From Tami.Stalnaker from mail.wvu.edu Thu Jan 1 14:24:48 2009 From: Tami.Stalnaker from mail.wvu.edu (Tami Stalnaker) Date: Thu Jan 1 16:57:16 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Caffeine's effect on plants&In-Reply-To= Message-ID: <495CD230.15FC.00A9.0@mail.wvu.edu> My son is doing an experiment in High School on the effects of caffeine on plant growth. We are trying to find University research on this as a comparison to his own research (required by the teacher). If you can send the link to this research or the documents it would be greatly appreciated. --Tami From sci_educ from yahoo.com Thu Jan 1 17:33:22 2009 From: sci_educ from yahoo.com (Jon Greenberg) Date: Thu Jan 1 19:40:38 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Caffeine's effect on plants&In-Reply-To= In-Reply-To: <495CD230.15FC.00A9.0@mail.wvu.edu> Message-ID: <865096.87265.qm@web63104.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Students often do this experiment, for some reason. My only suggestion is that he calculate the amount of N in the caffeine he is applying, and if it is significant, include a comparable amount in another form (ammonium or nitrate nitrogen) as one of his controls. Jon Greenberg --- On Thu, 1/1/09, Tami Stalnaker wrote: > From: Tami Stalnaker > Subject: [Plant-education] Caffeine's effect on plants&In-Reply-To= > To: plant-ed@magpie.bio.indiana.edu > Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009, 2:24 PM > My son is doing an experiment in High School on the effects > of caffeine on plant growth. We are trying to find > University research on this as a comparison to his own > research (required by the teacher). If you can send the > link to this research or the documents it would be greatly > appreciated. > > --Tami > _______________________________________________ > Plant-ed mailing list > Plant-ed@net.bio.net > http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/plant-ed From noone from nowhere.com Thu Jan 1 22:42:03 2009 From: noone from nowhere.com (noone) Date: Thu Jan 1 22:52:41 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Re: Caffeine's effect on plants&In-Reply-To= References: Message-ID: > My son is doing an experiment in High School on the effects of caffeine on plant growth. We are trying to find University research on this as a comparison to his own research (required by the teacher). If you can send the link to this research or the documents it would be greatly appreciated. > > --Tami Do a keyword search on the Agricola database http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/ From dh321 from excite.com Sat Jan 3 00:33:49 2009 From: dh321 from excite.com (David R. Hershey) Date: Sat Jan 3 08:48:21 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Re: Caffeine's effect on plants&In-Reply-To= References: Message-ID: <70a41f1f-298d-49a5-a7a3-db8bee2f4cee@40g2000prx.googlegroups.com> What kind of experiment was conducted? Some students water plants with colas or coffee as a caffeine source but the other ingredients in those may have a greater effect on plant growth, especially the sugar in colas and the mineral nutrients in a cup of coffee. The high sugar content in sodas can kill plants or stunt plant growth. The high sugar concentration makes water less available to the plant. It also promotes the growth of microbes that release toxic waste products in the plant rootzone, and the microbes compete with the plant roots for mineral nutrients. Coffee is a hot water extract of seeds so contains essential mineral nutrients that can improve plants including high concentrations of potassium, magnesium and phosphorus. The USDA database cited below provides information of mineral nutrient content of a cup of coffee. There have been many scientific studies on caffeine effects on plants, including ones examining root initiation in cuttings, seed germination and plant cell division. There are two main hypotheses on the role of caffeine in plants. One is that caffeine inhibits seed germination of other plant species so reduces competition. Another is that caffeine in leaves and shoots discourages animals from eating the plant. (McCarthy and McCarthy, 2007). References USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ Re: Does Caffeine affect the growth of plants? http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar2000/952324797.Bt.r.html Batish, Daizy; Singh, Harminder; Kaur, Mansimran; Kohli, Ravinder; and Yadav, Surender. 2008. Caffeine affects adventitious rooting and causes biochemical changes in the hypocotyl cuttings of mung bean (Phaseolus aureus Roxb.). Acta Physiologiae Plantarum 30(3): 401-405. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/11738/2008/00000030/00000003/00000132?crawler=true Chou, C. H. and Waller, G. R. 1980. Possible allelopathic constituents of Coffea arabica. Journal of Chemical Ecology 6(3): 643-54. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vg567518312621u6/ Valster, A.H. and Hepler, P.K. 1997. Caffeine inhibition of cytokinesis: effect on phragmoplast cytoskeleton in living Tradescantia stamen hair cells. Protoplasma 196: 155–166. http://www.springerlink.com/content/n2p185h07xt76163/ McCarthy, A.A. and McCarthy, J.G. 2007. The Structure of Two N- Methyltransferases from the Caffeine Biosynthetic Pathway. Plant Physiology 144(2): 879–889. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1914188 From wise from uwosh.edu Mon Jan 19 13:43:21 2009 From: wise from uwosh.edu (Bob Wise) Date: Mon Jan 19 13:50:19 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Potato disc respiration lab Message-ID: We have been using the potato disc respiration lab from Carol Reiss's plant physiology lab manual for the last 4 or 5 years and it just hasn't worked very well for us at all. In brief, the protocol is to punch out two sets of small discs of tuber tissue. One set is fresh and one is aged for 24 hr to induce the alternative oxidase. Discs are then immersed in a redox-sensitve dye in the presence or absence of KCN or an uncoupler. Expected results are more cyanide-resistant respiration in the aged discs than in the fresh and a higher rate of dye reduction in the presence of the uncoupler. We generally get extremely average results. Aging does very little to any of the rates. KCN tends to reduce rates a little