Hello hello. Looks like the blog post is only a day late as opposed to two this week. Yay, baby steps! Anyways, not too many eventful things to talk about this week. I haven't been at my place that much lately but I have been dropping in to say hello to my plants. At the beginning of the week they were trying to soak up the sun so much that they were leaning at a 45 degree angel towards my window. I started rotating them so that they would stand upright again. One of my plants (not the spider plant I got for this class) started to flower this week. They flowers are purple and I anticipate their probable beauty. I also learned about soil tis week. Plant soil needs to contain certain micronutrients so that the plant roots can absorb these nutrients in order to keep the plant healthy. The most essential nutrients are: Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, and Sulfur. They need these nutrients to help with water uptake, cell wall formation, protein synthesis, creating chlorophyll, creating ATP, DNA, membranes and for other key processes. Some plants, such as garden beans, evolved a symbiotic relationship with rhyzobia, which is a nitrogen fixing bacteria. These rhyzobia live in modified root structures of legumes called nodules. The plant provides oxygen and carbon to the bacteria in return for nitrogen. These plants CAN live independently, but they can't fix nitrogen without each other.
I think that the relationships organisms can build with other organisms to help them survive is phenomenal. I was thinking about human symbiotic relationships as well and that's when it hit me! I have a symbiotic relationship with my plants at home. I give them water and they provide me with oxygen. I am part of a beautiful natural cycle and it's happening every day!
When I was doing my own little research on symbiotic relationships I stumbled upon something AMAZING. There is a salamander that has a symbiotic relationship with algae and this algae allows the salamander to preform photosynthesis. The algal symbionts live inside the salamanders cells. The reason this discovery is surprising is because all vertebrates have what's known as an adaptive immune system, which naturally destroys any foreign biological material found inside the cells. How the algae in the salamander's cells bypass this defense is still a mystery. Here is a link to the entire article:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/salamander-is-worlds-first-photosynthetic-vertebrate

Until next time!
T
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