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photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
2-D says, “We Monarchs really depend on photosynthesis! All that sunshine energy the plants absorb and store up by making sugar gets transferred into our bodies when we eat the plants’ nectar, and then we can use that energy for our body processes.”
Leaf Structure
Photosynthesis is the process of converting light energy to chemical energy and storing it in the bonds of sugar. This process occurs in plants and some algae (Kingdom Protista). Plants need only light energy, CO2, and H2O to make sugar. The process of photosynthesis takes place in the chloroplasts, specifically using chlorophyll, the green pigment involved in photosynthesis.
Leaf Cross-Section
Photosynthesis takes place primarily in plant leaves, and little to none
occurs in stems, etc. The parts of a typical leaf include the upper and
lower
epidermis,
the
mesophyll,
the vascular bundle(s) (veins), and the
stomates.
The upper and lower epidermal cells do not have chloroplasts, thus
photosynthesis does not occur there. They serve primarily as protection for
the rest of the leaf. The stomates are holes which occur primarily in the
lower epidermis and are for air exchange: they let CO2 in and
O2 out. The vascular bundles or veins in a leaf are part of the
plant’s transportation system, moving water and nutrients around the plant
as needed. The mesophyll cells have chloroplasts and this is where
photosynthesis occurs.
Chlorplast
As you hopefully recall, the parts of a chloroplast include the outer and
inner membranes, intermembrane space,
stroma,
and
thylakoids
stacked in
grana.
The chlorophyll is built into the membranes of the thylakoids.
Chlorophyll looks green because it absorbs red and blue light, making these colors unavailable to be seen by our eyes. It is the green light which is NOT absorbed that finally reaches our eyes, making chlorophyll appear green. However, it is the energy from the absorbed red and blue light that is, thereby, able to be used to do photosynthesis. The green light we can see is not/cannot be absorbed by the plant, and thus cannot be used to do photosynthesis.
Overall Chemical Reaction
The overall chemical reaction involved in photosynthesis is:
6CO2 + 6H2O (+ light energy) ? C6H12O6 + 6O2.
This is the source of the O2 we breathe, and thus, a significant
factor in the concerns about deforestation.
There are two parts to photosynthesis. They are called the light
reaction and the dark reaction
Light Reaction
Central Structure of Chlorophyll The light reaction happens in the thylakoid membrane and converts light energy to chemical energy. This chemical reaction must, therefore, take place in the light. Chlorophyll and several other pigments such as beta-carotene are organized in clusters in the thylakoid membrane and are involved in the light reaction. Each of these differently-colored pigments can absorb a slightly different color of light and pass its energy to the central chlorphyll molecule to do photosynthesis. The central part of the chemical structure of a chlorophyll molecule is a porphyrin ring, which consists of several fused rings of carbon and nitrogen with a magnesium ion in the center.
Dark Reaction
Structure of ATP
The energy harvested via the light reaction is stored by forming a chemical
called
ATP (adenosine triphosphate),
a compound used by cells for energy storage. This chemical is made of the
nucleotide adenine bonded to a ribose sugar, and that is bonded to three
phosphate groups. This molecule is very similar to the building blocks for
our DNA.
The dark reaction takes place in the stroma within the chloroplast, and converts CO2 to sugar. This reaction doesn’t directly need light in order to occur, but it does need the products of the light reaction (ATP and another chemical called NADPH). The dark reaction involves a cycle called the Calvin cycle in which CO2 and energy from ATP are used to form sugar. Actually, notice that the first product of photosynthesis is a three-carbon compound called glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Almost immediately, two of these join to form a glucose molecule.
