Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Magnificent World of Mosses

We step on them everyday. They surround us yet we pay no attention. As I was walking to the school this morning, thinking of what to do for a blog, I noticed all the little fuzzy green stuff in between the cracks of pavement, and then I looked up to find it on the trees, and really all over the place! I realized I never really gave much thought to mosses. They may be small and inconspicuous, but they are actually very important! How, you might ask? You're just about to find out.
Mosses are called Bryophytes (their classification). Lets briefly examine the four major moss groups....well, okay, lets mostly examine one of them. Go to this site about Bryophytes to learn more on your own.

Sphagnopsida
Otherwise known as "peat mosses," these are actually some of the most important types of moss around. What's so great about peat moss? How about fuel! Yes, in Ireland, peat moss is burned for fuel and unlike burning fossil fuels, it can be a renewable resource.


On a more personal note, peat moss is helping to fund my education!!!! What?! Yes, that's right...peat moss is essential in the growth of my dad's cranberry bogs. Cranberry vines grow in very acid soils on water-logged peat moss covered with lots of sand. And no, bogs are not always covered in water...in fact, the bogs only look like the picture at the left when you harvest them (which is of my sister and her high-school boyfriend). But this is about moss, not cranberries...so on to the next great thing about peat moss!

Peat moss is also used for its antiseptic and absorptive properties. In Russia and Northern Europe, peat moss is heat treated so that it absorbs oil but not water, and for over 20 years it has been used to mop up small-scale oil spills! Fantastic! Peat moss is a habitat saver! It also purifies air and removes odors when mixed with bacteria that break down the stink, and can filter a whole bunch of other stuff, including septic tank sludge. And forget those horrible packing peanuts...use peat!

Since peat absorbs so well (it absorbs better than a sponge), Native Americans used to use it to line diapers and menstrual pads. And because of its antiseptic properties, Rusty Peat Moss was also used to treat diaper rash! Wow...diaper rash treatment and diaper in one...those guys were freakin' smart.










Andreaeopsida
Otherwise known as "Lantern Mosses." Can you tell why by the picture? I think these are the kinds I saw on my walk from the parking lot to the school this morning. These mosses can get majorly dried out and still survive. They grow exclusively on the surface of rocks, and are the most "primitive mosses." Oh wait...looks like they only grow in cold climates usually...and there are only about 100 species...okay...my search for the mosses I saw continues....

Polytrichopsida


AKA "Nematodontous Mosses." I really had a hard time finding anything on this moss. Aha! Just found something. This moss is found in coniferous forests at a variety of elevations. It also has to have a male and female plant to reproduce, unlike other mosses. The only thing I could find a use for it is for stuffing upholstery.


(picture is not of Nematodontous moss...it's peat moss. Just thought it would be funny to put here)

Bryopsida
Also called "Arthrodontous Mosses." Okay, here it is....95% of mosses belong to this subclass. This must be where my sidewalk moss lies. These are the "true mosses." Truly fabulous.

How often can you see the whole island chain growing in moss?!
How else is moss important?
I've discussed most of the economic importance of moss, and peat moss is truly a winner in that category. Moss is also important ecologically. Mosses help control water balance, nutrient flow, and acidity in soil. This is why it's usually found in your store-bought bags of potting soil. When we have horrible rainstorms, mosses keep the soil in place. And especially in Hawaii, they maintain high humidity (for happy orchids!). Birds and mice and other animals can use it for nesting materials and shelter.
Mosses (and lichens and liverworts) also help let us know what is going on with our environment over a long period of time. Their tissues can be sampled to reveal pollutants that have been in the air. Some can also absorb chemicals in the soil.
Here's a great site on the importance of mosses, liverworts, and lichens.
And that concludes my lesson on mosses. Maybe you'll show a little more appreciation for it the next time you squish it with the bottom of your shoe. I know I will!











