Tropisms

In plants, a tropism is a reaction any directional stimulus such as gravity or light.

Gravitropism or geotropism is the plant's response to gravity. The roots show a positve reaction to the stimulus, growing toward it, while the stems show a negative reaction because they grow away from the stimulus.

Phototropism is the plants' reaction to light and is gennerally positive. This tropism works through the hormone axim. Axim is produced in the stems and leaves, but is always transfered to the side of the plant that is in shade. There, it loosens the cell wall and induces growth of the cell. This uneven growth causes the curvature plants have when getting light from only a single side.

When the plant is put in full shade, it tends to grow tall and narrow, because all parts of the stem act as if they were shaded, and grow. In bright areas, plants tend to be shorter and thicker, for the same reason, the axim doesn't affect the plant much because it gets a lot of light all around.

Thigmotropism, the movement or growth in response to touch or contact, also has a major effect on plant growth form. Just as trees exposed to a lot of wind and harsh conditions, such as krumholtz, are shot and stubby, all plants with respond to stimuli such as rain, wind, being touched or bumped, or any other vibrational force by having a shorter form and reinforcing their cell wall, to resist bending.

Thigmotropism, like phototropism, is caused by the hormone axim moving to the side of the plant that is not receiving the stimulus. As such, plants will try to bend into the wind, and tendrils of vines will curl around the bars of a trellis.

My brother and I have been attempting to grow basic garden plants, like beans and tomatoes, inside over the winter months. We have been using artificial lighting to help meet lighting requirements, but they still don't compare with the Sun. All of the plants have had issues with stems that are too thin to support their own weight, causing them to fall over in a tangled mess.

I now see that this is caused by phototropism, and that the use of thigmotropism might be able to counteract it. I'm going to work on designing it into a good project, and perhaps I will get a good science fair project before I'm out of high school.

Here's a good page if you want to continue reading: http://www.gardenguides.com/how-to/tipstechniques/seedsbulbs/hardening.asp

Course Selections

This coming Thursday I have to place my course selections for my senior year. I'm toning down the level of difficulty a little for this year, just so I can better focus on what I'm doing and don't constantly feel like I have a huge cloud of homework hanging over my head.

AP Computer Science
It's a continuation of the Into. to Computer Science that I'm taking this year, and the class I'm most looking forward to.

Spanish 4
Another level up from my current Spanish 3 class. I was torn between this and Genetics for a while, but after talking to the Genetics teacher, who said it dealt with mostly human genetics and was more hands-on, but not more difficult than AP Biology (which I'm currently taking), I decided that that wouldn't be interesting enough to displace my beloved espanol.

Web Design 2 and Macromedia MX
More exciting classes just to further what I can do with the Internet. Both list my previous Internet class as a prerequisite.

Composition 4 and World Literature
Mandatory (if not taking AP Brit. lit. which is really hard if you don't like writing). I did have the choice to take Brit. Lit. 2 instead of World Lit., but World Lit. sounds more interesting.

US Government
Again, this is mandatory, unless you take the AP version. I'm still not entirely sure which I want to take, but currently I'm planning on the lower one to avoid the flood of work associated with AP level classes.

Calculus
Between this and the AP form, which is supposed to be driven forcefully toward the AP test, I'd rather take the one that allowed the students to breathe. Students in the classes have recommended that if you want to continue math in college, you should take the regular form, just to get a better foundation.

Physics 1
In hindsight, I should have taken this class this year, and taken AP Chemistry next, but when I picked this year's classes, I was planning on taking many AP classes as a Senior. Oh, how our thoughts do change. Theretically, I could take AP Physics B, but I think I would have too much diffuculty following the strict format to solve problems, and remembering all of the formulas.

That covers the seven periods in a day, so I'm set. I marked down Genetics as an alternate and I'll probably put down some art stuff as alternates too. In reality, I'll probably get all of the classes I asked for, as they assign Seniors their classed first.

Hopefully next year is easier than this one, and keeps challenged without drowning me. We still have to get through a few more months of this first.