Most plants put CO2 directly into the Calvin cycle. Thus the first stable organic compound formed is the glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Since that molecule contains three carbon atoms, these plants are called C3 plants. For all plants, hot summer weather increases the amount of water that evaporates from the plant. Plants lessen the amount of water that evaporates by keeping their stomates closed during hot, dry weather. Unfortunately, this means that once the CO2 in their leaves reaches a low level, they must stop doing photosynthesis. Even if there is a tiny bit of CO2 left, the enzymes used to grab it and put it into the Calvin cycle just don’t have enough CO2 to use. Typically the grass in our yards just turns brown and goes dormant. Some plants like crabgrass, corn, and sugar cane have a special modification to conserve water. These plants capture CO2 in a different way: they do an extra step first, before doing the Calvin cycle. These plants have a special enzyme that can work better, even at very low CO2 levels, to grab CO2 and turn it first into oxaloacetate, which contains four carbons. Thus, these plants are called C4 plants. The CO2 is then released from the oxaloacetate and put into the Calvin cycle. This is why crabgrass can stay green and keep growing when all the rest of your grass is dried up and brown.
Note: lawn grass is supposed to go dormant in dry summer weather, and watering it a) wastes a lot of water, b) makes a lot of extra work for the homeowner, and c) wastes energy and causes a lot of pollution due to running the lawnmower all those extra, unnecessary times. Skip the unnecessary water, and you’ll both have a lot more time to enjoy doing other things and create less pollution.
There is yet another strategy to cope with very hot, dry, desert weather and conserve water. Some plants (for example, cacti and pineapple) that live in extremely hot, dry areas like deserts, can only safely open their stomates at night when the weather is cool. Thus, there is no chance for them to get the CO2 needed for the dark reaction during the daytime. At night when they can open their stomates and take in CO2, these plants incorporate the CO2 into various organic compounds to store it. In the daytime, when the light reaction is occurring and ATP is available (but the stomates must remain closed), they take the CO2 from these organic compounds and put it into the Calvin cycle. These plants are called CAM plants, which stands for crassulacean acid metabolism after the plant family, Crassulaceae (which includes the garden plant Sedum) where this process was first discovered.
nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru (Hindustani: [?d???a???r?la?l ?ne??ru] (
); 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics for much of the 20th century. He emerged as the paramount leader of the Indian independence movement under the tutelage of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947
until his death in office in 1964. Nehru is considered to be the
architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist,
secular, and democratic republic.
The son of Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and nationalist statesman, Nehru was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple, where he trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Allahabad High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. A committed nationalist since his teenage years, Nehru became a rising figure in Indian politics during the upheavals of the 1910s. He became the prominent leader of the left-wing factions of the Indian National Congress during the 1920s, and eventually of the entire Congress, with the tacit approval of his mentor, Gandhi. As Congress President in 1929, Nehru called for complete independence from the British Raj and instigated the Congress's decisive shift towards the left.
Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the 1930s as the country moved towards independence. His idea of a secular nation-state was seemingly validated when the Congress, under his leadership, swept the 1937 provincial elections and formed the government in several provinces; on the other hand, the separatist Muslim League fared much poorer. But these achievements were seriously compromised in the aftermath of the Quit India Movement in 1942, which saw the British effectively crush the Congress as a political organisation. Nehru, who had reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence, for he had desired to support the Allied war effort during the Second World War, came out of a lengthy prison term to a much altered political landscape. The Muslim League under his old Congress colleague and now bête noire, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had come to dominate Muslim politics in India. Negotiations between Nehru and Jinnah for power sharing failed and gave way to the independence and bloody partition of India in 1947.
Nehru was elected by the Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister, although the question of leadership had been settled as far back in 1941, when Gandhi acknowledged Nehru as his political heir and successor. As Prime Minister, Nehru set out to realise his vision of India. The Constitution of India was enacted in 1950, after which he embarked on an ambitious program of economic, social and political reforms. Chiefly, he oversaw India's transition from a monarchy to a republic, while nurturing a plural, multi-party democracy. In foreign policy, Nehru took a leading role in Non-Alignment while projecting India as a regional hegemon in South Asia.
Under Nehru's leadership, the Congress emerged as a catch-all party,
dominating national and state-level politics and winning consecutive
elections in 1951, 1957, and 1962.