Thursday, February 15, 2007

Life Cycle Of A Cockroach


Hawaii is filled with cockroaches, flying over our heads in the night and getting into our cookie jars if we leave the lid off. Residents of Hawaii must constantly fight the battle against the cockroaches as they weasle their way into our luggage, cars, and homes. Often, I see more than one form of cockroach...some are very small and look very different from the huge flying ones, and then occasionally I see those creepy looking little egg sacks hanging out in the corner of an unused object. This brought forth the interesting question....What is the life cycle of a cockroach???
Wow, there's even a site that describes the whole cycle with pictures...totally cool.
I guess to learn the life cycle of a cockroach we must first learn a bit about insects. Insects are Arthropods (their classification), which means that they have jointed legs. All insects have jointed legs and bodies. Insect bodies have 3 segments, 6 legs, and a set of antennae. Most insects go through metamorphosis, which is how they completely change their color, size, and shape as they go through their life cycle. Some insects have four phases of development (complete metamorphosis) and others have three (simple or incomplete metamorphosis).

The cockroach has three stages of development, or incomplete metamorphosis. The egg, the nymph, and the adult. A dragonfly also has these three stages of development!
The Life Cycle of a Cockroach:
EGG
Cockroaches lay ugly little brown egg cases that look like combs with a bulging handle. Each egg case contains 16-40 fertilized eggs that are laid by the female cockroach in dark, warm and humid places. This is why we commonly find them in small crevases in cupboards. This egg case, called an ootheca keeps the eggs from drying out. In Hawaii, these egg cases are deposited all over the place, but other types of cockroaches carry them until they hatch (ours are more of a nuisance). The eggs take 6-7 weeks to hatch, so if you see one of these I recommend getting rid of it right away! They can also lay about 8 cases a year. Female cockroaches can produce 5-30 of these cases in their lifetime, which means you could have up to 120 of those little buggers running around your house due to one cockroach!
NYMPH
Once the egg hatches after 6-7 weeks, a cute little soft, white nymph emerges, which quickly hardens and turns brown after exposure to air. These little buggers don't have wings yet so they wont be flying onto your face in the middle of the night in this stage (can you tell I've had a frightful experience with 'em?!). These little nymphs only have simple eyes (not compound), and their bodies are protected by a waxy outer skin called the cuticle. Before the nymphs become adults, they'll shed their outer skin (moult) about 8 times...meaning that you'll be eating cockroach skin in your cereal if you don't close that bag tightly! Ewww... And each time they shed their skin they become more like the adult (hence the tiny little nymphs and big huge ones we see).

ADULT
At last, after about 9-13 months, the cockroach is capable of flying onto my face in the night. It is fully developed and can fly (in Hawaii) and run all over the house super-fast. There are 18 different species of cockroaches in Hawaii. The most common, also known as "da B52 Bomber Type" is the American Cockroach. These guys can live up to five years, and can live without they're heads for up to a month, so don't go thinking that the awesome karate chop guillotine with your butcher's knife worked!! They'll also eat just about anything, including the paste on your envelopes! Yuck.
Here's a great local opinion about the cockroach called "Fear da Roach." It's pretty funny.
There's a thousand different websites with amazing facts and abilities of cockroaches with I encourage you to google and check out. So there you have it, the complete life cycle of a cockroach!
Oh yeah, and check out this crazy new idea...cockroach birth control, which involves more gene alterations...hmmm....

Thursday, February 8, 2007

The Moon Hoax:The Real Scientific Facts


So I was looking at information about the moon, and decided to google it. What I came up with were tons of articles about "the moon hoax" in which a whole bunch of people believe we didn't walk on the moon! Apparently some people believe that it was all a hoax to appear to be ahead of Russia in the space program. Interesting. Well, I decided to look at what they thought was fake and find out the scientific reasoning to explain the answers! Here's a site that tries to explain the science behind the confusion. All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th, 2001 when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? And people believed it.



What is the scientific facts that back up the claim that Astronauts did walk on the moon?

1. People thought the pictures were fake because there were no stars in the sky and film couldn't survive the vaccuum and heat.

-Have you ever taken a picture of the moon or tried to photograph the milky way on a clear night? The moon gets so small in the picture that you can barely see it, and you can never see the stars. Why? Because most of the photos were in bright light to show the astronaut in the picture, which washes out the stars in the background. Your camera must also be set where the shutter stays open for a long time. If you've ever had a camera that takes pictures in very low light, you know that it must stay very still for a long time so that the film can pick up more light. If they were to get the stars in the background, the astronaut would have looked very fuzzy. See Astrophotography for taking pictures of night stars. It can be done, but not with anyone else that moves at all in the picture! And here's a site that tells about the camera used on the moon and the special film and equipment they used.

