Based on the diagram, choose the set of elements to complete the photosynthesis summary equation:

Satellites are widely used in many scientific studies. They allow large areas to be monitored easily. They can measure the spread of an ash plume, such as the one from Eyjafjallajokull’s 2010 eruption, as well as SO2 emissions. In SAR and thermal imaging can monitor large, scarcely populated areas where it would be too expensive to maintain instruments on the ground.

What type of geologist’s research would benefit most from using a satellite as described?

Calcium phosphate is an important mineral that strengthens bones and teeth. What is the most likely outcome for an individual who does NOT receive enough calcium in his or her diet?

The Human Skeletal System

Humans are vertebrates, animals having a vertebral column or backbone. They rely on a sturdy internal frame that is centered on a prominent spine. The human skeletal system consists of bones, cartilage, ligaments and tendons and accounts for about 20 percent of the body weight.

The living bones in our bodies use oxygen and give off waste products in metabolism. They contain active tissues that consume nutrients, require a blood supply and change shape or remodel in response to variations in mechanical stress.

Bones provide a rigid framework, known as the skeleton, that support and protect the soft organs of the body. The skeleton supports the body against the pull of gravity. The large bones of the lower limbs support the trunk when standing. The skeleton also protects the soft body parts. The fused bones of the cranium surround the brain to make it less vulnerable to injury. Vertebrae surround and protect the spinal cord and bones of the rib cage help protect the heart and lungs of the thorax. Bones work together with muscles as simple mechanical lever systems to produce body movement.

Bones contain more calcium than any other organ. The intercellular matrix of bone contains large amounts of calcium salts, the most important being calcium phosphate. When blood calcium levels decrease below normal, calcium is released from the bones so that there will be an adequate supply for metabolic needs. When blood calcium levels are increased, the excess calcium is stored in the bone matrix. The dynamic process of releasing and storing calcium goes on almost continuously.

Hematopoiesis, the formation of blood cells, mostly takes place in the red marrow of the bones. In infants, red marrow is found in the bone cavities. With age, it is largely replaced by yellow marrow for fat storage. In adults, red marrow is limited to the spongy bone in the skull, ribs, sternum, clavicles, vertebrae and pelvis. Red marrow functions in the formation of red blood cells, white blood cells and blood platelets.

As stated in the passage, without recycling some rare metals may become unavailable in the future. If metal recycling increases to the point that most metal is recycled, which other impact would most likely be seen?

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth. Mining is required to obtain any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes or created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water.

Mining of stones and metal has been a human activity since pre-historic times. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, and final reclamation of the land after the mine is closed.

Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Hence, most of the world's nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact. Work safety has long been a concern as well, and modern practices have significantly improved safety in mines.

Levels of metals recycling are generally low. Unless future end-of-life recycling rates are stepped up, some rare metals may become unavailable for use in a variety of consumer products. Due to the low recycling rates, some landfills now contain higher concentrations of metal than mines themselves.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining

) What is the most likely reason that the marble reached a higher distance above ground in test #4 than in all of the other tests?

Marble on a String Experiment

According to the passage, which blood glucose level would most likely trigger a release of glucagon from the pancreas?

Homeostatic Regulation of Blood Glucose

Homeostasis refers to an organism’s ability to maintain a nearly constant internal environment within a narrow range that supports life. Examples of homeostasis in humans and other mammals include regulation of: body temperature, blood pH, and concentrations of ions and glucose in the blood. These homeostatic mechanisms actively maintain a stable internal environment even while there are changes constantly taking place in the organism’s external environment.

One example of homeostasis in humans involves regulation of the blood glucose concentration. After a meal, glucose levels in the blood may rise above the normal set point of about 90 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood plasma. Beta cells within the pancreas detect the rise in blood glucose and respond by secreting insulin into the bloodstream. The insulin acts as a signal to certain cells, mainly liver, fat, and muscle cells, to increase uptake of glucose. The increased uptake of glucose from the blood lowers the blood glucose level back to the normal set point. The glucose that has been taken up by cells will be used for energy or converted to glycogen, a storage polysaccharide.

