I am a Sad Cinderella

It is nearly midnight, and like a woebegotten Cinderella, I sit in the lab-or-atory obsessing over my poster presentation. I attempted to derail myself last week by pretending that I am not the anal perfectionist that I know I am - but to no avail. Today, I slowly became immersed in creating the images for my poster on seedling growth trait plasticity and adult anatomical plasticity. They are just so pretty - and I need to get the lines exactly even or else. You all know what I mean. Anyways, luckily for you guys, I have managed to pry my eyes away from the upcoming presentation in order to give you a few snippets of news. First, I got an email from Experience today about a cool Earthwatch contest they are hosting. I suspect that many of you, like myself on occasion, delete Experience emails or are not even on their listserve. I am going to give you all two peices of advice. First, it was just such as email that landed me this job (an excellent, fulfilling and rewarding job at that). Additionally, the email I received today looks like an amazing opportunity for those interested. All you do is send in a photo about why the environment is important and a caption explaining the photo. If you win, you get to go on a cool Earthwatch trip to Costa Rica, Kenya, Fiji or others. The trip and airfare are both included if you win the top prize. Anyways, plenty more details at thte website below:

http://www.experience.com/alumnus/channel?channel_id=earthwatch&page_id=home

In other news, the Green Room at BBC has published yet another disappointing piece which caters to the Liberal Litany of guilty environmentalism without properly citing any statistics or justification. You will see what I mean. Today's Green Room View point is entitled "Focus on carbon 'missing the point'" and is written by Eamon O'Hara, an Irish political advisor to the UN. He believes that climate change and carbon emissions are merely the symptom of a greater problem, the excessive lifestyles of developed nations at the detriment of the global poor.

Eamon O'Hara writes:

"Ultimately, our problem is consumption, and the environment is not the only casualty. The modern Western lifestyle also has an inbuilt dependency on the cheap resources and the low carbon footprint of developing countries, which has compounded global injustice. Worse still, maintaining our relatively wealthy, comfortable and unsustainable lifestyles is now dependant on maintaining this imbalance. Seventy-five percent of the world's population - more than 4.5bn people - live on just 15% of the world's resources, while we in the West gorge on the remaining 85%. The world simply does not have the resources, renewable or otherwise, to sustain Western lifestyles across the globe."

I have several responses. First, I do believe that certain aspects of the developed world lifestyle have been bought with the suffering of the global poor. This is unacceptable, immoral and inhuman. I hope our generation will begin to honestly confront these issues. I also believe that the developed world does not give enough in terms of money, medical supplies and food to developing nations. However, I do not agree with O'Hara's fundamental premise - that consumption in and of itself is evil, and I find his attempt to moralize carbon emission disturbing. Emissions in and of themselves are not moral in my mind. Carbon is emitted when ambulances speed down the streets, bringing the sick to hospitals and carbon emission have allowed us to increase our standards of living drastically within the last 100 years (globally as well as nationally). We realize now that carbon emissions are causing the world to slowly warm, and that each degree rise may be globally detrimental - but lets not moralize carbon emissions. No matter what environmentalists and others like to insinuate with their addiction analogy, oil is not herion. Secondly, I believe (and this has been well supported in the past) that the wealth of developed nations is not dependent on the poverty of developing nations, and furthermore, that there is not a finite amount of wealth available. Therefore, I believe it is possible to continue to increase the global standard of living and at the same time cut down on carbon emissions.

There have been plenty of papers justifying the fact that many world resources (such as oil) are not yet at their peak. Additionally, according to most life standard statistics, global suffering has been decreasing each decade for hundreds of years (For more information on these statistics, check out "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Lomberg or google economics papers on peak oil reserves). I am not saying we don't need to continue struggling to make the world a better place - we do, because it is not nearly good enough yet. But neither should we fall prey to this unwarranted gloominess, this feeling that the our own "sinful" lifestyle is responsible for global warming. Consumption, economic growth - these things are not morally wrong. They are the lifeblood of the world -and we can make them less dependent upon carbon without slowing growth. At the very least, this should be our goal.

A few more points. Mr. O'Hara does not cite any of his statistics - be very wary of this in general. He also seems to believe that renewable resources are not truly renewable - arguing that biofuel is not renewable. However, few could argue that the traditional renewable sources of energy, the ones which hold the most promise in my mind are solar and wind. And these two are renewable.

