Ellie Parson
Mr. Ippolito
Biology
21 November 2016
How plants measure temperature
Before advanced sciences, it had been a mystery how plants were able to recognize and understand temperature. For these types of organisms, it is clearly essential to efficiently respond to threatening changes in climate order to maintain homeostasis. Most plants do not move as frequently as animals do, and are unable to escape unwanted weather patterns. Scientists from Buenos Aires in Argentina, St. Louis in the U.S.A., Cambridge in England, and the University of Freiburg combined their research to locate, explain, and better understand the way plants become aware of temperature. Their data found that a specific phytochrome may be the answer. The author of this piece explains phytochromes as “photoreceptor proteins that control a number of physiological processes” (sciencedaily.com, 1). They take part in functions of plants, including the growth of a young plant and starting the process of opening a flower. Phytochromes can also help a plant move into the sunlight to expose the plant to better measurements of red light and blue light. In response to certain amounts of red light phytochromes are switched on, or switched off by “far red light” (sciencedaily.com, 2). When they are on, the plant is notified of the concentration of red light around them. The specific phytochrome B supports the confinement of expansion of plants. It falls somewhat static in the presence of warmth and the sun, but it does not need light to become dormant. It can be shut off without the factor of light as “plant psychologists from the University of Freiburg” (sciencedaily.com, 2) have found before their most recent research. If they change without the presence of light, it is called dark reversion. There are two types of this reversion: one type requires a longer period of time and happens gradually as the activity of the phytochrome B population in a plant diminishes at night, and the other type challenges the “light activation of phytochrome B” (sciencedaily.com, 2) and then permits the organism to record the daylight. Both processes and dependent on temperature (sciencedaily.com, 2). Scientists used a spectroscopy technique to present that when conditions are warm, phytochrome B is shut down quickly in comparison to at colder temperatures. In the daytime, “the photoreceptors’ active form already in the light phase that was caused by the temperature-dependency of the fast dark reversion promotes elongation growth” (sciencedaily.com, 2). Temperatures increasing cause the phytochrome to go dormant and this version of the plant favors expansion. This further proves that heat or the cold can be felt by plants, but also shows that plants react to the changes in a unique way that keeps them alive. Although the explanations to this phenomenon can seem complex and hard to understand, it holds value in the scientific world.
Today, climate change is scaring the environments of plant species and threatens their existence if they are unable to adapt to new conditions. Evolution may adjust plant species to accommodate change but the species could die out before it takes large scale effect. If scientists somehow tapped into phytochrome B and programed it to work stop working within a plant according to certain temperatures, it could save a species in danger. In areas where temperatures are increasing uncontrollably for the time being, regulated phytochrome Bs could protect the plant from over or under growth due to exposure to light. Now that scientists somehow proved that plants can be aware of the temperature around them, they might be able to figure out if plants react self consciously. Farmers could use this information to quicken the growth of certain plants, as it is now known that growth of a plant could be affected by temperature as well as light exposure. Overall, these findings are relevant to multiple aspects of life. For me, I would be interested into learning further into how scientists use this data to improve plant life on earth. I believe that the war against natural and unnatural warming of climates worldwide will be a fight my generation might take part in.
This review was decent in the way it was written and the size of the it was convenient. It contained complex details and information while defining some terms and elaborating on them. The size was short, but appropriate for the subject being discussed. There was even a summary in the beginning for the reader to read before they analyzed the whole text, allowing the reader to understand some parts of the main idea before even reading the article. However, there were parts of the article that were lacking. For example, from what I could read I did not find an exact person or group of people to credit as the author of the article (although I could be mistaken). An easy fix to this would be to state the author(s) at the top or bottom of the article. Even though some terms were described, others may not have been quite as clearly. Readers may have to do more research on certain words like spectroscopy to fully understand what they mean in the context of the article. Lastly, the final paragraph or few sentences in the article were dedicated to the people who contributed in the research. This was not exactly a weakness, as it credited the work and research to the respected scientists, but in a way it hardly contributed to the actual data analysis and explanations provided before.