If the level of blood glucose drops too low, such as between meals, pancreatic alpha cells are stimulated to secrete glucagon into the blood. Glucagon is a hormone that signals cells in the liver to convert glycogen to glucose, which is released back into the bloodstream to return the blood glucose level to the normal set point.

James hypothesizes that many different types of crust exist on the Earth’s surface.

How might James design an investigation to test this hypothesis?

The Layers of the Earth

The Earth is made up of four distinct and unique layers: crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. The crust of the Earth is the outermost layer and is made of solid rock. The mantle is beneath the crust and is made of very hot, dense rock. At 1800 miles thick, the mantle of the earth is the largest of Earth’s four layers. Because it is so thick, it has a large variation in temperature. The outermost portion of the mantle (the part that is closest to the crust) has a temperature of 500 to 900 degrees Celsius. The interior of the mantle (the part closest to the outer core) reaches more than 4000 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, some of the rocks melt, creating a semi-molten rock called magma.

Which of the following statements is best supported by the data in the graphs?

Baird Mountain Dall Sheep: Number of Rams vs. Number of Ewes

The law of conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. During the course of a reaction, the amount of an element present does NOT change. This means that for a chemical equation to be balanced, the total number of atoms of each element has to be the same on both sides of the equation.

Balance the given equation by choosing the correct coefficient for Cl2.

2 Na + ____ Cl2 → 2NaCl

One of the fastest roller coasters in the world has an average speed of 38 ms. If the ride lasts for 2 min⁡ and 20 s, how long is the track?

Speed and Velocity

Speed and velocity are often used interchangeably in everyday use. Even though their equations are very similar, there is a distinct difference when using these terms in a physics context. Speed is based on distance, whereas velocity is based on displacement. Distance is how much ground an object has covered during its motion. Displacement is how far an object is away from its starting position. The two formulas are given in the following table.

Suppose Charles Darwin was able to count the populations of finches on three small islands and record his findings in a table.

If Charles Darwin wanted to select one finch from each island for future study, how many different ways would he be able to select these finches?

Allopatric Speciatio

Speciation is the evolutionary process by which biological populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term speciation in 1906, but Charles Darwin was the first to describe the role of speciation in his 1859 book The Origin of Species.

There are four geographic modes of speciation in nature, based on the extent to which speciating populations are isolated from one another: allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric. Allopatric is the most observed mode of speciation. During allopatric speciation, a population splits into two geographically isolated populations. The isolated populations then undergo genotypic or phenotypic divergence as they become subjected to dissimilar selective pressures and as different mutations arise. When the populations come back into contact, they have evolved such that they are reproductively isolated and are no longer capable of exchanging genes

The Galápagos Islands are particularly famous for their confirmation of allopatric speciation. During Charles Darwin’s five weeks on the Galápagos Islands, he noticed that finches differed from one island to another. When he returned to England, his speculation on evolution deepened after experts informed him that these were separate species, not just varieties. Darwin's finches are now one of the most well-known examples of adaptive evolution and allopatric speciation discussed in biology today.

Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation

A patient walks into an outpatient clinic in the second week of 2017, what is the chance that they are experiencing influenza-like symptoms?

Percentage of Visits for Influenza-like Illness (ILI), 2016-2017 and Selected Previous Seasons

Which of the following plant crossings would have a possibility of producing an offspring with a white-colored flower?

Law of Dominance

For a gene that is expressed in a dominant and recessive pattern, homozygous dominant and heterozygous organisms will look identical (that is, they will have different genotypes but same phenotype); the recessive allele will only be observed in homozygous recessive individuals.