BBC Fails Us

I traipsed through the Internet to the Green Room, a small sanctuary at
BBC.com where I sometimes find comfort in rational environmental
discussions. Not this week, however. Instead, an eager young man named
Matt Prescott wrote an article entitled, "Sex sells, but at what cost?"
The byline is, "Our fixation with status symbols and material wealth is
undermining our efforts to take climate change, argues Matt Prescott.
In this week's Green Room, he outlines how he thinks we can love
ourselves and the planet."

Ironic, because it seems as though
BBC was using the article's discussion of sex to attract more visitors
to the Green Room - more people have responded to Matt's Viewpoint than
I have seen respond to any of the previous articles posted there.
Perhaps that is unfair - but the article attempts to conjoin two themes
which have been riddled with misunderstanding since their beginning -
namely sex and climate change. Here are some of the more simple minded
quotes:


Matt Prescott, on why today's society seems unable to conquer their long time foes, global poverty and climate change:

"In
early human societies, people were able to compete in non-lethal ways,
by collecting beautiful objects such as feathers, unusual pebbles or
animal skins." However, today, he goes on to say, "modern technologies
have given us a far greater capacity to alter and to degrade our
environment."

He calls this effect: Unnatural Selection. Darwin may be rolling over in his grave.

Additionally - that sentence is enough to send me into hysterical laughter. I can just imagine cavemen puzzling for hours over beachy sand, trying to find that one, "unusual pebble" which may win the heart of fair maiden. Jeez.


Matt Prescott, continuing his ill-fated analogy:

"In
my view, climate change is an unintended side-effect of many of the
ways in which we show off, such as driving over-sized cars, owning
holiday homes and buying the latest electronic gadgets. But where does
our obsession with showing off come from?
In the animal kingdom, the
massive size and impressive quality of a peacock's tail is used to
signal to females the size of handicap that a male can endure while
also meeting his basic needs. This is known as the handicap principle."

His underwhelming thesis is that our desire to outcompete each other
with carbon-intense technology is destroying the world. I have many
problems with this theory, but it is frankly not worth confronting in a
serious, academic way. So I will merely point out one, teeny, weeny
detail. Where are the women in all of this macho, carbon-wasting,
peacock tailing competition? Is one half (a little bit more) of the
human race actually not involved in climate change? Can we women pack
up our bags and go home, safe in our energy-efficient light bulbed
houses and plugged in sports cars. What on earth is this man talking
about, and how did he end up on BBC.com.

The Most Savage of All Life Forms

I just finished browsing a cute little article in the New York Times entitled, "Taking on a Lake-Eating Monster in East Texas." You can find it at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/us/30lake.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


Anyways, the article sparked my interest because it is about a highly invasive aquatic weed from South American named Salvinia molesta. Apparently, the weed is currently attacking Caddo Lake, a beautiful and historic site in Southern Texas. The article doesn't really go into the biology of invasive species - preferring to quote the colorful natives at length instead (which is why the article is cute).
My favorite is quoted from this New York Times article, below:

“It’s your classic 1950s drive-in-movie-monster plant,” said Jack Canson, director of a local preservation coalition and a former Hollywood scriptwriter who, under the pseudonym Jackson Barr, co-wrote a B-movie plant thriller, “Seedpeople,” released in 1992."

Hmmmm. Seedpeople. Sounds pretty catchy actually. I took the liberty of looking up the film and discovered that there is a scene where a peice of vegetation actually kills a man by stoning him with Corn Pops. Corn Poppin him to death. Another good one liner I garnered from www.badmovies.org

"Plants are the most cunning and savage of all life forms."


I should keep these words in mind as I complete my mind-numbing rounds of daily watering.

But invasives are interesting to think about. They are kind of like a glitch in the Matrix - some peice of code gone afoul, broken out of its train-station hideaway. The plants we work with in our lab are also invasives - members of that insidious genus, Polygonum. But the interesting thing is that the species we are currently studying, like many others, became invasive only recently. What makes an invasive species become invasive? Of course, there is a certain amount of human egging on - we have mobilized plants, flown them across continents and shipped them over seas, and we do this every day thousands of times. But when is the moment when the plant, or any species, decides, enough is enough, and begins to evolve, to hybridize - to outcompete and then smother its new neighbors. Theories abound.

Sorry for the overdone prose. I just finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessel. I recommend it. I was thoroughly arrested by her prose and her scary, twisted plot - and her lovable narrator.

In which I am a poet

Oh, How I love my AC Unit
It keeps me nice and cool
It makes my boyfriend drool
It is almost like having a pool...

AC AC AC AC
The IC AC!