2. People don't believe that the moon buggy could have fit in the landing module.


-Come on people, with the technology these days, we can fit anything anywhere with a little ingenuity. This cool little buggy folds up like a lawn chair. The "Lunar Roving Vehicle" (LRV) folded up into a very small package to fit into the pie-shaped confines of Quad 1 of the lunar module...which was about the size of a large suitcase. Nowadays students can compete in a Great Moonbuggy Race on earth where they require the buggy built to fold up into a 4 foot cube.

3. People think that someone had to be running the camera that followed the path of the lunar module back into the sky.

-Once again, people have no faith in technology. A lunar rover equipped with a camera was left on the surface of the moon to photograph the various surfaces of the moon, and could be controlled from Earth! Check out this cool Rover they used to explore the Kiluea Caldera!
4. People think that the American Flag couldn't have been waving in the wind because there is no wind.

-NASA astronauts and experts thought of this fact before they landed on the moon, so they put a horizonal bar at the top to hold the flag out. You can see from the picture that there is a bar at the top. And of course, in space, the flag rippled after the astronauts put it in the ground because there is no force acting against it, so it will continue to ripple a lot longer than it would on earth!


There are a lot more claims that it was a hoax, and you can check out the theories here. So what do you think? Do you believe that the landing was real or a hoax? It's easy to think of it as a conspiracy, because with technology these days, they can really fake a lot with the right facts and information.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

GMO Woes...REAL Effects of GMOs on Humans


In our last class, we watched the beginning of The Future of Food. I have seen this before, so I have a question that is not answered by the video in detail. The video discussed a woman's allergic reaction to the GMO food, but there is still debate as to whether the genetic modification of the food is what causes the reaction. So my question for this week's blog is: What KNOWN effects do GMOs have on humans through documented and scientific study?

Most of the websites I visited for information tended to say things like "possible" effects. However, I did find a good site that showed documented possible problems that can be found on this GMO site.

HEALTH RISKS
We are still not so sure about consumption of GMOs and their effects on humans. There are a lot of strange things in GMO foods that are not normally found in any foods, such as a whole bunch of new proteins.

Relief! Well, okay, just a bit of relief to know that the FDA requires scientific evidence to prove that there is not an allergenic substance in the GMO food you eat, and they do require labels on GMO foods that could cause allergic reactions. However, there's so much new crazy things being injected into the DNA of our foods, who knows what kinds of new allergic reactions could show up (okay, not much relief).

Here's a few things we've found out about GMOs that are supposed to keep the population from starving to death:

  • Soybeans genetically modified with a gene from the brazil nut. Peanut allergies ring a bell??





  • The Bovine Growth Hormone (BHG)...want mammary cancer and a whole bunch of other problems? Drink BHG Milk! Here's the facts.






  • Tobacco genetically engineered to produce gamma-linolenic acid also produce a highly toxic substance...another reason to quit smoking...it may kill you even quicker these days.






  • GM Maize field in the Phillipines...now this is a good one: A whole village suddenly fell ill with respiratory problems, fever, intestinal and skin ailments. Turns out there was a field of GM maize 100 meters away from all the people who got sick. The residents were tested later and it turned out that they had the antibodies expressed in the GM maize in their blood samples. However, they could all have been experiencing "Influenza," but who knows....they weren't able to follow up on it because of course the government wouldn't fund it. Hmmm...

HOW DO I GET AWAY FROM EATING GMO FOODS???


Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the Organic Consumers Association has this to say:


"Most GMOs are used in processed foods and for animal feed," says Cummins, "If you stick to a whole foods diet, you should be able to avoid GMOs."

The Center for Food Safety can give you a better idea of what is going on with our food these days.

NOT SO WONDERFUL AFTER ALL

And for a little "haha KARMA" for the Monsanto team , a new press release explains that the Roundup Ready Soybeans are more succeptible to drought than conventional soybeans, and they lost more soybeans than regular farmers did during drought! So much for ending the starvation problem, Monsanto. And all hear this...studies are showing that GM crop yields are lower than, or at best equivalent to yields from non-GMO crops. So really, messing with nature isn't exactly feeding the planet...it's feeding the problems.