Fatality 💀

Modified Leaves: Insect Traps

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients (not energy) from trapping and consuming animals, typically insects. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs and rock outcroppings. These carnivorous plants have modified leaves that help to trap and digest prey.

The carnivorous plant in the first picture is a Venus flytrap that belongs to the genus Dionaea. The Venus flytrap has small trigger hairs on the inside of its leaf that cause the trap to close around its prey. The carnivorous plant in the middle picture is a sundew that belongs to the Drosera. Sundews have small tentacles, topped with sticky secretions, that cover the leaves.  Sundews are able to move their tentacles towards the center of the leaf to bring the insect into contact with as many stalked glands as possible. The carnivorous plant in the bottom picture is a  species of North American pitcher plants that are commonly called trumpet pitchers. Insects fall into the pitcher plant and cannot climb out. Meanwhile, digestive enzymes in the pitcher leaf break down the prey.

Modified Leaves Part:   1    2     3     4     5     6

BeerBellyBlunt

😊

If you put that ball on that machine while it wasn’t spinning, it would just roll straight down the lower sides. 

The raised edges would keep it in the middle line, but it’s only controlled in one direction. By spinning it, you constantly alternate the position of the tall sides, meaning that the ball is held in the middle, never able to fall off.

Particle accelerators control particles in the same way. Magnetic or electric fields can only direct particles in one plane at a time, so to keep a beam of particles rushing down a particle accelerator in one focused stream, the current gradient must constantly oscillate. This means the particles are constantly held in place, never able to shoot off in one direction.

Here’s the same principle in action: these are tiny pollen grains being held in place by an oscillating field. Rods in the four corners of the beam establish a field that oscillates many times a second to keep the pollen trapped. If it didn’t constantly switch, the pollen would all fly off in one direction.

Watch the full film with Dr Suzie Sheehy for more.

Happy national periodic table day!

Stenciling with atoms in 2-dimensional materials possible

The possibilities for the new field of two-dimensional, one-atomic-layer-thick materials, including but not limited to graphene, appear almost limitless. In new research, Penn State material scientists report two discoveries that will provide a simple and effective way to “stencil” high-quality 2D materials in precise locations and overcome a barrier to their use in next-generation electronics.

In 2004, the discovery of a way to isolate a single atomic layer of carbon – graphene – opened a new world of 2D materials with properties not necessarily found in the familiar 3D world. Among these materials are a large group of elements – transition metals – that fall in the middle of the periodic table. When atoms of certain transition metals, for instance molybdenum, are layered between two layers of atoms from the chalcogenide elements, such as sulfur or selenium, the result is a three-layer sandwich called a transition metal dichalcogenide. TMDs have created tremendous interest among materials scientists because of their potential for new types of electronics, optoelectronics and computation.

Read more.