Format Incompatability

At around midnight I transfered the tape of the scripts listed in the previous post, to a DVD. The DVD unit asked if I wanted to format the disk in Video mode or some other mode I didn't recognize, so I chose Video, and preceded to copy the recording. The test of the disk showed that it did work, so I took it to school without worry.
Of course it couldn't have been that easy. Upon pressing play on the DVD player, it displayed an incompatible mode error. The disk was a DVD-RW, so I don't believe it was a plus verse minus problem.
I now of the belief that either the player didn't like the fact that the disk was re-writable, or I should have chosen the non-video option to format the DVD.

Now I'm physically bringing the camera into class and am going to attach it to the TV with cables, to avoid further problem. Thankfully, the teacher said that she wasn't worried about taking another day to bring in the video form, perhaps because we left her with a copy of the script with all of the grammatical corrections to the one in my last post.

This is off subject, but I thought that the addition of a search bar to the left column was important enough to announce. Just so you know, that bar is also part of AdSense, so I get revenue when you click on the sponsored links.
I should advocate AdSense with how much I've been talking about it. You can look forward to that in the future.

Your criticisms of my extremely poorly writen posts are always appreciated!

Spanish Project

I was planning on making a post every single day, since I started posting for real. That, quite obviously didn't last long. Anyway, I do have a good excuse: my brother and I were working (for 15 over the last two days) on a video for our Spanish class. I don't have the video itself online, but are the English and then Spanish versions of the script:

Act 1: Pre-Blight
A man is walking through a forest in winter observing the trees. He turns to look at the camera.
Man: Have you ever really looked at the forest, with all of the intricate relationships of animals and plants, all living together? Trees lofting their branches 18 meters above the ground, casting shade on all the wildlife blow and providing habitat to birds and beetles alike. Undergrowth here on the ground, supplying food for those creatures who dwell here below.
Man: Indeed the forest is magnificent, but do you remember the forest before the fall of the chestnut, when trees stretched their limbs 40 meters toward the sky? How about blossoms filling the canopy so full that they appeared to be covered with snow and the following nut fall as thick as rain pummeling the ground? Did you see the so-called the redwoods of the East that numbered one out of every four trees?
Man: These were the American chestnuts, which only the elderly remember. Their physical appearance was spectacular, and their economic importance certainly wasn't any less. With wood of such astonishing quality that it was both easy to work and rot resistant enough to withstand many decades of outdoor exposure, the wood was most desirable. Tannins too came from these trees, alone supplying the industry more fully than any other contributor. Despite these wonders, the trait many found most valuable was its regular and enormous nut crops that many Appellation families that live in poverty would use to get through the winter.
Man: There is no doubt that the American chestnut, know to the scientific community as Castanea dentata, had enormous economic value, but if these animals here knew about it, they'd tell you that its environmental value was far greater. The nut crop it produced filled the bellies of animals both large and small: bear, dear, squirrels, and wild turkeys from Georgia through Maine fed from the bounty.

Act 2: Blight
The man continues to wander through the forest as he talks.
Man: Unfortunately people are strange creatures and were not content with what this tree could give them. City dwellers wanted something smaller and more decorative. To meet their demand, nurseries began shipping in other chestnut varieties from all over Asia. No one perceived a problem until a worker at the Bronx Zoo spotted a strange blemish on the bark. It was soon realized that this blemish was nothing other than a fungus, common to Asia, which attacks the bark, but is rarely deadly.
Man: This pathogen did not treat Castanea dentata the same as its Asian cousin. With a virulence rarely seen, it quickly spread across the whole of the natural range of the American chestnut on a deadly campaign, infecting and girdling the trees as soon as they reached reproductive maturity. The wind-bore spores of the chestnut blight would get into any wound, and bring down the tree only a few years thereafter.
Man: This onslaught left all areas that once had chestnuts devastated. The trees, unable to produce nuts were reduced to root sprouts. The root systems, that remained intact underground, repeatedly sent these up, only to be taken back down by the blight a few years later.

Act 3: Revival Methods
The man, still walking, approaches the edge of a forest and precedes out of it.
Man: Now, here we are in the twenty-first centaury thinking, “It’s been a hundred years, what’s being done to help?” Many people have wondered the same thing and several methods have been proposed.

Man walks to tree with holes in lower trunk (the one out by the trailer)
Man: The blight had invaded Europe, but the trees there were able to survive because of a virus that hampers the blight and causing hypo-virulence. This virus was transportable and widely used to save chestnut forests throughout Europe. Breeders brought the virus to the United States of America, but for multiple reasons it did not have a substantial benefit in North America.