Goofy mood, perhaps prompted by the article I just read about drunken astronauts. I am not sure how NASA leaked this one, but apparently there have been several instances of drunken astronauts on space trips.

Okay, okay. For serious, the most interesting energy article released today was covered by the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/us/27navajo.html


The article is poorly written and merely skims the surface of a great deal of complicated issues. The general idea is that the Navajo Nation is deciding whether to build a new coal power plant on their land. The new plant would bring in millions in revenue to the nation, but would contribute to local and global pollution levels. However, the article seems sloppy in number of respects. First of all, it compares the Navajo Nation to a developing nation - a misleading and historically inaccurate analogy. Plus a bit patronizing. Secondly, it seems to conflate previous environmental health concerns (uranium poisoning, mercury poisoning) with the health threat of a coal plant.

"New Mexico, which has no authority over the tribal lands, has also expressed misgivings and has refused to grant the plant tax breaks."

Hmm, if states have no authority over tribal relations, considering that treaties between the Navajo nation and the US are a federal matter - it seems strange that they are refusing to grant tax breaks.

Mmm, Icecream

Sorry for the irregular posts! Life is very busy all of a sudden. Long gone are the happy days spent in a carefree strawberry patch, or writing long, meandering blogs about energy issues. One week from tomorrow is the Howard Hughes Poster Session - where all us Howard Hughes interns gather to share our data (or lack of data) with each other and the professors. I have been learning how to use a couple of programs to analyze the first set of data we got this summer, on seedlings. Of course, due to our earlier problems with seed age effects, we cannot use the old seeds. Thus, we cannot analyze whether plasticity has evolved over time in any of our populations. However, if we analyze simply the new seeds, we can determine the treatment, population and interaction effects of our experiment. Ultimately, my poster will ask the question: are certain populations more plastic than others? The logical follow-up question is, "and how does this increased plasticity relate to fitness?" A likely hypothesis is that more plastic populations of Cespitosum have higher fitness in stressed environments than less plastic populations. We do not yet have the fitness data to evaluate the second half of this claim.

I like statistics, which is surprising since math has never been my best subject. I was so bad at math in 5th grade that my teacher, Mrs. Barksdale, would make me stay in during recess and clean desks. But statistics are fun, I like the idea of making a model to explain the sources of variation in data. Unfortunately, looking at the data so far, it seems as though there is very little treatment by population interaction effect. This means that although the treatment and population each separately effect variation, the effect of population within treatment does not (generally speaking). This means that we cannot look at whether certain populations are more plastic than others.

Today was a long day - I analyzed data, learned how to run a two-way ANOVA, and then worked out for a good hour and a half at the gym. Working out helps to justify my excess eating habits. Plus right now I am enjoying a delicious banana and chocolate icecream sundae. You know, Haagen Daas (sp?) icecream is now less expensive than Ben and Jerry's?? Time for some sci-fi reading.

Life at the Lab

I realize that I haven't been offering too much information about lab-or-atory going-ons. When I arrived back at Wesleyan saturday morning, Lauren and I spent most of the day collecting photosythesis data in the hot, humid greenhouse. I have decided that there are few things I hate more in the the world than collecting photosynthesis data. it is brutal. Imagine spending hours bent over a small plant, holding a heavy and awkward leaf contraption, waiting and waiting for the conditions inside of the leaf to stabilize. The sweat pours down your face, your legs start to itch, and it is hot, hot, hot. Today was momentous because I finished making the last of the leaf epidermal peels, meaning that I can move on to photographing and counting the stomata. I wonder whether there will be a significant difference between populations? I also have to begin creating my poster for the final, Howard Hughes poster presentation.

The Hurricane Satellite

I am interested in the global collection and production of climate data. We rely on this data a great deal to make decisions regarding climate change. Recently, NASA has decided against replacing a QuikScat satellite - a type of satellite which tracks the wind and provides detailed information on the earth's other fluid system- the ocean. Although the satellite's main purpose is to help forecasters predict hurricanes, it is one of a few sources of data regarding melting sea ice. Now, due to budget cuts, NASA has decided not to fix the satellite, despite the fact that it is showing increasing signs of wear and tear (This information comes from a BBC.com article called "Losing Sight of Planet Earth" by Molly Bently. It can be found at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6909887.stm


I looked up the satellite online, and the science behind it is pretty cool. The instrument aboard is called SeaWinds and it has a rotating dish antenna with two spot beams spinning in a circle. The instrument is able to collect 400,000 measurements a day, covering 90% of the earth's surface (information on the QuikScat satellite is found at :

http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index.cfm.

