Thursday, January 25, 2007

animal cell thing





An animal cell is just like a computer. The plasma membrane is like the shell of the computer to protect the internal parts of the computer.The CUP is like the nucleus of the computer as it controls all the activities of the computer.The nucleolus is like the needles on the cpu(nucleus).The needles are in charge of making all signals needed for the computer to work.The ribosomes are the signals that the nucleolus made. The main board is the lysosome. It "digest" singnals into actual commands for the computer to work. While the lysosome digest excess food into energy by its enzymes.The golgi aparatus is the wires all over the computer.It transfers signals all over the computer.Just like the golgi aparatus tranfering molecules by packing them into vesicles. The rough endoplasmic reticulum is the "signal senders" on the mother board.It helps the mother board to transfer signals around the computer.The power plug is the mitochondria of the animal cell because it provide power for the computer to work.Same with mitochondira which release energy through cellular respirations.

Monday, January 8, 2007

An interesting fact


The phrase "warm-blooded creatures" actually not referred to those creatures with warm blood temperatures. The word "warm-blooded" actually referred to the abilities of some organisms to maintain constant internal body temperatures through processes of Endothermy, Homeothermy and Tachymetabolism.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm-blooded). However, not only class aves and mammali are warm-blooded. Some plants are "
warm-blooded" too.For instance, the
skunk cabbage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Skunk_Cabbage). This interesting plant can actually continue to grow while the earth is covered by snow. This is because of its special ability to produce heat.(picture of skunk cabbage melting snow around it from:http://www.darbycreeks.org/skunk%20cabbage%2072.jpg). This ability is called Thermogenesis, which is defined as "the process of heat production in organisms"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenesis).This ability to generate heat enables it to grow and flower while the snow is still on the ground – even though the plant is not frost-resistant. This also prevents the frosts from forming on the flower of the plant. However, this plant did not developed this ability just to keep itself warm. Instead,it uses its thermogenic abilities to enable its flowers to bloom earlier so as to allow the pollinators to find the plant earlier.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Skunk_Cabbage).By heating up the plant can also render its scent more volatile, and therefore allowing its strong scent to disperse further to attract more insects as pollinators. This plant gives out an unpleasant strong odor which smells like rotten meat. However,insects love this smell and are attracted by it. The insects acted as pollinators to help to transfer pollen from one cabbage to another.(http://www.fcps.edu/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/skunk_cabbage.htm).This interesting plant can be found in eastern North America and also in northeastern China and Japan. Additionally, from my own knowledge, this plant had appeared before in an old movie '
"Dennis the Meanace".

Credits: all sources of informations are written in ( ) brackets.