Animal Facts and DR__In the minds of plants/ Flashcards
Tannins– Plant molecules to fight off parasites.
We have sequenced the genome of plants and human beings. Plants have 50,000 genes as we have 26,000 genes.
Plants are much further evolved than we humans are evolved. Fact: The most genes means the most evolved.
Plants can outlive humans by thousands of years. Some trees can live 43,000 years! (Example the Protocia from Tazmania, called. “The King’s holly”.
Plants produce chemicals for defense. The oak tree will sense another plant growing in its ground space and it will produce a chemical to kill the invader.
MN: We make most medicines and drugs out of plants.
Plants sleep. Their leaves fold in (or close). If a plant is denied sleep, it dies within two weeks.
Plants do not have a brain or nervous system, but they use a similar system to communicate just within the cellular level.
In the Alps, the Golden Eagle can dive at 300 KM/Hour and see prey up to 3 KM. away.
Only one bird can dive faster that the Golden Eagle. Can you name it?
The Pelican!
Ref: Planet Earth II
The Alcon Blue Butterfly
Ref: Our planet, episode #5.
[Europe] Alcon Blue butterfly mates and lays eggs on just one species of plant, the Marsh Gentian. The eggs hatch into caterpillars. Caterpillar drops to the ground where it is attacked and carried off to the ant colony. The ant colony has many captured caterpillars.
The caterpillar produces a scent [a pheromone] that mimics an ant larva. The ants start bringing them food to feed them. Next the caterpillar starts to mimic the Queen ants sounds. As a result the ants treat them like royality and feed them in the colony for the next two years!
After the two years, the caterpillars have grown large and envelope themselves into a cocoon. Soon after that, the Alcon butterfly crawls out of the cocoon, sprouts wings to fly away, then the whole cycle repeats again. [Similar to cooCoo bird strategy.]
SUPERBUG
Ref: 60 minutes 4/21/19
60,000 Indian babies die every year from antibiotic – resistant bacteria.
Why? We have used antibiotics freely for years with total abandon and this enabled bacteria to mutate into an antibiotic resistant type of bacteria.
[MN: Bacteria is evolution!]
Example: Our human life compared with a flowering plant, like a Hydranga. The Hydranga has buds that bloom into beautiful flowers during Spring, Summer and fall, then it dies in the winter.
The flower is like our life as a human on Earth. We bud, we bloom we falter and die.)
The bacteria now gets reabsorbed into the ground to be recycled. But this time it has Hydranga DNA so in its next life, it will be mutant bacteria and evolve into even a more complex lifeform. Perhaps a new type weed, flower or tree.
Our brief human life is like the Hydranga bud and the flowering bloom. Only when the bloom dies, we die. The bacteria journeys onward.
LICHEN is a form of Algae. – ref: 60 minutes
Sequoia:
Ref: “spring” PBS
The giant sequoia has its seeds in tiny pine cones. The cone releases its seeds when a forest fire is hot enough to crack the cone. This measure of timing ensures the forest floor will not be overcrowded, Ergo not enough room for a new tree to grow.
Secret weapon - Boca Ratand [Airplane radar]
The radar technology invented to find German U boats later gave us the Microwave oven and TV cathode ray tube. So WWII radar range later gave us television and the microwave oven.
Building Cathedrals PBS
Rib vaults hold the stone sections up and put all the ceiling weight on the wall columns. This Rib Vault system allows very thin side walls that hold massive stained glass stories from the Bible.
Most people could not read, ergo the stained glass shows a picture story of Bible stories. This is why churches have stained glass walls. People did not read but could marvel at the stained glass pictures.
