24.3.09

I've been contemplating...


I'm thinking about cutting my hair. I haven't quite decided what to do yet, though I'm definitely dying it black. Probably an Amelie haircut; I want to be her. I don't know if it will work with my hair though.

22.3.09

a creek of my acquaintance

Because you CARE....

This is the homework that I was supposed to be doing during my first post. Now I'm just spamming my own blog to make it look like I actually have a life - which I don't.


Biogeochemical Cycles, the Greenhouse Effect, & Ozone Layer Depletion


Carbon Cycle

Carbon
· resides in atmosphere as CO2

· is taken from atmosphere for use in photosynthesis

→ plants, cyanobacteria, algae

→ carbon from plants etc. passed up the food pyramid when plants are eaten by primary consumers, which are eaten by secondary consumers, and so on.

· is released back into atmosphere as CO2 by plants etc. as a byproduct of ACR

· is released back into atmosphere as CO2 by consumers who have eaten plants, or consumers who have eaten other consumers, as a byproduct of ACR

· is released back into atmosphere as CO2 when wood and fossil fuels are burned.

→ fossil fuels formed from dead plant matter (coal, eg.)

· is released back into atmosphere as CO2 when dead plant & animal matter is digested by detritivores (bacteria, eg.)


Nitrogen Cycle
Nitrogen

· resides in atmosphere as N2

· enters ecosystems as NH4+ and NO3- (only 5-10% of usable nitrogen) by the process of atmospheric deposition

→ dissolved in rain, or as fine dust

· enters ecosystems through nitrogen fixation (as ammonia – NH3)

→ done by specific bacteria – symbiotic (in/near roots of plants – legumes especially) & nonsymbiotic (free-living, in soil)

→ ammonia picks up an H+ to become ammonium (can be used by plants directly)

→ most ammonium is used by bacteria as an energy source through nitrification, which oxidizes it to nitrite, and then to nitrate

· can be fixed into nitrate during a lightning strike

· is taken up by plants as nitrate

· is consumed by animals via plants

· is returned to soil by the decomposition of dead plant and animal matter by detritivores

· can then undergo ammonification, which returns it to ammonium

· also undergoes denitrification, which returns it to the atmosphere


Water Cycle
Water

· resides in atmosphere as water vapor

→ condenses to form clouds

· falls as rain/other precipitation from clouds

→ drains into soil, lakes, & rivers which in turn drain into the ocean

· is taken up from soil by plants

· reenters atmosphere through transpiration in plants

· is taken up from rivers & plants by animals

· reenters atmosphere through respiration in plants & animals

· reenters atmosphere through evaporation from lakes, rivers, the ocean, puddles, ponds, etc.


Phosphorus Cycle
Phosphorus

· resides in soil and rocks – does not have a gaseous form, unlike carbon & nitrogen

→ weathering of rocks adds phosphorus to soil

· is taken up from soil by plants to be incorporated into organic molecules such as DNA

· is taken up from plants by consumers

· is returned to soil by the excretions of animals and the action of detritivores on dead plant and animal matter

· leaches into the water table

· accumulates in sediments in rivers & oceans

→ can be returned to ecosystems through geological uplifting etc.

→ rocks formed are weathered, which returns phosphorus to the soil


Combustion of Fuels

Combustion of fuels

· releases CO2 into the atmosphere

· CO2 is a known greenhouse gas

· therefore there is a risk that global warming may occur as a result of human manufacturing and burning of fuels

· CO2 concentration in 1958=316 ppm

· current CO2 concentration=387 ppm

· Note: increasing CO2 levels increases the rate at which most plants will grow – except C4 plants.

→ this could have a major effect on many environments/plant populations

· CO2 is used in photosynthesis, then given off during respiration

→ release of CO2 into the atmosphere

· Dead/decaying plant & animal matter become fossil fuels, which are burned, or plant material is burned directly as wood

→ release of CO2 into the atmosphere


Greenhouse Effect
· The atmosphere is formed of many gasses (78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, among others)

· Greenhouse gasses = gasses in the atmosphere that absorb and emit infrared radiation (water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, and methane, eg.)

· The greenhouse effect is a change in the temperature of a moon or planet by the addition of an atmosphere which contains greenhouse gasses.

· The net effect of greenhouse gasses = to warm the surface of a planet or moon

· Levels of CO2 in human-caused emissions have caused concerns about global warming

→ the greenhouse effect, which keeps Earth warm, may cause overheating if there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere


Ozone Layer Depletion

· (O3)

· resides mainly in a layer in the stratosphere

· protects the surface of the Earth from harmful UV radiation

· the ozone layer is becoming thinner as a result of the release of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), which reduce the O3 to O2

→ CFCs can affect up to one hundred thousand molecules of O3 before their own degradation

→ even if all production of CFCs ceased immediately, they would continue to influence the ozone layer for another hundred years

· potential consequences of a thinning ozone layer include skin cancer, cataracts, negative effects on crops and communities of organisms

100 books the BBC thinks you oughtta read.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - x
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - x
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - x
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - x
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - x
6. The Bible - x
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - x
8. 1984 - George Orwell - x
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - x
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - x
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - x
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - x
7. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - x
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - x
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - x
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - x
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - x
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - x
34. Emma - Jane Austen - x
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen - x
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - x
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - x
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - x
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell - x
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - x
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - x
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - x
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel - x
52. Dune - Frank Herbert - x
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - x
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - x
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - x
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - x
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - x
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Inferno - Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - x
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - x
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White - x
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - x
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - x
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - x
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams - x
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - x
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare - x
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - x
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - x

And I've read a whole 45 of them. Take that.
On my book list are now Memoirs of a Geisha, Lolita, and Dracula.
I'm going to have to try Grapes of Wrath and Crime & Punishment now too.

How typical


I was all going to call this, "my first post"... but then I figured that was too typical.
So I didn't. But I'll introduce myself anyway.

Hi, I'm Lizzi. And that's my beautiful self you see to the left.

I don't know what the heck I'm doing blogging right now anyhow. I have another blog elsewhere - though the last time I used it was... three months ago? ... my excuse is, it's more creative writing type stuff than blog type stuff. So I don't know. Besides, I really ought to be working on a thing for Bio class that's due tomorrow. Yeah. I guess I'm an idiot.

Anyway, signing out for now - have to work on that Bio thing.

Toodles!