alive

for outsmarting annoying assholes

I'm a science nerd so here's me talking about stuff I read in textbooks in my spare time even though it's way higher then my grade level oops lol. Anyway, learn some cool stuff.

also, unedited.
-

"Bacteria are either classified as gram-positive or gram-negative," Mr. Lazic starts as he pulls up the lesson. "We can determine this based on the gram-stain. Gram-positive bacterium has a thick peptidoglycan layer and a layer of plasma membrane, however, gram-negative bacterium has a thinner peptidoglycan layer because it also has an outer membrane as well as an inner membrane."

He flips to the next slide with a picture.

"Quick reminder from yesterday's lesson that peptidoglycan is made up of polysaccharide linked together by peptide bridges."

Everyone stares cluelessly and this he picks up on so he elaborates more.

"The N-acetyglucosamine and N-acetymuramic units attached by chemical bonds?"

"Did you guys go over yesterday's lesson with the supply teacher?"

We all shake our head. He slowly shakes his top and groans. "We're already two days behind lessons because of school trips and things. I don't have time to do two lessons so in groups that you always sit in, learn together the two lessons and come to me for any questions. I have to mark tests from two weeks ago, i'm so behind."

I think Mr. Lazic is having a crisis, yikes.

Everyone gets up to sit with their groups. Most people have learnt to be friends with their group by now, I'm still struggling a bit between annoying ass Ansel and the brainless Carson. Nice kid but a struggle to do biology work with. Who even knows why he's in this class.

"Okay bio nerds," Carson says as Tori and I sit down. "Explain whatever the hell the teacher said."

"You think I know?" Tori says.

"I mean I don't really know what he was saying but I do think they have something to do with sugar chains," I say vaguely. They all stare. "I skimmed over the lesson yesterday."

"Ok so what the hell is a," he pauses to read his ipad. "Peptide bridge?"

I read the paragraph. "It literally says in the text," I say dumbfounded. "They connect the polysaccharides like chains. They're made up of four amino acids which would be, L-alanine, D-alanine, D-glutamic acid and either lysine or diaminopimelic acid."

I read a little bit more before explaining some more. "The bridges are covalently connected. Which makes sense because they're connected by chemical bonds."

"Covalent?" Carson questions.

"Yes, that's grade ten science. The sharing of electrons between atoms. We did this in Lewis for diagrams."

"You're saying all these words. What do they mean?" Tori asks.

"Well the cell wall in bacteria is made up of peptidoglycan and I just explained what makes up peptidoglycan. Keeping in mind that bacteria has cell walls along with archaea, which don't even have peptidoglycan in their cell walls, but both are prokaryotes due to them lacking nuclei but that's besides the point. The cell wall is important to withstand something called osmotic pressure. And that's what all this means."

"And this guy wanted us to learn this our self?" Tori groans, talking about the teacher.

"I'm still confused."

"Mind explaining osmotic pressure?" Ansel groans.

"You could all just read the text," I say lamely. "I mean, it's not like I know this stuff I just read ahead and took my time to understand it, and actually, teaching it to you guys kind of helps."