Plant hormones (auxin, gibberellin, cytokinin, ethylene and abscisic acid) activity illustrated simply (Video length: 2:52 minutes)

Video: Plant hormones activity (V.C.: Neural Academy)

Photo: Plant hormones (Fuseschool)

Video: Seed germination process illustrated simply (Video Length: 1:18 minutes)

                                           

Video: Showing Seed Germination Process (Hollyhock Biology Classes)

Photo: Seed germination (K8School)

Prominent Scientists in the Field of Agriculture (Briefed Bio)

Photo: Norman Ernest Borlaug

Robert Bakewell

Robert Bakewell was a British agriculturalist, now recognized as one of the most important figures in the British Agricultural Revolution. In addition to work in agronomy, Bakewell is particularly notable as the first to implement systematic selective breeding of livestock.

Norman Borlaug

Norman Ernest Borlaug was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution.

Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus and the plumcot.

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist and inventor. He actively promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century.

Carl Henry Clerk

Carl Henry Clerk was a Ghanaian agricultural educationist, administrator, journalist, editor and church minister who was elected the fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1950 to 1954. 

Acknowledgment: Wikipedia

Weekly reading practice-02

Photo: Reading clip art (Taken from: Clip-art

Time: 12 minutes

Make a note of the unknown words

Line-01-05:

In November 1914, Bernard Bosanquet delivered the inaugural address to the Aristotelian Society’s 36th session. An ageing titan of British idealism, Bosanquet called his talk ‘Science and Philosophy’. 

Line-06-15: 

It was a broadside on Bertrand Russell’s now-legendary book Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) in which Russell sought to model a new ‘scientific’ method for doing philosophy that made the logical analysis of propositions fundamental. This logic-centric style would come to define what we now know as analytic philosophy.

Line-16-36:

Bosanquet’s opening complaint about Russell’s methodology was, surprisingly, political. He argued that the ‘scientific’ methodology would inevitably make philosophy ‘cosmopolitan in character and free from special national qualities’. Since logic, and science more generally, respects no political or cultural boundaries, Russell’s philosophy could never function as a distinctive expression of a people. This was a problem for Bosanquet. He held ‘that philosophy, being, like language, art, and poetry, a product of the whole man, is a thing which would forfeit some of its essence if it were to lose its national quality’. British idealism for Britons, and German idealism for Germans.

Acknowledgment: AEON

Plastic pollution and its effect on environment

Photo: Plastic pollution (P.C.: Dhaka Tribune)

What is Plastic Pollution?

As the world’s population continues to grow, so does the amount of garbage that people produce. On-the-go lifestyles require easily disposable products, such as soda cans or bottles of water, but the accumulation of these products has led to increasing amounts of plastic pollution around the world. As plastic is composed of major toxic pollutants, it has the potential to cause significant harm to the environment in the form of air, water, and land pollution.

Put simply; plastic pollution is when plastic has gathered in an area and has begun to negatively impact the natural environment and create problems for plants, wildlife, and even the human population. Often this includes killing plant life and posing dangers to local animals. Plastic is an incredibly useful material, but it is also made from toxic compounds known to cause illness, and because it is meant for durability, it is not biodegradable.

Next time when you go shopping, don’t forget to carry a paper or cloth bag. Also, try to avoid bringing plastic bags at home and purchasing items with too much packaging. This way you can help in contributing towards the environment in the form of reducing plastic pollution whose ill effects are irreversible.

Serious Effects of Plastic Pollution

It seems rather obvious that this amount of a material that isn’t meant to break down can wreak havoc on natural environments, leading to long-term issues for plants, animals, and people. Some of the major long-term effects of plastic pollution are:

1. It Upsets the Food Chain

Because it comes in sizes large and small, polluting plastics even affect the world’s tiniest organisms such as plankton. When these organisms become poisoned due to plastic ingestion, this causes problems for the larger animals that depend on them for food. This can cause a whole slew of problems, each step further along the food chain. Plus, it means that plastic are present in the fish that many people eat everyday.

2. Groundwater Pollution

Water conservation is already a concern in places ranging from California to parts of India, but the world’s water is in great danger because of leaking plastics and waste. If you’ve ever seen a garbage dump, imagine what happens every time it rains – then imagine that being in your drinking water. Groundwater and reservoirs are susceptible to leaking environmental toxins.

Most of the litter and pollution affecting the world’s oceans also derives from plastics. This has had terrible consequences on many marine species, which can lead to consequences for those that eat fish and marine life for nutrients – including people.

3. Land Pollution

When plastic is dumped in landfills, it interacts with water and form hazardous chemicals. When these chemicals seep underground, they degrade the water quality. Wind carries and deposits plastic from one place to another, increasing the land litter. It can also get stuck on poles, traffic lights, trees, fences, tower etc. and animals that may come in the vicinity and might suffocate them to death.

4. Air Pollution

Burning of plastic in the open air, leads to environmental pollution due to the release of poisonous chemicals. The polluted air when inhaled by humans and animals affect their health and can cause respiratory problems.

5. It Kills Animals

Despite countless TV ads over the years showing ducks or dolphins trapped in six-ring plastic can holders, these items are still used and discarded en masse each day. Whether because the mass of plastic has displaced animals or the related toxins have poisoned them, plastic pollution does a lot of damage to the world’s ecosystems.

