michaelkim's blog

Introduction :

    The two main goals of this methods project was for us to practice creating the methods with our legend and to describe to our partner what you have done for them to try to replicate the work you have done. We had to take pictures of the plant and do some research to find where they were from. I have chosen the Camellia Japonica Jarvis Red because this plant really caught my eyes since it looked like the traditional flower of South Korea (Where I am originally from). In my methods, I wrote that it looked like the traditional Korean flower so if my partner researched how that looked like, it was very easy to find at the Durfee conservatory. This project was overall very interesting.

Today in class, we learned about the diels-alder reaction. It is when the two bonds combine together to form a ring with either aldehyde or ether. It can have more functional groups like alcohol, ester, and more. The concept was definitely pretty hard because the dienophile had to have the pi bond which is usually not present. It is also extremely difficult to draw the structure which is tough because on our owl homework we have to draw each single endo and exo cyclic systems.

Today in Plant physiology class, I learned about combustion, reverse combustion, respiration vs. light reactions. Light reactions has another name which is photosynthetic e-transport. I found it intersting how NADH turns into NAD+ in respiration when it is NADP+ to NADPH in photosynthesis. The equation for the two are very similar however even though the electron transport is different for the two. Then we broke down the anatomy of chloroplast and studied the functions of each membranes. We also touched the basics of the Hill reaction equation but I still have no idea how to use it correctly.

I read a really cool science article the other day. It was about a kid who got into a car accident and had a brain damage. When he woke up at the hospital, he spoke fluent spanish when he had no idea how to speak it before the injury. He was fluent in English ever since being a young kid. This isn't the first time that this incident happened and I thought it was very cool how our brain can be injured and cause humans to speak another language. Which made me think that maybe we are all capable of speaking another language whether we know it or not which doesn't make too much sense but it surely is proven to be true with science.

    I went to the conservatory located near Morrill I N. It is in between that building and berk. It was my first time there so it was actually kind of cool seeing lots of plants there. It was like a greenhouse filled with plants. I used a small wooden door that had a sign that said "open 10-4 pm". The first room I entered was small and cool in temperature yet warmer than outside as it was very windy and chilly. The next room was very warm and it was like a tropical grassland as my glasses fogged up by its warm temperature. The plant I found was in the first room I entered which was on the cooler side, as soon as I entered I looked to the right to find this lovely pink flower with yellow seed-looking things in the middle of it. It reminded me a bit of the traditional korean flower as it is pink and has some stuff in the middle as well. I found it interesting that a beautiful flower like that was in the colder room instead of the warmer room near it with a small bridge in it. I saw some coy fish in the little pond that they had in the other room, however my plant was in the room before going into the room with the pond.

I am currently taking a class called Life after biology. It is a 1 credit course for biology majors. It basically teaches us how to write the resume and prepare ourselves to do the things we want after we graduate. Many people were thinking of graduate school or medical school which I also intend to get into the medical school. It is very competitive so I have to do well in school. Also, many others were interested in PA school, finding a job right away, and also going into the research field. I don't really know what exactly I want to do with my future life because I still feel like I am young to choose a job I want for the rest of my life. But as I am about to finish my undergraduate college experiene, I definitely feel more pressured and responsible and I also feel like I have to figure my life out soon if I want to be successful.

The main question that came up to my mind is, how does temperature impact water potential? I did some research and found that at high temperature, water potential decreases as evaporation occurs. However at low temperature, water potential becomes negative instead of increasing. As the humidity of the air surrounding the plant rises, it will make the transpiration rate to fall. This means that epidermis that has to do with plants can prevent loss of water and increase the water potential. Stomata can close at high temperature so that the plants can prevent excess water loss or to conserve water. It will open back up to naturally allow some water to evaporate out without losing it all. Plants are very interesting, I actually went to the conservatory for the first time in three years of being here today and I loved everything about it. The scent was aromatic and it was very warm in there probably to keep the plants at the temperature that it needs to be in.

Today in class, I learned about pressure and water potential and how humidity can impact water movement in plants. Learned lots of new formulas including the transpiration rate and the different potentials that occur in the plants. It was very interesting to learn that as tension of water increases, the volume of the stomata decreases. I would think that as one increases, the other will also increase but it was not true. There are so many cool facts about plants and its function and ability to go through the process of photosynthesis. I am glad I learned how water transport works in plants using its stomata and different leaf cross-sections.

I had my third intramural basketball game today. I've been extremely sick for the past 3 days and I didn't think I could make it. But because we were 2-0 in the season, I wanted to go support the team by playing. I ended up playing most of the game forgetting that I was sick because I was way too into the game as my adrenaline was through the roof after taking an energy drink. I hurt my arm but I didn't even realize it hurt a lot until after the game was over. Sadly, we ended up losing the game but it was an eventful night and it was fun to play some basketball with my fraternity brothers. It is crazy how human body works when the adrenaline kicks in.

Today for physiology biology 510, we went over chapter 5 which was mineral nutrion. Learned what the mineral nutrition was and what minerals were essential to most of the living plants. Found out that there were many different techniques to grow a plant. One of them that I found most interesting was aerotonics which is when the plants are hung upside down by the roots and it is sprayed continuously with mineral nutrient. I thought this was very interesting and also there's hydrotonics which is when plants grow underwater so soil is not necessarily needed. There were many vocabularies to learn for this chapter and honestly it is pretty interesting topic than the previous ones so I'm excited.