Spring Break 2012

Things I did over Spring Break 2012:

Work.
Most of the days on spring break I got a bunch of hours in pruning apple trees at the orchard where I work. Can't really complain about the weather either; it was perfect for working outside.

Research colleges.
I know that deadlines are about a month and a half away, but I'm honestly still frantically trying to make a decision. Having applied to a handful of colleges, I've been trying to weigh scholarships, costs, and qualities and types of programs they each have. Although Michigan State and Michigan Tech were my top choices last fall, it looks like the best options right now are Grand Valley (honors college), Calvin College, and Lake Superior.

Hanging out with friends.
Definitely the best thing about spring break. Matt and I messed around with some dry ice and pop bottles, and an exploding 3-liter sierra mist bottle is one of the loudest noises I've ever heard. And Arika and I also went on a awesome hike at the nature center on one of the nice days.

Oh, and did I mention Easter is my absolute favorite holiday? It is. On a Friday long ago, my savior died for me. But this wouldn't be important or even really matter, had he not risen three days later like he said. But because he did, Easter is no doubt the best reminder to me of the amazing love our savior has for us, and of what's to come someday.

Forest Invaders

Garlic Mustard - very aggressive  invasive
species in Michigan.

With all this warm weather we've had lately, plants in Michigan are getting a head start. Sunlight beams straight through the bare tree branches to the forest floor, where it awakens woodland plants and wildflowers. Early spring is a very important time for these plants because they have to take as much energy from the sun as they can before the light is blocked by leaves on the trees above them. Many of the most stunning plants in Michigan come into bloom between April and May, some of which include violets, the three-petaled trillium, native orchids, and trailing arbutus. However, when I was in the woods this past weekend, the only plant I noticed shooting through the leaves was a foul-smelling plant known as garlic mustard. This plant is not originally from North America, and it is having detrimental effects on native woodland plants. It is the first plant to blast through the humus on the forest floor and grows faster, blocking out sunlight from other plants. Woodland plants, especially trilliums and orchids are very sensitive, and these voracious unattractive weeds are causing their disappearance from North American woodlands.

Showy Ladyslipper (Cypripedium reginae)this
orchid is also being threatened by garlic mustard

Trillum (Trillium grandiflorum) especially
affected by garlic mustard.

Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens) this rare, low-growing
creeper is one of the sweetest-smelling
flowers in the woods, is heavily being
endangered by garlic mustard.

A simple way to understand the diffusion/osmosis concept

Well to me, probably the simplest way to understand the concept of diffusion is this:
What happens when someone just rips one in class? Well, the person who dealt it smells it first (whether they admit it or not). Next, other people (the victims) close to that person start pulling their shirts up over their nose to block the awful smell. But then, someone will walk by and comment on a funky smell, but wouldn't have ever known how terrible it was at first, or even what caused the stink. And eventually, no one smells it anymore. Why?
It's because diffusion works in the air around us too. Diffusion just means that areas that have a lot of something move to areas that don't have much. So at first in the example above, all the smell is concentrated in one area, right? And then it spreads out, until the point where it's not even smell-able anymore. This is diffusion. And osmosis? Well, this is just a fancy word for the same thing, just with water. Hope this helps. If not, sorry you had to read all this ;)

Yeah, I think I could be a chloroplast.

If I could be any organelle in a cell, I would choose to be a chloroplast. Not only are the only found in plants (and some types of algae) but they are unique in the fact that they are the only thing in the world that creates sugar. Although every cell uses sugar, every organism except plants must obtain the sugar from, well, plants. Being a chloroplast wouldn't be all that bad either. All I would need to do is hang out in the sun all day and make sugar for the rest of my cell. Yes, I would be working, but it's not too complicated. I simply utilize the carbon dioxide in the air and combine it with water to make glucose. That's only two ingredients I'd have to remember. I think I could do that.