In other interesting news, a company was able to start producing the $100 dollar laptop for sale in certain developing countries.

Green 24

In trivial environmental news, (a specialty of mine), the show "24" is going to make its next season carbon neutral. "We care deeply about this issue at 24 and we wanted to do our own small part to be a part of the solution" - a quote from the executive producer, Howard Gordon. The show is taking the following measures to reduce their carbon footprint:

1) Introducing the use of biodiesel to power generators and production vehicles.
2) Running all on-stage production activities on green energy purchased from the LA department of Water and Power.
3) Integrating fuel-saving and low-emission hybrid vehicles into the production fleet.
4) Having well-known cast members appear in public service announcements concerning global warming.
5) Incorporating global warming into the 24 storyline.

Hmm. Call me skeptical, but those initiatives don't sound like they will make the show carbon neural. And what are they going to do about all the explosions in the show? Hmm, imagine a car explosion powered by wind or solar. Intriguing.

Harry Potter and the Wind Balloon

Sorry that I have been MIA for a few days - I managed to get three days off from the lab and am at home, enjoying the hot DC weather. In my suitcase I brought 7 jars of homemade strawberry jam and a vast quantity of dirty laundry. And now here I sit, eagerly anticipating the arrival of Harry Potter tonight at midnight. I am not going to speculate about the 7th book, as this is not the appropriate place. However, here is one small tip that my friends figured out last night at dinner. You know the end, with the Horcrux that has already been found? We think that R.A.B. stands for Regulus Black, Sirius' brother. Pretty good, huh?

Anyways, to things more relevant: One of my good friends was filling me in on the newest in cutting edge wind technology. For a neat website on a cool, new and inexpensive wind tech website, check out:

http://www.magenn.com/technology.php


The company is called Magenn Power and the turbine is attached to a helium filled balloon. Because the turbine floats, it is able to reach much higher heights than most conventional turbines and thus capture a large amount of energy.

The Climate Debate Revised

It seems to me that the popular press misrepresents the true nature of the global warming debate. Judging from the New York Times, for example, or Fox News, one would think the global warming debate debate concerned disagreements over the actual existence of climate change. The Bush administration argued for years that the science of climate prediction was too uncertain to warrant any mitigating action. Environmentalists protested that a scientific consensus existed on global warming, pointing to numerous IPCC reports. These are the two sides of global warming which I was familiar with - does global warming exist, or does it not - this was how the debate was framed.

But in my opinion, this is not where the true debate on global warming lies. We can be reasonably sure that the earth is warming - although we have very little idea how much. (The IPCC has released a number of scenarios, ranging from 1C to 5.8C, but they have not released any data indicating which of these vastly different numbers might be the most likely). Therefore, climate change is occurring and will impact our world in a number of ways, including increased sea levels, increased storm intensity, and the northern migration of certain species. I believe that overall, the damaging impacts of climate change will probably outweigh the beneficial ones. This seems likely because it has been estimated that developing countries, due to geography and a lack of capital, may suffer the brunt of climate impacts. However, the real debate is this,

1) Will the impacts of climate change be severe enough to warrant taking severe precautionary measures to stop the emission of CO2? And will the bad effects of those precautionary effects outweigh the benefits of mitigating global warming?

2) How feasible is it to halt carbon emissions in time to mitigate climate change?

3) Is it monetarily more efficient to spend money preventing global warming or on the technological development which may protect us from the effects of climate change? In other words, what portion of money should go towards mitigation, and what portion to adaptation?

There is a lot of interesting material on this, real climate debate. For example, the Wall Street Journal has published some articles which deal with these issues. If you are interested, try checking out the following editorial from the Wall Street Journal.

"Climate of Opinion" Pay attention to the reference to the hockey stick debate.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009625

On another note, I highly recommend trying out the blog "Real Climate" which is located at www.realclimate.org

The Liberal Litany - true or false?

I just picked up an interesting read. Its called The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World and is written by a professor of statistics named Bjorn Lomberg. In his thesis, Lomberg argues that Americans (liberals in particular) have been indoctrinated with what he calls "The Litany." The Litany is a deep-rooted sense that the world is becoming worse off as the human population increases and technology booms. Parts of The Litany include conceptions such as the exhaustion of clean water and oil wells, the destruction of the rain forest and biodiversity and other chemical and hazardous waste related fears. Perhaps in a deeper sense, the Litany is the belief that humans are bad for the planet - that we are the miscreant child of "mother earth." Lomberg asks the very simple question - is this true, and where is the evidence that supports this belief? Lomberg began his inquiry as a Greenpeace-touting environmentalist (at least, that is how he characterizes himself) - but he ends up disproving many of the Litany's cherished beliefs. Here are several thought-provoking quotes from the book for you to think about.