Citations MLA8:
“How Plants Measure Temperature.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 15 Nov. 2016, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161115084337.htm.:
ReplyDeleteTommy Purdy
Mr. Ippolito
Biology D-Odd
22 November 2016
Review On: “How plants measure temperature”
Reviewed By Ellie Parson
Citations:
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. "How plants measure temperature: How plants use a light receptor as a thermosensor." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 November 2016. .
My classmate Ellie made a very good review on the article, “How plants measure temperature.” One part of her review that was very well done was the concluding paragraph. Usually, the concluding paragraph is very rushed and feels like no time was put into it. Ellie’s however, is very detailed and says a lot more detail than others. For example, in her conclusion, Ellie says, “Even though some terms were described, others may not have been quite as clearly.” By her saying this, it proves that she took a lot of time to read through her article so that she can notice that not every term was talked about that clearly. Another aspect of Ellie’s review that is good is her summary paragraph. Often summary paragraphs are very short and say little detail about the article which makes the rest of the review very tedious and bewildering. Ellie’s however, goes into great detail. Ellie says, “There are two types of this reversion: one type requires a longer period of time and happens gradually as the activity of the phytochrome B population in a plant diminishes at night, and the other type challenges the light activation of phytochrome B.” By her knowing all of this information, it proves that she put a lot of time into carefully reading and writing down every single important fact that she finds. Another aspect of her article that is very well done is her citations throughout the article. After every time Ellie states a fact she learned from the article, she puts “(sciencedaily.com, 2).” This is a very proper way of citations that many other people do not put into their reviews. By doing this, it makes the reader understand that she did not steal this from someone else, which would be plagiarism.
Even though Ellie’s review is mostly good, there are a few issues in it worth mentioning. One issue in it was her official citation. Though the citations throughout the review were good, her official citation was lacking a lot of information such as the author and electronically accessed date. It only states, ““How Plants Measure Temperature.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 15 Nov.” It should be, “Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. "How plants measure temperature: How plants use a light receptor as a thermosensor." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 November 2016. .”
By Ellie doing this, it could lead to some issues on being able to find the original article. To fix this all she would have to do is go to the bottom of the article where it gives a proper citation. Another part of the article that could be made better is the relation to current world paragraph. This paragraph should make up a lot of the review but Ellie’s only makes up a small portion of the article. To fix this, Ellie could add a bit more facts that she might have gained from other sources.
Overall, this review was very good and I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot about how plants reversions help feel the temperature so they can adapt to their environment. I also learned other ways plants are able to adapt to “tell the temperature,” and adapt to it. The reason I chose to read this review is because the idea of it intrigued me, the though of plants being able to tell temperature. Now that I have read this article, I now believe plants are more living than I originally did and I also now believe that plants are smarter than I originally believed.
Samantha Huss
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
D Block Odd
2 December 2016
Current Event 9 Comment
"How Plants Measure Temperature." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016. .
Ellie Parson’s review of “How Plants Measure Temperature” was very well written and interesting to read. One thing that she did especially well was provide sufficient data to support claims that she made. She had many direct quotes from the article that helped to add to the credibility of her review. Also, she provided a good analysis of each piece of evidence or data which she provided. Not only did she state facts, she also went into detail of how and why they were important. Finally, she had good word choice and sentence structure which kept the review from becoming repetitive and helped to make it much more interesting to read.
Although Ellie wrote a very good review, there were a few aspects that could be altered to improve the review overall. One of these was that she had a few grammatical mistakes in her review. In order to fix this she should go back and reread her review more to make sure that she catches any typos or mistakes. Also, Ellie’s review was slightly unorganized or hard to follow in a few specific sections. To fix this she should read over her review to herself and ask what makes the most sense and where.
Overall, this review was very well done. One thing that shocked me was that plants were able to feel temperature and adjust to their surroundings to survive. I found it very interesting that they had this capability that I didn’t know about prior to reading Ellie’s review. This review helped to raise my awareness of climate change and how it is affecting our environment.