He remained popular with the people of India in spite of political
troubles in his final years and failure of leadership during 1962 Sino-Indian War. In India, his birthday is celebrated as Children's Day.
einstein
| Albert Einstein | |
|---|---|
 Albert Einstein in 1921
|
|
| Born | 14 March 1879 Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire |
| Died | 18 April 1955 (aged 76) Princeton, New Jersey, United States |
| Residence | Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, United States |
| Citizenship |
|
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Folgerungen aus den Capillaritatserscheinungen (1901) |
| Doctoral advisor | Alfred Kleiner |
| Other academic advisors | Heinrich Friedrich Weber |
| Notable students | |
| Known for | |
| Notable awards |
|
| Spouse | Mileva Mari? (1903–1919) Elsa Löwenthal (1919–1936) |
| Children | "Lieserl" (1902–1903?) Hans Albert (1904–1973) Eduard "Tete" (1910–1965) |
Signature |
|
Albert Einstein (/?ælb?rt ?a?nsta?n/; German: [?alb?t ?a?n?ta?n] ( ); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics).[2][3] While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"),[4] he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[5] The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory.
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the large-scale structure of the universe.[6]
He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and did not go back to Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U.S., becoming an American citizen in 1940.[7] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the U.S. begin similar research. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.
Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works.[6][8] His great intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius.[9]
st.alphonsa
istory
St. ALPHONSA was born in Kudamalur, the Arpookara region, in the diocese of Changanacherry, India, on the 19th of August 1910, of the ancient and noble family of Muttathupadathu.
From her birth, the life of the Blessed was marked by the cross, which would be progressively revealed to her as the royal way to conform herself to Christ. Her mother, Maria Puthukari, gave birth to her prematurely, in her eight month of pregnancy, as a result of a fright she received when, during the sleep, a snake wrapped itself around her waist. Eight days later, the 28 of August, the child was baptised according to the Syro-Malabar rite by the Fr. Joseph Chackalayil, and she received the name Annakutty, a diminutive of Anne. She was the last of five children.
Her mother died three months later. Annakutty passed her early infancy in the home of her grandparents in Elumparambil. There she lived a particularly happy time because of her human and Christian formation, during which the first seeds of a vocation flowered. Her grand-mother, a pious and charitable woman, communicated the joy of the faith, love for prayer and a surge of charity towards the poor to her. At five years of age the child already knew how to lead, with a totally childish enthusiasm, the evening prayer of the family gathered, in accordance with the Syro-Malabar custom, in the "prayer room".
Annakutty received the Eucharistic bread for the first time on the 11 of November 1917. She used to say to her friends: "Do you know why I am so particularly happy today? It is because I have Jesus in my heart!". In a letter to her spiritual father, on the 30 of November 1943, she confided the following: "Already from the age of seven I was no longer mine. I was totally dedicated to my divine Spouse. Your reverence knows it well".
In the same year of 1917 she began to attend the elementary school of Thonnankuzhy, where she also established a sincere friendship with the Hindu children. When the first school cycle ended in 1920, the time had come to transfer to Muttuchira, to the house of her aunt Anna Murickal, to whom her mother, before she died, had entrusted her as her adoptive mother.
Her aunt was a severe and demanding woman, at times despotic and violent in demanding obedience from Annakutty in her every minimal disposition or desire. Assiduous in her religious practice, she accompanied her niece, but did not share the young girl’s friendship with the Carmelites of the close-by Monastery or her long periods of prayer at the foot of the altar. She was, in fact, determined to procure an advantageous marriage for Annakutty, obstructing the clear signs of her religious vocation.
The virtue of the Blessed was manifested in accepting this severe and rigid education as a path of humility and patience for the love of Christ, and tenaciously resisted the reiterated attempts at engagement to which the aunt tried to oblige her. Annakutty, in order to get out from under a commitment to marriage, reached the point of voluntarily causing herself a grave burn by putting her foot into a heap of burning embers. "My marriage was arranged when I was thirteen years old. What had I to do to avoid it? I prayed all that night... then an idea came tome. If my body were a little disfigured no one would want me! ... O, how I suffered! I offered all for my great intention".
