Music and Quantum Physics

This is by far the coolest musical thing I've seen since Pi Day (post including video of a musical representation of Pi).  And this is so much more epic, because it's hard core science!

---

By the way, I don't understand any of this, but the song is wicked awesome. Some day perhaps I'll have a handle on Physics, but it is not this day. Please share this video, it's great and I hope it goes viral!

Plastids

Plastids
Plastids are organelles that are unique to plants.  There are several different types with different functions.  Here is a quick visual overview of the types:

I won't go over the developmental stages of them (proplastid, etioplast), but we'll cover the other types.
 
Chloroplasts
These are what give a plant its green color because they are full of thylakoids busy doing photosynthesis.  They absorb all kinds of light except green and turn it into ATP.  Since green is the light reflected back, that's what color they look to us.
These pictures came out a little bit blurry, but they are taken from a water weed leaf slide we prepared ourselves in lab.  All the green dots everywhere are chloroplasts.

Inside a chloroplast:

• thylakoids- where photosynthesis (light reaction) happens (the thylakoid is full of electron transport chains and ATP Synthase, same as in animals.  Click here for a post about the electron transport chain and ATP Synthase.)  Thylakoids are organized into:
• grana - stacks of thylakoids
• frets - intergranal thylakoids (in other words, thylakoids that are hanging out between the stacks)
• stroma - spaces outside the thylakoids.  This is like the "cytosol" of the chloroplast.  The Calvin cycle (dark reactions) take place here.

Chromoplasts
These are like chloroplasts but aren't green.  They make and store pigments.  Here you can see the orange specks are chromoplasts from a carrot:

And some red ones from a tomato:

Leucoplasts
Leucoplast is a category of plastids which aren't pigmented.  Leuco means "white". They are storage for various types of organic molecules.  The types are amyloplasts, Elaioplasts, and Proteinoplasts, discussed below.

Amyloplasts
Amyloplasts store starch (food storage form of carbohydrates/ sugars in plants).  The tiny purple speckles in the middle of the picture are the amyloplasts which have starch crammed inside.  They are purple because they've been stained, otherwise we couldn't see them.

Elaioplasts/ oleoplasts
Elaioplasts store lipids. Here are some from an avocado:

plantbiology,siu.edu

Proteinoplasts
Lastly, proteinoplasts store - you guessed it - protein.  I couldn't find a picture that I had confidence actually represented a proteinoplast rather than any of the other types of leucoplasts.  According to wikipedia, not much research has been done on proteinoplasts specifically, in the last 25 years.  Which would explain why I can't find pictures.  You can use your imagination. :)

Stay curious.
-Julie

Plant cells

The pictures on this blog post are all my own, taken through a microscope, sorry not all of them are the best quality.  But at least I don't have to collect links to sources!

Mitochondria- the largest dark dots are the nucleus, but you can see lots of little dark purple spots which are the mitochondria.  This is from a prepared slide of an onion root with a special stain for seeing mitochondria, and a brown stain for cell walls.

Chloroplasts
These look quite blurry, it's just because there are multiple layers of cells superimposed on one another.  This was a hand mounted water weed leaf.  All the little green speckles everywhere are chloroplasts- the organelles which house thylakoids for conducting photosynthesis. :)

Chromoplasts
These are like chloroplasts, but they are not green.  They are still colored though, hence the name chromo ("color") plast.  You can make out the little orange specks from a carrot:

And tiny red specks from a tomato:

Amyloplasts- these are a type of plastid that contains starch storage.  The tiny purple granules are the ones.  They're only purple because a stain was added to this potato so you could actually see it.

Neuroglia

Neuroglia are support cells for the neurons in the nervous system.  They have a very wide variety of functions, and I'm sure it hasn't all been discovered.

Now, here's the interesting thing.  Studies done on (supposedly) Einstein's brain, show that he didn't really have any greater number of neurons, but actually had more neuroglia, particularly astrocytes, which were concentrated in the area of the brain involved in imagery and complex thinking (NPR news article on the subject, June 2010).