Man walks to orchard.
Man: People began to seek out the resistance to the blight found in Asian chestnuts. Asian Chestnut trees are far shorter than American Chestnuts so they were unsuitable as a replacement species. As an alternative, scientists turned to ways to transfer the Asian resistance to the American trees without greatly altering any other characteristics.

Man Walks toward Chestnut planting.
Man: Genetic Engineering seemed to be the quickest and best solution but after further research it was deemed to be a nearly impossible idea. As the only practical option left, volunteers began to establish a breeding program crossing the American chestnut with Asian trees and making back-crosses to American trees transfer resistance. This breeding program continues to this day.

Act 4: Ways to Help
Man, standing in field, speaks to camera.
Man:

And the Spanish version:

Acto Uno: Antes del Añublo

Un hombre está caminando a través del bosque en invierno observando los árboles. Él da vuelta a la mirada en la cámara fotográfica.

Hombre: ¿Has mirado el bosque, con todas las relaciones intrincadas de animales y de plantas, todo conviviendo? Árboles levantando sus ramas dieciocho metros arriba la tierra, poniendo la cortina en todo de la fauna y suministrando el hábitat a los pájaros y a los escarabajos igualmente. Las plantas aquí en la tierra, suministrando alimento para estas criaturas que moran aquí abajo.

Hombre: ¿El bosque es de hecho magnífico, pero recuerdas el bosque antes de la caída del castaño, cuando los árboles estiraron sus miembros cuarenta metros hacia el cielo? ¿Cómo sobre las flores que llenan el dosel tan lleno que aparecían estar cubierto con nieve y entonces la caída de las castaña tan densa como la lluvia que cae en la tierra? ¿Viste el supuesto secoyas del este que numeró uno de cuatro árboles?

Hombre: Éstas eran los castaños americanos, solamente los ancianos recuerdan. Su aspecto físico era espectacular, y su importancia económica ciertamente no era menos. Con madera de calidad asombrosa, era fácil manipular y putrefacción bastante resistente soportar muchas décadas de la exposición al aire libre, la madera era la más deseable. Los taninos vinieron también de estos árboles, proveyendo la industria más completamente que cualquier otro ayudante. Pasar estas maravillas, el rasgo muchos más valoraron era sus cosechas regulares y enormes que muchas familias apelación que vive en pobreza sobrevivir el invierno.

Hombre: No hay duda que la castaña americana, sabido a la comunidad científica como Castanea dentata, tenía valor económico enorme, pero si estos animales aquí sabían sobre él, te dirían que su valor ambiental fuera mucho mayor. La cosecha de las castañas él producía llenaba los vientres de los animales grandes y pequeños: los osos, los ciervos, las ardillas, y los pavos salvajes de Georgia a través de Maine comían del exceso.

Acto Dos: El Añublo

El hombre continúa vagando a través del bosque mientras que él habla.

Hombre: Desafortunadamente los seres humanos son criaturas extrañas y no era contenta con qué árbol podería darles. Los habitantes de la ciudad desearon algo más pequeño y más decorativo. Para resolver su demanda, las huertas comenzaron enviar otras variedades de la castaña de todas partes de Asia a ellos. Nadie percibió un problema hasta que un trabajador en el parque zoológico de Bronx vio un defecto extraño en la corteza. Pronto fue observado que este defecto no era nada con excepción de un hongo, común a Asia, que ataca la corteza, pero es raramente mortal.

Hombre: Este patógeno no trataba el castaño americano iguales que su primo asiático. Con una virulencia visto raramente, él extendió rápidamente a través de la gama natural entera de el castaño americano en una campaña muy mortal, infectando y estrangulando los árboles cuando alcanzaran madurez reproductiva. Esporas llevado por viento del añublo de castaño entraría cualquier herida, y traen abajo a árbol solamente algunos años después de eso.

Hombre: Este asalto dejaba todas los lugares que una vez tenía castaños devastados. Los árboles, incapaces producir tuercas fueron reducidos a los brotes de la raíz. Los sistemas de la raíz, no estuvieron lastimados subterráneamente, enviaba hacia el cielo en varias ocasiones, sólo ser traído abajo por el añublo algunos años tarde.