The proposal to defile her singular beauty did not fully succeed in freeing her from the attentions of suitors. During the following years the Blessed had to defend her vocation, even during the year of probation when an attempt to give her in marriage, with the complicity of the Mistress of Formation herself, was made. "O, the vocation which I received! A gift of my good God!.... God saw the pain of my soul in those days. God distanced the difficulties and established me in this religious state".
It was Fr. James Muricken, her confessor, who directed her towards Franciscan spirituality and put her in contact with the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists. Annakutty entered their college in Bharananganam in the diocese of Palai, to attend seventh class, as an intern student, on the 24th of May 1927. The following year, on the 2nd of August 1928, Annakutty began her postulancy, taking the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast it was that day. She was clothed in the religious habit on the 19th of May 1930, during the first pastoral visit made to Bharananganam by the Bishop, Msgr. James Kalacherry.
The period 1930-1935 was characterised by grave illness and moral suffering. She could teach the children in the school at Vakakkad only during the scholastic year 1932. Then, because of her weakness, she carried out the duties of assistant-teacher and catechist in the parish. She was engaged also as secretary, especially to write official letters because of her beautiful script.
The canonical novitiate was introduced into the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists in 1934. Though wishing to enter immediately, the Blessed was only admitted on the 12th of August 1935 because of her ill health. About one week after the beginning of her novitiate, she had a haemorrhage from the nose and eyes and a profound organic wasting and purulent wounds on her legs. The illness deteriorated, to such a point that the worst was feared.
Heaven came to the rescue of the holy novice. During a novena to The Servant of God Fr. Kuriakose Elia Chavara - a Carmelite who today is a Blessed—she was miraculously and instantaneously cured.
Having restarted her novitiate, she wrote the following proposals in her spiritual diary: "I do not wish to act or speak according to my inclinations. Every time I fail, I will do penance... I want to be careful never to reject anyone. I will only speak sweet words to others. I want to control my eyes with rigour. I will ask pardon of the Lord for every little failure and I will atone for it through penance. No matter what my sufferings may be, I will never complain and if I have to undergo any humiliation, I will seek refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus".
The 12th of August 1936, the feast of St. Clare, the day of her perpetual profession, was a day of inexpressible spiritual joy. She had realised her desire, guarded for a long time in her heart and confided to her sister Elizabeth when she was only 12 years old: "Jesus is my only Spouse, and none other".
Jesus, however, wished to lead His spouse to perfection through a life of suffering. "I made my perpetual profession on the 12th of August 1936 and came here to Bharanganam on the following 14th. From that time, it seems, I was entrusted with a part of the cross of Christ. There are abundant occasions of suffering... I have a great desire to suffer with joy. It seems that my Spouse wishes to fulfill this desire".
Painful illnesses followed each other: typhoid fever, double pneumonia, and, the most serious of all, a dramatic nervous shock, the result of a fright on seeing a thief during the night of the 18th of October 1940. Her state of psychic incapacity lasted for about a year, during which she was unable to read or write.
In every situation, Sister Alphonsa always maintained a great reservation and charitable attitude towards the Sisters, silently undergoing her sufferings. In 1945 she had a violent outbreak of illness. A tumor, which had spread throughout her organs, transformed her final year of life into a continuous agony. Gastroenteritis and liver problems caused violent convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day: "I feel that the Lord has destined me to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering... I consider a day in which I have not suffered as a day lost to me".
With this attitude of a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips, Sister Alphonsa quietly and joyfully brought her earthly journey to a close in the convent of the Franciscan Clarists at Bharananganam at 12.30 on the 28th July 1946, leaving behind the memory of a Sister full of love and a saint.
The next day 29th July 1946, witnessed a funeral which was very simple. The coffin was carried in procession to the parish church by the sisters of the convent. At the Requiem Mass her special Spiritual Director gave the prophetic sermon. Her body was laid to rest in the tomb of the newly built cemetery chapel. It was providential that Alphonsa was buried at the very same spot where one finds her venerated tomb located today.
