3.6.1 Identifying the pregnacy Our description of the developing embryo has, so to speak, detached it from its mother. But we should remember that on the other end of the placenta is a woman whose reaction to her pregnancy may lie almost anywhere in the scale of human emotion, and whose behaviour during her pregnancy will have an enormous effect on its outcome. This section attempts to look at the pregnancy from the mother's point of view. Of course, it cannot possibly be applicable to all women in all pregna
3.1 How fertilization happens Now that we have dealt with the basic biology, we can resume and give more detail to our story, and return to where we left it: fully mature, strongly swimming sperm have been deposited in the vagina, and will begin their race to the newly ovulated egg. 4.6 Hormonal control of egg production As you can see from the preceeding section, hormones play a crucial role in the maturation of the oocyte. Figure 3 showed you how levels of oestogen and progestogen vary throughout the menstrual cycle, and suggested that hormone balance is important for a woman's fertility, but you can now see how subtle the control really is. Cells have to develop sensitivity to hormones at the times when the hormones are likely to be present, otherwise the entire operation will fail. 8 Summary The rate at which water infiltrates into the ground depends on the permeability of the rocks and the state of the ground surface. Below the ground surface there is an unsaturated zone which has air in the pore spaces, and a saturated zone which has all the pores filled with water. The water table is the boundary between the unsaturated zone and the saturated zone, and is the level at which water stands in wells. Water below the water table is called groundwa 6 Permeability It is important to distinguish clearly between porosity and permeability. Porosity is a measure of how much water can be stored in a rock, whereas permeability is a measure of the properties of a rock which determine how easily water and other fluids can flow through it (see Section 4). Permeability depends on the exte Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to: using information from wells, the topography of the ground and a water table contour map, carry out the following: interpret cross-sections, calculate the thickness of the unsaturated zone, and the rate of groundwater flow; deduce the direction in which groundwater is flowing; and estimate the depth to the saline interface in a coastal area from the height of the water table; list the types of rock that usually make g Introduction Energy from sources other than fossil or nuclear fuels is to a large extent free of the concerns about environmental effects and renewability that characterise those two sources. Each alternative source supplies energy continually, whether or not we use it. Many alternative sources of energy have been used in simple ways for millennia, e.g. wind and water mills, sails, wood burning – but only in the last two centuries has their potential begun to be exploited on an industrial scale. Except Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit: Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Introduction Energy from sources other than fossil or nuclear fuels is to a large extent free of the concerns about environmental effects and renewability that characterise those two sources. Each alternative source supplies energy continually, whether or not we use it. Many alternative sources of energy have been used in simple ways for millennia, e.g. wind and water mills, sails, wood burning – but only in the last two centuries has their potential begun to be exploited on an industrial scale. Except 4 Locating high-enthalpy geothermal fields The search for potentially useful geothermal fields focuses initially on locating rocks that have been chemically altered by natural geothermal fluids, as well as looking for obvious surface features of geothermal activity such as geysers and hot springs. Measurements of fluid flow through the field allow estimation of its likely economic potential. When a promising resource has been located exploration wells are drilled. However, given the high pressures and temperatures typical of a g 6 Summary Nuclear power generation results from fission of uranium isotopes when bombarded by neutrons. Conventional burner reactors require relatively scarce uranium-235, whereas fast breeder reactors (which have not yet been developed on any significant scale) would exploit more abundant uranium-238. In the early 21st century over 400 nuclear — mainly burner — reactors produced 16% of global electricity demand. The UK played a leading role in nuclear power developments during the 1950 3.2 Uranium occurrence and ore deposits In igneous rocks, uranium is more abundant in granites (~3.5 ppm) than in basalts (~1 ppm). The large size of the uranium atom prevents it from easily entering the structures of common rock-forming minerals, so it is an incompatible element that tends to remain in magmas until a late stage of crystallisation, when it enters minor minerals, or even the uranium oxide, uraninite (UO2). In suitable circumstances, following fractional crystallisation of uranium-rich granitic magm 4.1 Global coal reserves Having looked in detail at how coal is mined, this section focuses on those areas of the world that produce it. It begins by looking at how and why reserves of coal are distributed throughout the UK and Europe, before reviewing the current global reserves of coal. 2.4 Modern mine planning Once the geological data gathered during the exploration phase has been evaluated, geologists will estimate the quality and quantity of coal present. Coal reserves (in tonnes) are calculated from volume × density (Section 5). The volume of coal is controlled by seam area and seam thickness. Hence: tonnage = se 1.5 The physics and chemistry of coal formation Coal is a type of sediment made up mainly of lithified plant remains. But how does spongy, rotting plant debris become a hard seam of coal? As discussed earlier, plant material growing in mires dies, and then rots under anoxic conditions to form peat (by the process of humification). With time, the mire becomes covered with layers of sediment, the weight of which squeezes water and gas out of the pore spaces and compacts the vegetation. As subsidence allows deposition of further mire†1.3.2 Peat formation in raised mires Mires can also form inland within low-lying depressions, provided the rate of precipitation exceeds the rate of evaporation (Figure 4a). Peat is impermeable and so its accumulation progressively impedes drainage. This attribute gives mires the ability to maintain a water table independent of the area surrounding them. 2 Odd one out The image below shows models of four mammals: Rhinoceros Whale Elephant Hippopotamus 7.3 Regulation of secretion Up to this point we have made a clear distinction between constitutive secretion and regulated secretion. In reality however the border is a bit more blurred. For example, many molecules are constitutively expressed on the surface of a cell, but their expression is increased in response to a particular stimulus. In other words, surface expression is determined by both constitutive and regulated secretion. Constitutive secretion is regulated primarily at the level of protein synthesis, whereas 6.2 Endocytosis Fluid-phase uptake by pinocytosis can be broadly categorised according to the size of the endocytic vesicle and this also relates to how the vesicle is coated (Figure 35). The rate of internalisation is directly proportional to (i) the concentration of extracellular molecules, (ii) the volume enclosed by the vesicle and (iii) the ra 4.5 Summary Targeting sequences at the N-terminus of proteins direct translation across the ER, and act as signals for import to the nucleus, mitochondrion and chloroplasts. Sequences at the C-terminus control traffic through the ER and the Golgi and to peroxisomes. Glycosylation is directed by signal sequences that act as targets for N-linked glycosylation in the ER and O-linked glycosylation in the Golgi apparatus. Glycosylation and remodelling of polys
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