Acto Tres: Métodos del Renacimiento

El hombre camina hacia el borde del bosque.

Hombre: Ahora, aquí estamos en el veinte primero centauro pensando, «Ciento años he pasada. ¿Qué está haciendo para ayudar?» Mucha gente ha preguntado la misma cosa y habían propuesto métodos varios.

El hombre camina al árbol con los agujeros en su tronco más bajo (esta cerca del acoplado)

Hombre: El añublo había invadido Europa, pero los árboles podían sobrevivir porque de un virus que obstaculiza el añublo y causa menos virulencia. El virus era transportable y usó ahorrar bosques del castaño a través de Europa. Los criadores trajeron el virus a los Estados Unidos de América, pero no tenía una ventaja substancial en Norteamérica por razones varias.

El hombre camina a la huerta.

Hombre: La gente hice un esfuerzo buscar la resistencia al añublo que estaba en castaños asiáticos. Los castaños asiáticos son más cortos de los Castaños Americanos así que no eran un bien especie sembrar para reemplazo. Como una alternativa, los científicos buscan por las maneras transferir la resistencia asiática a los árboles americanos y preservar las otras características.

El hombre camina hacia una huerta del castaño.

Hombre: La ingeniería genética pareció ser la solución más rápida y mejor pero después más investigación adicional él fue juzgado ser una idea casi imposible. Como la única opción práctica restante, los voluntarios comenzaron crear un programa de crianza atravesar el Castaño Americano con los árboles asiáticos y haciendo cruces a los árboles americanos transferir la resistencia. Esta campaña continúa a este día.

I wrote, then translated Acts one and two, while my brother wrote and translated Act three. You'll notice that Act four was never completed. That was merely from a lack of time and need. I had hoped we'd include it, but alas, it got cut.

I wasn't planning on making that stuff black, but there was some sort of problem with the text and some of if was black, and some of it wasn't, so I just made it all balack.

Stupid Proofing

Last Monday my Intro. to Computer Science teacher assigned a program for us to write, in Java. The program was supposed to ask the user for a positive integer. If the entered integer was even, the program was to count from the given number down to one. If it was odd, the program would count from one up to the number. Overall it was a pretty basic project, except for the additional requirement that he tacked on to the end. We were to "stupid proof" the program to the full extent of our ability.

Stupid proofing, he said, making sure the program still worked, even if the wrong type of data is given. For example, if the user entered o.25, for example, into the program described above, the program would yield unexpected results, or might throw a runtime error.

The basic program looks like this:

Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); //initialize the keyboard

System.out.print("Please enter a positive integer. ");//request input data
int number = keyboard.nextInt();

if (number % 2 == 0) { //if number is even...
int counter1 = number;
while (counter1 > 1) {
System.out.println(counter1);
counter1--;
}
} else { //if number is not even...
int counter2 = 1;
while (counter2 <= number) {
System.out.println(counter2);
counter2++;
}
}

This program works perfectly fine, so long as the user does as the program asks, and only enters a positive integer, but what happens if the user enters 3.14 or -56? This is where stupid proofing comes in.

Entering a decimal number, such as 3.14, would produce a run time error, and halt the program. Entering a negative number would cause the loops never to reach their termination conditions.

Fixing the run time error is pretty simple. All you have to do is change the data type of the umber variable form integer to double. This; however, causes problems with the program logic, so we can add an if statement to check to see if the entered number is an integer.

boolean isAnInt = false;
while (isAnInt == false){
if (number % 1 != 0) {
System.out.print("The number you entered is not an integer!\nPlease enter a positive integer. ");
number = keyboard.nextDouble();
} else {
isAnInt = true;
}
}

This segment of code just checks to see if the given number is divisible by 1 with no remainder. If it is, the number is an integer and the rest of the code is bypassed, if it's not, then the program queries the user for a new number and. The while statement merely continues querying the user for numbers until an integer is entered.

