusion, planaria will regenerate when trisected but the midsection will
regenerate the fastest.

Analysis:

During the planaria lab, our groups results and data were pretty valid,
but my own sketches werent very reliable because the planaria were hard to
accurately draw. Also it was not very valid because I was absent some days
when we were working on the planaria and could not do the days I missed.
Some data that was difficult to control were the amount of ghost tissue that
was regenerating during the process. One of the reasons that I have observed
that could be the reason that the midsection had the highest regeneration
rates, is that my group had cut the head and tail smaller than the midsection,
which would have the planaria to regenerate faster. It looked like many other
groups have done the same which would influence the outcome of the tests.

The planaria stem cells are different from human stem cells because
planarian stem cells are totipotent and human stem cells have different kinds.
23
54
23
37
49
14
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Anterior Mid Section
Posterior
Posterior
%

F
i
r
s
t

R
e
g
e
n
e
r
a
t
e
d

2014 Percent of Regeneration
3rd Period
7th Grade
In the embryonic stage, he human stem cells are totipotent then throughout
the process it slowly gets more limited. The human stem cells eventually
become adult stem cells, which are pluripotent that means that it can become
certain things. Planarian stem cells and human stem cells both regenerate
cells at a certain extent. Stem cells can also become other stem cells like in the
bone marrow.

There are less controversy about stem cells just recently because there
is more research and methods on how to create stem cells. In STAP scientists
put ordinary cells in stress to create stem cells. Scientists put common cells in
a source of stress like an acid pool and loosens the DNA in the cell and makes
it a stem cell. IPS is when scientists extract stem cells from an embryo and
uses them for research.


"What Are Stem Cells? - Craig A. Kohn." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 08
May 2014.

"Human Embryonic Stem Cells." Human Embryonic Stem Cells. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May
2014.

"How Do Stem Cells Work? IPS and STAP Cells or How to Create Artificial Stem Cells
from Natural Ones." YouTube. YouTube, 31 Jan. 2014. Web. 09 May 2014.