dissecting a frog

these are pictures that i’ve taken during the 4 Sc 2 frog-dissecting session

for us, the students of 4 Sc 1 last year, this is our second time

however, last year we got to dissect fish in addition to frog

dissecting the fish is pretty tough as we’ve (Lex and me) got to remove the fish scales before cutting it at the sides and i’ve gotta be careful of the bones

cockroaches were also there for us to dissect, but who dares, anyway?

certainly, the girls wouldn’t dare, but the guys?

ok, back to what happened today..

our Biology teacher brought 4 frogs which she asked her mom to buy

then, i asked her whether it’s dead or alive

she replied that her mom had put the frogs in the fridge after buying them and the frogs died of cold..

what?! but i guess dying from the freezing cold might be better than killing it with chloroform (what we did last year)

i came along when the 4 Sc 2 students of last year carried out this frog- dissecting thing

my objective is to snap photos of frog brain i attribute this to curiosity

after cutting the skin and the muscular wall of the abdomen, the internal organs came into view

no blood came flowing because the blood are just contained in the organs and the like, unless you dissect it wrongly

i was looking at this girl dissecting the frog, and then our Biology teacher was like ” Who wants to check their blood group?”

then, many of the students and this girl also went to her to get their blood group checked

for me, this is not something new

i’ve seen my classmates doing this in lower secondary i’m not sure if i had tried this 2 years ago..

she just left this frog here and went away =(

so, i went to the frog and took a look at its inside (pics above)

i asked our teacher to show me how to find the frog’s brain

what she told me to do was cruel, far too cruel

break the skull and remove pieces of the skull out like removing the broken shell pieces on a steamed egg

i can’t do it, just couldn’t and thoughts of people eating monkey brain entered my mind and i could somehow feel the pain of having someone doing exactly the same to me…

“don’t break open my skull, don’t look at my brain! ahhhh……….”

i tried to think of something less cruel……..but there’s just no other possible way, and i gave up on seeing the brain of a frog

i went to the others to check how they were doing, but none of them had got to the the brain yet…… they’re looking at the organs

i’ve looked at the organs enough already last year, and we ( Lex and me) were able to look at the reproductive system of the female frog that we dissected, there’s this stuff which is like the color of egg yolk (eggs in the ovaries)

i was told that snow jellies are made of these

yuck!!

this proves me wrong, so wrong

all these while when i’ve got a warm bowl of these placed in front of me, i thought that it’s made of female frog intestines

and not those normal frogs

frogs that live in the cold forest of Jiang Baishan mountainous region in Northeast China, that’s what those snow jelly salesperson say…

this time, i managed to see the testes (which i realized later on)

then, Alex came and started to try his best to have a glimpse of the brain

he didn’t show any sense of pity for the frog and was like knock, knock, knock on the skull and also trying some other means to see the brain

finally, after countless knocking and a lil bit of this and that, the brain is exposed!

i saw the brain which is like 5x smaller than the size of golf balls, but i didn’t take a photo of the brain

i just don’t know what came into me and somehow i just didn’t on my camera and snap!

pig brain

those of you reading this post might be like “what’s the big deal bout pig brain?” or maybe go “eww.. gross!’

anyways, i’ll give the photos here the honor to speak for themselves, first..

~ the hands which are holding the brain in these photos are my dad’s~

this idea came about when our Biology teacher taught us about the human brain; cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, hypothalamus and all

it didn’t really made me thought of this but somehow made a note in me to explore more bout brains

on another occasion, my mom bought a whole duck for dinner and all the unwanted parts of the duck is in a container which people normally use to rinse vegetables and the like

i was like passing by the sink and just stopped in my tracks to look at this unwanted parts of a duck…something caught my eye, it looks like the liver or stomach or heart of duck and i called my dad over (who was peeling fruits for himself, at the moment)

he came over, took a knife, told me that it’s the heart of a duck and cut it open into two

it looks kinda similar to the human heart, i’ll post the pictures later, when i’m free as i’m now busy preparing for the National Chemistry Quiz

~back to the pig brain~

when i was doing my Biology project, i went to wiki to find out more bout brains and soon enough i realised that the practice of consuming brains is rooted in a number of cultures

i copied and pasted the brain delicacies below from wiki

In the Southern United States canned pork brain in gravy can be purchased for consumption as food

the brain of animals also features in French cuisine such as in the dish tête de veau, or head of calf, with the full meal that includes the brain, tongue, and glands

similar delicacies from around the world include Mexican tacos de sesos made with cattle brain as well as squirrel brain in the US (South)

the Anyang tribe of Cameroon practiced a tradition in which a new tribal shief would consume the brain of a hunted gorilla while another senior member of the tribe would eat the heart

the Fore people of Papua New Guinea in which those close to the dead would eat the brain of the deceased to create a sense of immortality

WTH!

Indonesian cuisine specialty in Minangkabau cuisine also served beef brain in a gravy coconut milk named gulai otak (beef brain curry).

Roasted or fried goat brain is eaten in south India and some parts of north India

Norwegian cuisine includes smalahove where a singed lamb’s head, including the brain, tongue and eye, serves two people

before this, i thought that the chinese are the only ones that eat brains, i mean monkey brains..

on the other hand, this is what i’ve found while googling ‘pig brain’

pig brain poisonous

pig brain and eggplant frittata

i never knew that the gases of the brain matter of a pig are somehow hazardous to our health and i’ll never agree to the act of consuming brains of any animals or maybe… humans for cannibals??

bread mould

i finally decided to grow my own bread mould after Adzraai said somethin bout bread mould

it’s like an idea of my own to grow bread mould since last year, but I just didn’t feel like doing it….. until the day when Adzraai mentioned bout whether bread moulds can grow tall

and just like that, I suddenly felt the urge to perform this small experiment

initially, when I told my mom bout this, she was like “Ugh! gross”

then, ,my dad and sis seem to be quite interested too, and they told my mom to let me do it

and, she AGREED.

i took a piece of Gardenia bread that’s gonna expire in 2 days time, put it in a plastic container, moisten it slightly (not slightly, I guess)

VOILA!

…and after three weeks, this is IT!

-top view-

-bottom view-

three days after i moisten the bread and keep it sealed in a container, i saw patches of whitish mould on the surface of bread

later, signs of another kind of mould appeared, black patches here and there

i suppose that this might be the common types bread mould Penicillium or Aspergillus that we can usually find on expired bread or cake

now the black mould seems to be the dominant species on the bread

does this mean that the white mould is the weaker species which had lost in the competition??

guess so.

well, that’s where I’ve seen bread mould before

does the bread stinks??

i thought that it’ll not stink but it stinks, in a way

during the first two weeks the bread still smells like bread, but this week NO!

soon, i’m gonna try to take a closer look at the bread mould under a microscope and find out which type of bread mould it is

next, i’m gonna test the effects of light on bread mould =K