Something new every day

[bronwynrh]

So I'm data crunching, analysing all the images I've generated over the past 2 days of microscopy so I don't get too far behind over the next FOUR days of microscopy. While I crunch this data with mind-numbing repetitive keystrokes, I am reading a book about microbial life on leaf surfaces.

It's fascinating, to a point, but it's written by plant folk who use a vocabulary quite unfamiliar to me. Most of the terms I just skip over, having a vague or reasonable idea of what they mean based on their context. Others, I stumble over and say, "whots that now?"

Gotta love Firefox and Google. I typed in "albedo" and got this. Well golly gee, I didn't know that. Did you?

It took me 5 pages of repeated mentions before I figured out what "adaxial surface" meant.

Don't know why I shared that with you.

Hello, my name is Bronwyn, and I'm a science nerd.

Comments

[ashfault76.livejournal.com]

*in unison*
"HI, Bronwyn!!"

heehee. I never knew what albedo was either (of course, until now I'd never seen or heard the word before).

it's ok to be a science nerd. I'm one too.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

We should develop a twelve-step program, just in case we decide to recover.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

*grin*

I'm working on the riddle of curlicue. . . :-) I'll send you a note when I have a good guess.

And yes, we are definitely hot!

[dburr13.livejournal.com]

when i was a kid....before the internet existed...i read the encylcopedia and dictionary for fun...now with google it's easy to find out what those strange words mean.

[boreal.livejournal.com]

The big hot this as of late in the gardening groups is "brewing compost tea" . This is basically taking compost in a bucket of water, adding sugars and trying to breed the "healthy" organisms from the compost pile (using air bubbled in and agitation,) which can either be added to the soil as a drench (in theory, boosting microscopic activity in breaking down nutrients and protecting root systems, attaching less desirable things like bad funguses and nemotodes, etc,) OR sprayed on the leaves to form a healthy microbe community to ward off things like mildew, some pests and diseases, etc.)

There is a whole ...organization of people whose business it is to produce these brewing devices for commercial purposes and also of commercial and private followers (I made my own. The commercial ones are expensive, whether they're for farms or smaller.) I think its soilfoodweb.com

No, actually I think that's one of the leading labs who is trying to come up with standards of what a healthy brew is. (No one really knows.) and what might be best. And if brews and brewing devices are even working at all (Some commercial units that cost a lot, don't do much apparently.) Anyhow, there should be a link there to the international organization since I think that lab was part of the group which helped put the international organization together.

Anywho. You made me think of all that. Apparently the microorganisms which live on leaf surfaces are very interesting and relatively new to be studied as to what exactly they're doing there.