Picture source

My thought is that we don't know which came first - the astrocytes or his genius.  Perhaps using your brain well leads to making more astrocytes in order to support how much you're using certain areas of the brain, rather than the astrocytes coming first and giving natural intellectual ability.

So, on that note, we'll take a look at these cells. :)  Here is a good way to categorize them, from interactive-biology.com.  I'll expound on these more.

Source (interactive-biology.com)

 And for the visual folks out there, here are a couple of diagrams.

Source

Source

Neuroglia in the Central Nervous System 

Source

Oligodendrocytes (a type of macroglia)

• Support neurons in the CNS by myelinating.  Have multiple "arms" with which they myelinate several axons.
• Myelination insulates axons of neurons which allows their conduction to go much more quickly.  (For some info on how this works, go to this post on action potentials and scroll to the bottom for "saltatory conduction".)
• Similar function in PNS is performed by Schwann cells

Astrocytes (a type of macroglia)

• Named for their star appearance (astro = star, cyte=cell)
• Maintain neuronal environment
• Part of the blood-brain barrier
• Control what substances are transported from blood to neural tissue (Source article)
• Have their own signalling system and can regulate messages of neurons
• Topic of much research - some are calling these "the other brain" (Source article)

  

  Source

  
  

My note on Astrocytes: wow, these look like such an exciting topic right now!  These are the cells that Einstein's brain had more of, and it looks like we are just discovering how integral they really are to the function of neurons!

Microglia

• Immune cells of the CNS - these bad boys take care of infection by foreign pathogens, and keep any abnormal neurons in check, gobbling up anything that shouldn't be there.  In short, they are the macrophages of the brain and spinal cord.
• Named for being small (micro), which allows them to get around to whatever small spaces necessary for fighting infection.

Source

Ependymal glia

Source on brainyinfo.com

• Ciliated epithelial tissue
• Line the ventricles and choroid plexus of the brain
• Make Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
• (Very good source article on brainyinfo)

Neuroglia of the Peripheral Nervous System
Schwann Cells/ Neurolemmocytes

Source

• Schwann cells have the same function in the PNS that Oligodendrocytes have in the CNS, namely myelination.
• The cell wraps itself around the axon of a neuron, insulating it, as seen below.  Pretty cool, eh?

Source on brainyinfo.com

Satellite Cells

• Cushion neurons
• Help control the environment of neurons and maintain synaptic integrity by insulating areas where there shouldn't be additional synapses on the neuron.

Plant Embryos

This post will be a running work in progress as I go through my Plant Biology class.  Here's what I've learned so far.

Source: stolaf.edu

The above picture (yes it's an actual photo of something under a microscope) is a good simple representation of the cotyledons of a dicot plant.  "Di" means "two", and "cot" refers to the cotyledons, so all embryonic dicots have two cotyledons.  Monocots then, naturally, have one cotyledon ("mono" means "one").
Simply put, cotyledons are embryonic leaves of the plant.

Here's a better detailed diagram:

Source on Britannica

Notice again that the dicot has 2 cotyledons.  Epicotyl will give rise to the shoot system and is above the cotyledons, while the hypocotyl is below the cotyledons and also contributes to the shoot.  This is easy to remember because "epi" means above or upon, while "hypo" means below.

The radicle gives rise to the root system.

Here's a fun picture showing a peanut.  The yummy part we eat is actually the cotyledons (leaves!).  I never knew that little nub in the middle that I sometimes discard was the actual plant in the making. :)

Key Terms in my own words (clicking on the term will take you to the wikipedia page for more info)  *PLEASE do not copy/ paste this to plagiarize homework assignments.  Read about it, rephrase in YOUR own words.  Don't let me be a source of academic dishonesty, even though I know a simplified list like this lends itself to that.  Please, please... be a smart cookie.
Cotyledon: embryonic leaf
Dicot: a category of plants which has 2 cotyledons in its embryonic stage
Monocot: a category of plants which has 1 cotyledon in its embryonic stage
Radicle: embryonic root.  First thing to emerge from seed.
Epicotyl: gives rise to shoot system, is above the cotyledons.
Hypocotyl: is below the cotyledons, contributes to the shoot system, adds height to the plant