The method to check for positive numbers is much the same as in the previous example: an if statment checks to see if the number is greater than zero, if it is not, it askes for a new number; and a while loop repeates the process untill the user gets it right.

boolean isPos= false;
while (isPos == false){
if (number < number =" keyboard.nextDouble();" ispos =" true;">These two peices of code can be easily combined into a single loop and a single if statment, as follows:
boolean isGood = false;
while (isGood == false){
if ((number % 1 != 0) || (number < number =" keyboard.nextDouble();" isgood =" true;">

With all of this in place, the user can enter any number into the program without halting it. Here's the original program, with all of the corrections inserted:

Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); //initialize the keyboard

System.out.print("Please enter a positive integer. ");//request input data
double number = keyboard.nextDouble();

boolean isGood = false;
while (isGood == false){
if ((number % 1 != 0) || (number < number =" keyboard.nextDouble();" isgood =" true;">

if (number % 2 == 0) { //if number is even...
int counter1 = number;
while (counter1 > 1) {
System.out.println(counter1);
counter1--;
}
} else { //if number is not even...
int counter2 = 1;
while (counter2 <= number) { System.out.println(counter2); counter2++; } }

I don't know a good way to protect against the user entering symbols or strings, so this is as far as I can go. If by chance you want to use this program, be forewarned: I just typed it, without debugging it, or seeing if it compiled, so it may have some small errors.

I'll end with a piece of advice from my teacher:

Don't underestimate the stupidity of the user.

Playing with AdSense

A year and a half ago, when I first became comfortable with html, I created a Google AdSense account, and subsequently placed one advertisement box at the top of this page. Needless to say, that wasn't the most visually pleasant of locations, and I got to work at fixing it asap. As Soon As Possible just happened to be today; however, remembering a password is a little difficult over that length of time, and remembering how to configure AdSense is no easier.

I've been using the same password for all this time, so I was able to reset my password without difficulty and soon had access to my account. After a few failed attempts, I was able to place a new Google ad on the main page of this blog. That particular ad should be in the side bar, to the left of this post, but hasn't yet appeared. Google contests that it should start up within twenty-four hours, so I'm not too worried.

With the placement of a new ad, I felt comfortable enough to try repositioning the existing ad. First, I copied all of the ad's code, and pasted it at the bottom of the same section, with the hope it would now appear below the main post. Upon clicking the "Preview" button I realized that not everything went exactly as planned: the ad appeared not only at the top and bottom of the main post, but also underneath every other post (which, then, was only one). That was actually a preferable arrangement to me, so I preceded to remove the original ad and just leave those under each post.

With my declared goals accomplished, I investigated a feature of AdSense that I had overlooked before. The type of ad I was previously placing was classified as "AdSense for content." Just below that were listed "AdSense for search" and "Referrals." I used "AdSense for search" some about a year and a half ago, in my (first) html class. I blew the teacher away in that assignment. Can you imaging going from zero to surpassing your teacher in three weeks? That was an interesting experience, helped by the fact that the teacher wasn't very knowledgeable in the subject.

If I can navigate back to the proper subject, the third option, "Referrals," was one I hadn't remembered. Curious, I clicked the link and quickly discovered that a "Referral" was nothing other than those "Download FireFox with Google Toolbar" buttons I've seen all over the web.
One of those links now appears next to the "I Power Blogger" link in the left sidebar.

Now, to quote Google:

In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks.

As such, I have not encouraged you to click on any of the advertisements on this page. I have merely publicly stated their existence and placement. Also, if anyone has comment, concernes, or suggestions about anything on this blog site, please tell me. Thanks.

Second Try at a First Post

For the last four years or so, people have been asking me what college I wanted to go to, what I wanted to major in, or what I want to do in life. Until this year I have constantly reported that I do not know anything specific, giving answers like "science" when asked about career fields I was interested in. My attitude began shifting with commencement of my junior year of high school.

I will not deny that I am clueless about many of the things I want, but the schools assemblies, talk among peers, and rants by concerned teachers have made me think about the future more than I had in the past.

Considering my longstanding love of both life (biology) and computers, I decide that I still don't know what I want to do. However, I know I want to have a career in one field of the other. Last Monday I decided to look at the job opportunities in computer related fields that would be of interest to me.

It didn't take long to find some seemingly good material, but none of it was as specific as I wanted. Then I ran into this page: Advice for Computer Science College Students.

Too shorten the story somewhat, I found his advice to be very helpful and have decided to continue my programing education, and to start writing.

So, after leaving this blog inactive for over fifteen months, I think it's time to give it a fresh start and give myself a much needed exercise in writing.

May this journey that I am starting be a good one.