St. Alphonsa’s room was very near to the convent school and the students had developed a very close contact with her. They were inspired and motivated by the holiness of Sr. Alphonsa. Her life was very short as she died at the age of 36. From the very next day after the funeral, the school children went to her tomb to put flowers and lighting candles on her grave. They found their favours received. Soon the fragrance of her virtues and saintly life spread far and wide and many miracles happened through her intercession.
Taking into account the numerous miraculous cures happened through the intercession of St. Alphonsa, Mar Sebastian Vayalil, the bishop of Pala initiated the preliminary steps for her beatification and on 2nd December, 1953 H. E. Cardinal Tisserant formally inaugurated the process. After the long process of investigation, Sr. Alphonsa was beatified by H.H. Pope John Paul II along with Rev. Fr. Kuriakose Chavara CMI at Kottayam, Kerala. The Canonization of Bl. Alphonsa was on 12th October, 2008 by H. H. Pope Benedict XVI at Vatican.
On 2 December 1953, Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Cardinal Tisserant inaugurated the diocesan process for her beatification. Pope John Paul II formally approved a miracle attributed to her intercession and Alphonsa was declared Servant of God on 9 July 1985. She was then known as Venerable Sister Alphonsa.
Sister Alphonsa Muttathupadathu was proclaimed Blessed by Pope John Paul II in Kottayam, India, on the 8th of February 1986, along with Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara. (For the beatification homily: - The words of the Servant of God John Paul II, of venerable memory, during the beatification ceremony at Kottayam reveal to us the depth of the Christological treasures hidden in the suffering of Alphonsa: “From early in her life, Sister Alphonsa experienced great suffering. With the passing of the years, the heavenly Father gave her an ever fuller share in the Passion of his beloved Son. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity, but also the spiritual suffering of being misunderstood and misjudged by others…. She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to love the Cross through her love of the crucified Lord.”
The Pope continued:
“Alphonsa, with this authentic Christian sense of the suffering from
her experience of the crucified Lord finds in the painful moments of
her life the sweetness of the love of the Lord, the sweetness of the
Love of His heart as though like a love-laden girl in the presence of
her beloved! Mystically yet poetically like a perfect cascade of love,
she pours out her heart of her relationship and experience of the Lord,
the experience of a soul who is in graced to be madly in love with the
source of the most divine Love of the heart of the Lord. Hence she
says, “I am absolutely incapable of describing it in words. I fall into
some kind of trance on the nights following the convulsion. I cannot
describe the visions I see during the trance. It appears to me that Our
Divine Lord comes to me, caresses me and pours out upon me all the
affectionate sweetness of His Sacred Heart. The whole room seems to be
flooded with the splendour of God. I do not know any more details. The
happiness of the moment is unbounded and limitless.”
easter
In Western Christianity, Easter marks the end of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline in preparation for Easter. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. Eastern Orthodox churches observe Lent or Great Lent, during the 6 weeks or 40 days preceding Palm Sunday with fasting continuing during the Holy Week of Easter. Lent for Eastern Orthodox churches begins on Monday and Ash Wednesday is not observed.
Because of Easter's pagan origins, and also because of the
commercialization of Easter, many Christian churches choose to refer to
the holiday as Resurrection Day.
MOTER TERESA
Catholic nun and missionary Mother Teresa was born circa August 26, 1910 (her date of birth is disputed), in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. On August 27, 1910, a date frequently cited as her birthday, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Mother Teresa's parents, Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu, were of Albanian descent; her father was an entrepreneur who worked as a construction contractor and a trader of medicines and other goods. The Bojaxhius were a devoutly Catholic family, and Nikola Bojaxhiu was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence.
In 1919, when Mother Teresa was only 8 years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poisoned him. In the aftermath of her father's death, Mother Teresa became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity.
Although by no means wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. "My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter. When Mother Teresa asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people."
MAHATHMAGANDH