6. It is Poisonous

Man artificially makes plastic by using a number of toxic chemicals. Therefore, the use of and exposure to plastics has been linked to a number of health concerns affecting people around the world. The processes of making, storing, disposing of, and just being around plastics can be extremely harmful to living things.

7. It is Expensive

It costs millions of dollars each year to clean affected areas after exposure, not to mention the loss of life to plants, animals, and people. As land becomes more valuable, just finding a place to put garbage is becoming a problem in many parts of the world.

Plus, excess pollution leads to decreased tourism in affected areas, significantly impacting those economies.

Acknowledgment: Conserve-energy-future, DT, NG

Have a clear idea on number classification: See if you are an EXAMINEE

Photo: Classification of number (Taken from: Basic-maths)

Observation #1:

Notice that √(9) is a natural number. It is because √(9) = 3

Observation #2:

Notice that the only difference between natural numbers and whole numbers is the zero.

Whole numbers = Natural numbers + zero

Observation #3:

Notice that the difference between whole numbers and integers are the negative numbers.

Integers = Whole numbers + the negative of the whole numbers

Observation #4:

All integers are fractions. Not all fractions are integers

Example: -2 is an integer and can be written as -2/1 to make it a fraction.

However, -1/3 = -0.333333333 is not an integer

Observation #5:

Fractions can be written as a terminating decimal or a repeating decimal

Example: 1/2 = 0.5 and 0.5 is a terminating decimal. 1/3 = 0.3333333 and 0.3333333 is a repeating decimal

Observation #6:

Rational numbers = Integers + fractions

Observation #7:

Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be written as a fraction

Example: pi= 3.14..., 2.224879566117426874, √(7)

Another way to see them is that they are neither repeating decimals nor terminating decimals

Observation #8:

Real numbers = rational numbers + irrational numbers

Observation #9:

The difference between complex numbers and real numbers is that complex numbers give solutions for the following expressions and more!

√(-7), √(1-8), √(-25) = 5i, etc...

Among the different types of numbers, fractions is among the toughest to understand

Acknowledgment: Basic-maths

Gap Filling: Test these items to check your skill

Image: Quiz

Quiz-o1:

**Click on the link at the bottom of the article to See the answers with explanation 

Quize-02:

**Click on the link at the bottom of the article to See the answers with explanation 

Quiz-03:

See the answers with explanation

Wheat Flour: Why is it sticky?

Photo: Wheat Flour (Courtesy: Ecplaza )

Usually wheat flour flour doesn't get very sticky. If it is getting sticky it means the wheat from which it was made had a lot of gluten in it naturally.

Gluten is a protein in wheat. It is made of prolamins and glutelins. They are found in the endosperm of the wheat. Gluten gives wheat its elasticity and stretch ability.

Wheat flour also becomes unusually sticky if it is second grade.. That is it contains a lot of refined flour mixed into it or the wheat flour is adulterated . Refined flour is very sticky and elastic. Refined flour stretches a lot, hence it is useful to make strings of noodles. Refined flour (maida) is mixed in whole wheat flour as it is very cheap in price compared to good whole wheat flour.

Acknowledgment: Quora, Hsph

Lovely interaction among plant, hormones and spring (season)

Photo: Nature in Spring (Esetge)

Background:

Have you ever wondered how a plant knows it's time to wake from its winter slumber? Or how all those spring flowering bulbs you planted last fall know it's time to begin that journey upward.

Go Inside:

To understand how this spring phenomenon happens, we have to know what causes the plant to go into dormancy in the first place.

A plant's dormant cycle begins in autumn, when daylight hours shorten and temperatures begin to drop. These key environmental changes cause a bit of hormonal upheaval in the plant, resulting in a slowing to almost a standstill of its metabolism.

Internally during this slowing-down process, the food manufactured and housed in the leaves during active growth relocates to the root zone, converts to starch and is stored for winter. At the same time, physiological changes are occurring inside each cell to keep the plant from freezing. Once all these stages are complete and the temperature remains near freezing for a particular length of time, the plant is said to be dormant.

Each plant species has its own requirement for time spent in the "chill period." Once reached, the plant is ready to stretch its buds.

It's believed that during the fall, a growth inhibitor hormone called ABA builds up in the plant as it goes into dormancy, causing growth to halt. Once the required number of chill hours are reached, ABA begins to break down.

For the bulb planted underground, this is precisely how it knows to begin inching upward. The growth inhibitor is no longer present in a high-enough quantity to stop growth. Ever wonder how a particular perennial could emerge so quickly once the frost leaves the ground? The same principle applies: The growth inhibitor is no longer present.

To complete the breaking of dormancy, as the surrounding soil and air begin to warm, more hormones kick in. These are the growth hormones known as gibberellin (responsible for stem elongation) and cytokinins (responsible for cell division). For all plant material -- bulbs, perennials, trees, shrubs and germinating seeds -- these hormones are crucial for the development of stems, leaves, roots and flowers.

You can fool Mother Nature into thinking spring has sprung.

Many spring-blooming shrubs, such as forsythia, quince, deutzia, honeysuckle, pussy willow, flowering almond, bridal veil spirea and viburnum, can be forced into bloom right now because they only need a relatively few weeks of chilling time. You also can force trees such as flowering crab apples, fruit trees, shadblow and dogwood.

Simply cut a branch and pound the cut end with a hammer before placing it in a bucket of water. This is a trick used by florists to increase the water uptake of woody stemmed plants by breaking the cambium (water vessel) layer.

Acknowledgment: Seattlepie, Britannica