bit. The uncoupler increases rate a little, sometimes. Does anyone have experience with this exercise? I would love to find out what we are doing wrong. Bob p.s. Or does anyone have Carol's email address? I can't find it anywhere. -- Robert R. Wise Dept. of Biology UW Oshkosh 800 Algoma Blvd Oshkosh, WI 54901 (920) 424-3404 (tel) (920) 424-1101 (fax) Have a look at The Structure and Function of Plastids at http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/newbook/Vol%2023.html From mrehansiddiqi from yahoo.com Wed Jan 21 00:53:34 2009 From: mrehansiddiqi from yahoo.com (Dr. M. Rehan Siddiqi) Date: Wed Jan 21 12:43:47 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] (no subject) Message-ID: <231918.55330.qm@web36304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Question: What is the sequence of steps in the formation of initiation complex during translation? ? Option A Step 1: Charged tRNA bearing the first amino acid + small sub unit of ribosome Step 2: (Charged tRNA bearing the first amino acid + small sub unit of ribosome) + mRNA ? Option B Step 1: Charged tRNA bearing the first amino acid + mRNA Step 2: (Charged tRNA bearing the first amino acid + mRNA) +small sub unit of ribosome Take Care, M. Rehan Siddiqi From gavi0022 from tc.umn.edu Wed Jan 21 19:25:14 2009 From: gavi0022 from tc.umn.edu (Carmen) Date: Wed Jan 21 19:58:48 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Source for Private Life of Plants DVD References: Message-ID: <010c01c97c27$e6b23fe0$0200a8c0@user9bwna09szq> Hi everyone, I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private Life of Plants series with my classes. Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available for sale. Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version of the series or a downloadable version I could show my students? Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide. Sincerely, Carmen Vanegas From dejacoc from queens.edu Wed Jan 21 23:50:35 2009 From: dejacoc from queens.edu (Carrie DeJaco) Date: Thu Jan 22 06:18:59 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Source for Private Life of Plants DVD In-Reply-To: <010c01c97c27$e6b23fe0$0200a8c0@user9bwna09szq> References: <010c01c97c27$e6b23fe0$0200a8c0@user9bwna09szq> Message-ID: <43834E1F8479FD449B4F0071188B2C8485057C@exchange1.queens.edu> I had the same problem! I finally found a version of it, I believe, in the Carolina catalog. It is marketed as an "educational" version and is broken up into sections with little "questions to think about" or something like that. I just looked on their website and didn't find it, but found others that seem to be in that same series. I do believe I had a hard time finding it online, but got very excited when I found it in their print catalog. Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind is also excellent, if you can't find the Private Life. Carrie DeJaco -----Original Message----- From: plant-ed-bounces@oat.bio.indiana.edu [mailto:plant-ed-bounces@oat.bio.indiana.edu] On Behalf Of Carmen Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 7:25 PM To: Plant Ed Subject: [Plant-education] Source for Private Life of Plants DVD Hi everyone, I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private Life of Plants series with my classes. Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available for sale. Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version of the series or a downloadable version I could show my students? Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide. Sincerely, Carmen Vanegas _______________________________________________ Plant-ed mailing list Plant-ed@net.bio.net http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/plant-ed From ldnum from umich.edu Wed Jan 21 21:38:52 2009 From: ldnum from umich.edu (ldnum@umich.edu) Date: Thu Jan 22 13:04:50 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Source for Private Life of Plants DVD In-Reply-To: <010c01c97c27$e6b23fe0$0200a8c0@user9bwna09szq> References: <010c01c97c27$e6b23fe0$0200a8c0@user9bwna09szq> Message-ID: <300C9F97D96FE49EDC726B28@[192.168.214.100]> I would check PBS TV sales outlet at: for this and other videos. If they do not list it, you might e-mail them. Much as I love plants, the series is rather long, so you may want to break it up or use only parts. --On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 6:25 PM -0600 Carmen wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private > Life of Plants series with my classes. > > Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available > for sale. Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version > of the series or a downloadable version I could show my students? > Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide. > > Sincerely, > Carmen Vanegas > _______________________________________________ > Plant-ed mailing list > Plant-ed@net.bio.net > http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/plant-ed > > From dh321 from excite.com Fri Jan 23 14:01:43 2009 From: dh321 from excite.com (David R. Hershey) Date: Fri Jan 23 14:11:00 2009 Subject: [Plant-education] Re: Potato disc respiration lab References: Message-ID: I don't have access to Carol Reiss's lab manual at the moment but there is a lot of older potato disc respiration literature online. The respiration rate in aged discs can be limited by lack of oxygen, which can reduce any differences between fresh and aged tissue (Figure 4 in MacDonald, 1967). MacDonald (1967) also recommended discs no greater than 1 mm thickness because diffusion limits oxygen movement to internal cells. Temperature also has a major effect on the respiration rate (Figure 5 of MacDonald, 1967). MacDonald (1967, 1968) aged his discs at 25 C for 22 hours and seemed to prefer 30 C for the respiration experiments. References MacDonald, I.R. 1967. Oxygen Tension a Determining Factor in the Respiration of Potato Disks of Varying Thickness. Plant Physiology 42: 227-232. http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/42/2/227.pdf MacDonald, I.R. 1968. Further Evidence of Oxygen Diffusion as the Determining Factor in the Relation between Disk Thickness and Respiration of Potato Tissue. Plant Physiology 43: 274-28. http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/43/2/274.pdf David R. Hershey