Blog Post # 6 - Alia Latimer

Our plant itself, has either died, or lagged far behind the growth of it's surroundings. To be frank, I can't tell anymore. The plants in it's surroundings that we have come to know as weeds on the other hand are gaining biomass at a fast rate. They are very obviously in the ideal temperature, and getting the needed amount of resources to keep healthy. I can only imagine that although that change may seem effortless, thousands of millions of cells are hard at work to achieve this outcome. The cells are tirelessly replicating DNA and starting mitosis, over and over and over again. Through the five stages of cell division the DNA is unzipped , replicated, lined up, separated by the spindles, and a layer between the two sides takes form before finally separating. Any mistake during prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, or cytokeinis could lead to the end of both the original cell and the one being made. This is a delicate and stressful process not unlike many of the other processes that the plant cells undergo. Under the sun the plant preforms photosynthesis to make sugars that feed into cellular respiration. The sunlight's energy is recepted in the thylakoids of the cloroplast, where it is used to create sugars and oxygen. Those sugars and oxygen in return are used in the mitocondria to produce energy , water, and carbon dioxide. Both the endless cycle repeated many times just to grow maybe a centimeter over the course of a week.
No doubt that on an even smaller level the plant is sending signals through out it's stock to make proteins, triggering the process of transcription as the DNA is unzipped and copied into RNA, then brought through the cytoplasm to the nucleus where the ribosomes and Ribosomal RNA await to use the trascript to assemble the series of amino acids. All the cells have the same genes, but the RNA of each cell only reads a small portion, in order to produce the different desired traits. RNA is really responsible for the bulk of the process of protein creation since it is the Messenger RNA that actually holds the transcript of the DNA, the transfer RNA that brings the messenger RNA to the ribosome, and the Ribosomal RNA that is responsible for using the transcript to assemble the series of amino acids that make up the protein. Like marionettes, pulled into the dance of a puppet master that never tires, they transcribe and translate, replicate and divide, just going and going until their gone. Tossed to the wind and replaced by one of it's copies, a disposable piece in the process of growth.