NAME: Spencer Ferguson

CLASS 4
DATE
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 can reproduce sexually. Planaria are
hermaphrodites meaning all planaria contain both male and female gonads.
Planaria reproduce sexually when two planaria exchange genetic information,
fertilizing the eggs of both. This is the preferred method because it makes genetic
diversity, meaning that one sickness could not wipe them all out (or at least its less
likely). This is one of the many things that make planaria unique and interesting
creatures.

Besides sexual reproduction, Planaria can also reproduce asexually when
conditions are less than ideal. They will either rip off their tail or fragmenting
themselves. This is called either tail dropping or fragmentation. They do this by
having their tails cling to a rock using hair-like structures known as celia, the front
moves forward and both halves grow into full planaria of their own. In certain
conditions, a planarian may rip itself apart, all the pieces contain neoblast and will
therefore grow into new planaria.

This is possible because of the neoblast (non-specialized stem cells) within
the planaria. When a planarian is injured, the neoblast heal the wound and even
replace missing body parts. They do this by quickly moving to the wound and
closing it with blastema before beginning to specialize into whatever cell is
necessary. The planaria are 30% neoblast. The neoblast are totipotent meaning
when a piece of the planarian is missing, they know what needs replacing. This is
how planaria regenerate and in some cases, clone.


CONCLUSION:

In this lab we trisected a Planarian. I hypothesized that the midsection would
regenerate first. My data shows by day 6 the midsection had formed a head and tail,
unlike any other piece. Out of all the first regenerated planaria, 49% were
midsections, making them the majority. In conclusion, planaria will regenerate
when trisected and the midsection will regenerate first.

ANALYSIS

I believe that my results were mostly valid. One of the few things that
effected the results was the uneven cutting of the planarian, making the tail much
longer than it should have been. This was difficult to control because of how the
planarian was moving when we cut it. In order to help with this, an improvement
that could be made might be cutting under the microscope, making it less difficult to
have accuracy. Because of this, our experiment is not fully reliable.

The biggest difference between human stem cells and neoblasts is the
totipotency that the neoblasts have while human stem cells are multipotent. This
means that the neoblasts can turn into any kind of cell while human stem cells are
limited in the cells they can turn into. The other difference is that because of the
totipotency of the planaria stem cells, planaria can rip themselves apart to create
clones while if a human were to rip themselves apart they would die. One major
similarity is that both the stem cells and the neoblasts can heal wounds, replacing
missing tissue.

Humans, very on in life far before they are even born, are made up of
totipotent stem cells. These totipotent stem cells can be used to heal wounds much
more effectively because of their totipotency. Some modern science has been trying
to heal wounds with stem cells however this is very difficult because the stem cells
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4th Period 7th grade
of people are multipotent. Because of this harvesting the right stem cells is very
difficult, because of this they have used the totipotent stem cells of an early human.
This would seem very good, we can extend human life by quite a long time with
access to these totipotent stem cells, however, controversy has arisen. This is
because many people believe they are killing people in the harvesting of these
people as the stem cells harvested could have become life. With the newest
technology, IPS and STAP, it is possible to turn the multipotent stem cells into
totipotent stem cells. Because of this, we can take cells from bone marrow
(responsible for making blood cells) and turn it into a totipotent stem cells. This will
hopefully give the world the ability to extend human life and heal many more
injuries than possible before.