"Despite our intuition that we naturally need to do something drastic about such a costly global warming, economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut CO2 emissions radically than to pay for the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures."

Some things to think about here - First, he is right to begin an economic argument over mitigation and adaptation - these two sides of global warming policy have been ignored in the public media. However, there is no footnote telling me where these "economic analyses" are that "clearly show" his claim. As far as I can tell, few things are clear within the realm of climate change policy - as many decisions are based on models with large uncertainty.

"The important lesson of global warming is three-fold. First we have to realize what we are arguing about - do we want to handle global warming in the most efficient way or do we want to use global warming as a stepping stone to other political projects."

Something to think about.

The Sunny Day

Today is the kind of day I can't explain. Yesterday, it was humid and cloudy, the day before it was hot, humid and hazy. And then I woke up today at 8am to witness a perfect, sunny, dry, and warm morning. It is too bad that a perfect day of this sort translates to taking photosynthesis data. Lauren was pretty excited - we readied the gigantic, rolling LICOR machine, carefully calibrated it, installed a new CO2 tank, put in some new desiccation and CO2 scrubbing material (which allows you to control for humidity and CO2 levels). Then, as we were about to take the data - in fact, as we had already clamped down on the first leaf of the day, things began to go wrong. The problems revolved around the leaf's boundary area - the thin layer surrounding the leaf where the humidity is much higher than anywhere else. In previous experiments, this layer had never been recorded at more than 3% greater than the greenhouse humidity. However, our leaf chamber was reading relative humidity at levels about 30-40% greater. Indeed. Which is why I am now sitting in the computer lab, while Lauren makes a semi-frantic phone-call to our PI. We are under strict orders not to call the PI after 1:30 (it is 1:45)...so we shall see what happens.

Whoops, time to go..

My Solar Farm is Bigger Than Yours

Hot. Hot. I got home today from a weekend trip to Vermont, and stepping out of the car was like walking into a brick wall of heat. My normally sweet disposition disappears when the temperature gets above 90 - so I was crabby out in the greenhouse today, where the computer registered 108F in compartment 3. I didn't even bear the brunt of it - Lauren was the one out testing our new LICOR photosynthesis machine on our "Dummy" plants. Luckily, my own task for the next few days is far easier - I am taking nail polish peels of our experimental subjects and analyzing them under the microscope. Just what I like doing best.

In terms of the world outside of the lab (there is one there, I just know it!) - a friend sent me a neat article from CNN.com entitled, "California to build the world's largest solar farm." The title of the article is pretty self-explanatory - but this thing is going to be GI-Normous, seventeen times the largest existing US solar farm, and bigger than any planned in Germany (the hub of solar tech). Cleantech, the young corporation in charge of the operation, expects that economies of scale will help to drive down the cost of solar. Meaning that they are banking on the pure size and energy output of their new farm to help lower solar energy prices and stimulate purchasing. The cost of building the new solar farm remains undisclosed.

The Electric Car is Back

Time for a reality check. What has been happening in the dynamic world of energy and utilities while I have been isolated in a small dark room with a microscope? Many things it seems. Starting with the most obvious - oil prices are up again. Frankly, I am not surprised. Additionally, there have been worries that the golden child of alternative energy - ethanol, may soon face problems related to overproduction. However, this may benefit the Archer Daniels Midland corporation. Unlike smaller companies which are exclusively oriented towards ethanol production, Archer has a far more diversified portfolio. It manufactures a larger variety of corn products and is able to produce ethanol more cheaply than competitors. For those investors out there, check out ADM and see what you think.

The above information about ADM came mainly from an article at Forbes.com. While there, I checked out Forbes' new section, sponsored by BP, on green energy solutions. They have a kind of neat article about the world's greenest billionaires - kind of cool to read. I guess if we all had tons of money, it would be a lot easier to make environmental problems disappear. Take Bill Gates for example, he subsidizes hybrid cars for Microsoft employees and his firm has invested quite a bit of money into Pacific Ethanol (PEIX). Then there are the two co-founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have turned Google's head quarters into a green mansion paradise. Interestingly, both also own shares of Tesla - an electric car company. Now that, I don't believe is simply good environmentalism. Instead, Tesla is an excellent company with a good business plan. I would invest in it myself if it were publicly traded.