Mendel's law of dominance states that in a heterozygote, one trait will conceal the presence of another trait for the same characteristic. For example, when crossing true-breeding violet-flowered plants with true-breeding white-flowered plants, all of the offspring were violet-flowered, even though they all had one allele for violet and one allele for white. Rather than both alleles contributing to a phenotype, the dominant allele will be expressed exclusively. The recessive allele will remain latent but will be transmitted. The recessive trait will only be expressed by offspring that have two copies of this allele and these offspring will breed true when self-crossed.

) If a rock sample has 12.5% of its uranium−235 left, how old is the sample?

Using Radioactive Decay to Determine Geologic Age

The discovery of the natural radioactive decay of uranium in 1896 by Henry Becquerel, the French physicist, opened new vistas in science. In 1905, the British physicist Lord Rutherford -- after defining the structure of the atom -- made the first clear suggestion for using radioactivity as a tool for measuring geologic time directly; shortly thereafter, in 1907, Professor B. B. Boltwood, radiochemist of Yale University, published a list of geologic ages based on radioactivity. Although Boltwood's ages have since been revised, they did show correctly that the duration of geologic time would be measured in terms of hundreds-to-thousands of millions of years.

The next 40 years was a period of expanding research on the nature and behavior of atoms, leading to the development of nuclear fission and fusion as energy sources. A byproduct of this atomic research has been the development and continuing refinement of the various methods and techniques used to measure the age of Earth materials. Precise dating has been accomplished since 1950.

A chemical element consists of atoms with a specific number of protons in their nuclei but different atomic weights owing to variations in the number of neutrons. Atoms of the same element with differing atomic weights are called isotopes. Radioactive decay is a spontaneous process in which an isotope (the parent) loses particles from its nucleus to form an isotope of a new element (the daughter). The rate of decay is expressed in terms of an isotope's half-life, or the time it takes for one-half of a particular radioactive isotope in a sample to decay. Most radioactive isotopes have rapid rates of decay (that is, short half-lives) and lose their radioactivity within a few days or years. Some isotopes, however, decay slowly, and several of these are used as geologic clocks. The parent isotopes and corresponding daughter products most commonly used to determine the ages of ancient rocks are listed below:

) Sam has a mass of 68 kg. What is Sam’s approximate weight in newtons?

Mass vs Weight

Although the terms mass and weight are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Mass is the measure of how much matter is present in an object. Weight takes into account the effect that gravity has on an object. The relationship between weight and mass is represented in the following equation:

w=mg

w is the weight of an object in newtons (1 N=1 kg⋅ms2)

m is the mass of an object in grams

g is the gravitational force acting on the object in meters per second squared (on Earth, g≈9.81m/s2

What is the largest source of freshwater on the Earth?

Distribution of Water on the Earth

If 100,000 people represented all water on the Earth where would they be located?

) According to the central dogma of biology, which of the following best describes the process of transcription?

Central Dogma of Biology

The central dogma of molecular biology is an explanation of the flow of genetic information within a biological system. It was first stated by Francis Crick in 1958. The central dogma states that genetic information within DNA is used to make RNA through the process of transcription. The genetic information in the RNA is then used to make proteins through the process of translation.

Once this genetic information has passed into protein, it cannot revert back to DNA or RNA.

Any hurricane that is category 3 or higher is considered a major hurricane. Assuming the trends in the table are consistent, what is the probability that the next hurricane that hits the state of Connecticut is a major hurricane?

Hurricane Direct Hits on the Mainland US Coastline and for Individual States by Saffir/Simpson Category 1851-2015

The table, updated from Jarrell et al. (2001), shows the number of hurricanes affecting the United States and individual states, i.e., direct hits. The table shows that on the average, close to seven hurricanes every four years (~1.75 per year) strike the United States, while about three major hurricanes cross the US coast every five years (0.60 per year).

Category 3 or higher hurricanes are considered major hurricanes.

Which of the following best expresses the approximate change in number of reported measles cases from 2012 to 2014?

Reported Cases of Measles in the United States, 2000 - 2016