Daily Archives: July 23, 2018

Biological clocks : August lilies : Lycoris squamigera

Rants

It was fun to predict when the august lilies would pop out of the ground this year. It was a pretty hot july here in cincinnati, and we had about 2 days that cooled off to the low 60s or maybe even the upper 50s at night. This made me think the bulbs would be on alert for the next rainy period. So after three days of rain, not terrible rain but steady moisture, i had 8 stalks of august lily appear from the ground, the next morning 32, the next morning (after a little more rain and cooler daytime and night time temps) i had more than 80. This afternoon (still cool but no more rain) there were more than 250 august lilies poking their heads out of the soil.

Biological clocks are amazing – (as an aside, one cover for JBC i did for someone working on biological clocks I have framed… he actually won a nobel prize for his work on bioloical clocks. I posted it here and also did an inside cover illustration (which i would have wished had been accepted as a cover here) but i dont think i have ever done much research on biological clocks in august lilies.

biological clock

Hardy members of the amaryllis family, emerge as astonishingly fast, with no foliage (which is early green and then dies back in spring) popping up from underneath hostas, begonias, ground covers etc. They also are known as Resurrection lilies, autumn amaryllis, august lilies, naked ladies, and as Lycoris squamigera, their botanical name.
Last year i dug up and replanted clumps (way over due…. decades over due) of 30 and 40 packed bulbs, so tight none could “breathe”. About three years ago i had over 200 blooms, then less and less and I didn’t know if it was the weather or that they were crowded. I did not anticipate that the new replants would bloom. Some certainly have.

I found this cute post from Stanford… Hacking the biological clock  . and a bulb society has a couple posts here.

FOR me….. it looks, year after year, it is a combination,  first cool nights, and lots of water.

and another post HERE that mentions the medicinal (toxic actually) compounds, and also this might explain why deer dont really like to eat my august amaryllis… or so i will call it from now on.

Earth temperatures

Political - thoughts, Rants

From my friend DWN.

Here is a list of natural causes that affect global atmospheric temperatures:

  • solar activity (frequency and strength of sun flares)
  • geothermal vents and underwater volcanoes cosmic ray flux
  • orbital eccentricity-axial tilt-and-precession of Earth’s orbit
  • magnetic effects of other planets
  • heat distribution between oceanic and atmospheric systems
  • changes in radioative forcing (balance between solar-radiation energy absorbed by Earth’s  surfaces and energy radiated back into space)
  • the large difference in land:sea ratio between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere

“Human activity” contributes something, but the effect is well under 1%, i.e. it’s not statistically detectable. (Yet. Could be in 100-500 years.)

Really nice video from NASA here.

Cristae

Ultimate order, the cell

The numerous mitochodnrial variations (in total shape as well as cristae shape) seen with different species, tissues, strains, experimental manipulations can sometimes lead to interesting speculations about which mitochondrial membrane proteins might be present or absent or changed. Electron tomography as well as routine transmission electron microscopy can allow speculation about mitochondrial performance.

Isolated mitochondrial supply an easy example of changes in cristae junctions where under some conditions they are non-functional (missing).

In vivo, mitochondria are surrounded by areas of cytoplasm which can have cytoskeletal elements closely approximated, and/or linked to mitochondria (e,g, nerve terminals – called mitochondrial associated adherens complexes) , with desmosomes (sometimes called mitochondrial tethers–of which there are dozens of samples in many species on this website), nuclear pores (i don’t believe these have been named–of which there are also dozens of samples in many species on this website), and sometimes other organelles, such as RER and secretion granules).

Positions of cristae, arrangement  (perpendicular, parallel, etc) and number of cristae and cristae junctions are variable features depending upon which cytoplasmic elements are adjacent to that particular side (site) on the outer mitochondrial membrane. Some morphometric work was done on neural tissue by Perkins et al, Journal of Neuroscience January 20, 2010, 30(3):1015–1026, and they state that the number of cristae junctions is greater on the side of the mitochondrion which is involved in what they call “mitochondrion-associated adherens complex”  –maybe an unfortunate use of the word adherens…. owing to its immediate confusion with adherens junctions… maybe deliberate use of the word adherens because of the presence of what they term cytoskeletal structures).

estimates:

crista junction 15nm diameter
OMM thickness 20nm
omm+imm contact distance 14nm
tubular cristae (hepatochte mitochondria) 30-40nm diameter
about 90 degree angle (perpendicular) cristae to junctions
junctions at higher numberical density on sides where contact with plasmalemma is (specialized areas)
intermediate filaments and microtubules aligned with the long axis of mitochondrion (what does this mean? parallel?)
struts (perpendicular to mitochondrion, filaments a little thicker than intermediate filaments?) (a ring?)
filaments and microtubules define a “vesicle” free area as the M-associated adherens complex.
possible vesicle tethers beside the m-associated adherens complex about 8 nm apart