In fact - its worth it, I promise. Check out www.teslamotors.com to find out a bit more about the company. I am posting a picture below (from their website) of their ridiculous electric sports car.



Want to venture a guess as to how expensive it is? Try $98,000. A bit out of my price range. But a pretty sweeet car. Hope everyone is enjoying the cool, albeit rainy weekend.

Research Troubles on July 4th

Let me start by saying that I hate the whole "green is the new red, white and blue" movement that seems to occur nowadays around the 4th of July. Just because I am an environmentalist doesn't mean I appreciate having propaganda shoved down my throat. It just seems like a ridiculous catch-phrase. It reminds me of an article I read this morning in the New York Times about how people like to buy Prius hybrid cars because they are the only car marketed clearly as a hybrid. When asked why people purchased the hybrid, the most common response was, "to identify myself as environmentally concerned." Apparently other hybrid cars (such as the Honda) are only identified as such by a small blue mark on the back of the car. Which is why the Prius is the only really successful hybrid vehicle in commission so far.

Anyways, sorry for the diatribe. We have encountered a major set-back at the lab - a recently discovered experimental design flaw has rendered all of our data unpublishable. The mistake was one which everyone involved overlooked - the PI, Lauren, and all the other students in the lab. Unfortunately, this means that we must toss out half of our plants and reorient our experiment towards intra-population differences. Lauren discovered the mistake yesterday - and it was a bit rough. I went out and purchased an entire bag of Hershey Kisses. We sat sadly munching on chocolate and musing on future possibilities for Lauren's Masters thesis. During this, I made an unusual and strange discovery. I had always thought that Hershey Kiss wrapper simply read, "Hershey Kisses" but as I looked down - I read on my little string-wrapper, "I Hate Mondays." Incredibly apt, and yet, - very strange. Don't worry - yours truly did a little investigative reporting (ie Google) and I found that the 100 year anniversary of Hershey Kisses is this year - therefore they are publishing lots of crazy things (like "celebration," "I hate mondays," and "Kiss me").

Anyways, hopefully we will figure out some way to make the research move forward. Although our PI has already told us to throw out half the plants, which is not encouraging. More later...

I am at it again

More of my science-art. The first image is taken of a petiole stained with phloroglucinal at 10x. A petiole is the little stem at the base of a leaf- it contains the vascular bundles which bring water to the leaf (xylem) and export sugar from the leaf (phloem). Phloroglucinal is a dye which (when activated by Hydrochloric acid) turns lignin a bright pink color. Ideally, a stain of a thin petiole section would reveal the circular cross-section of the xylem (since xylem, unlike phloem, is lignfied tissue.) However, as you can see, my shot got a bit smushed - and only the side view of the xylem is visible. Those things which look like dark smudges should be clear views of the vascular bundle. Well, I'm still learning. The second picture is one of those bundles taken at a close magnification. Although you cannot see it in this shot - you can tell xylem from the side view because they have a curlique structure of lignin wrapping around them. It looks sort of like a stretched out slinky. The third shot was perhaps the most useful - since I actually managed to capture part of the palisade layer. The picture is of a leaf section. If you look carefully, you can see cells on the top-side of the leaf which are shaped a bit like tic-tacs. Those are the epidermal cells on the outside of the leaf. Next down are verticle cells which are at a right angle to the epidermal cells. These are the palisade cells. One of the traits which Lauren and I are interested in measuring is palisade cell thickness - although so far the shot above is the best one we have gotten - and it is too blurry to use for percise measurements.

More later...

Crafting a new energy bill

Nancy Pelosi wanted to vote on the new energy package by July 4th - a date which environmentalists are trying to label "Energy Independence Day." However, she will have to settle by announcing the outlines of a House plan which is significantly more conservative that the Senate's own bill. The Senate voted to increase fuel economy standards, deciding that cars and SUVs will need to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The current standard is 25 mpg. However, the Senate also dropped proposals which would have required 15% of our electricity come from renewable sources. More surprisingly, they dropped proposals to create new subsidies for biofuels projects (although the ethanol industry already gets quite a bit). The money would have come from tough taxes on the oil and gas industry. The House bill is more conservative, especially concerning emissions fuel standards. This is partially due to the fact that Pelosi faces a tough opponent in Energy chairman Dingell of Michigan, who has close ties with the auto industry.(1)(2)





1. Information from an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle written by entitled, "How green is Congress?"

2. Information also from an article in the Des Moines Register entitled, "Energy bill chugs along, losing steam."