I joined this guild back in 07 I think, then forgot about it when I took a break from Gaia. I don't even know if I properly introduced myself, so this is my introduction smile

It's a shame to see the guild isn't very active neutral
It would've been nice to come here and have plenty of people help me with the science I'm studying this year or simply to discuss concepts that have come to my attention.

I just started first year uni this year. Last Monday actually. I'm really enjoying it. I'm taking four units: Calculus B, Earth and Environment: Dynamic Planet, Biological Organic Chemistry and Core Concepts in Biology. I'm enjoying E&E a lot. It's my best unit by far. Biology is also very interesting, although I can't understand what my lab demonstrator is saying most of the time because she doesn't speak English that well and has a very thick Indian accent sad

Chem is ok. I always liked organic chem at high school, but I'm not enjoying it at uni so much atm. Our last lecture was predominantly based on Nucleophiles and Electrophiles. From what I can make out, Electrophiles are electron-poor species. In other words, they have less electrons than they need, and so have a compulsion to obtain more electrons (e.g. Chlorine atom). And Nucleophiles are the opposite. They're electron-rich and so have extra electrons. They would rather lose these and attain a complete octet. So, electron pairs move around and bonds are broken so that each of the produced molecules is balanced in terms of valence and number of electrons etc.

No-one is even reading this, but it's good for me to recall what I've learned as revision..

There was one particular example to me that was quite confusing. I'm going to have to download my lecture and try and remember how he did the problem. It was something to do with Flourine and oxygen tetramethane [I'm pretty sure I got the name wrong there xD]..

In Biology we've talked about quite a range of things. Basic things, like food webs. As well as taxonomy, symbiosis and other stuff I can't really remember. Anyway, symbiosis is interesting. I remember doing a bit about it in year 10. So I remember that there's three types of symbiosis. Commensalism I think is where one organism benefits without harming the other. For example...umm...epiphytes? Yes. That's it. I remember it from geography. Plants like the Liana in the tropical rainforests climb up the tall trees to gain access to sunlight and nutrients.

Then there's parasitism. Where one organism essentially feeds off the other and harms it, often by virus. The strangler fig in it's early stage exhibits commensalism with the tree, with the tree acting as a platform for growth. Eventually it 'strangles' the tree and the tree dies. I think tapeworm is a parasite as well.

And finally, mutualism. Where both organisms benefit from the relationship. For example, umm...there was this anenome thing and the anenome fish I think. The fish cleans the anenome, as well as attracts prey, while the anenome offers protection of the fish from predators. The fish isn't affected by the poison of the anenome.

I was reading my bio book as well, and it was quite interesting in the opening pages. It talked about all living organisms being classed into three 'super kingdoms': Bacteria, Eukarya and A....something and ending with aea. But anyway...bactera and the a... fit into the category of prokaryotes? which are cells which have no nucleus or molecule-binding somethings. I'm not sure about the last point...But Eukarya is Eukaryotic. So it does have a nucleus and other membrane-binding such and such. Eukarya can be either single-celled (e.g. amoebae) or multicellular, such as plants, animals and seaweed.

It's interesting to me smile

Earth and Environment..umm...we did stuff about the surface balance. The heat budget; the outputs to the Earth system equal the inputs. Inputs to the Earth system are insolation (incoming solar radiation) from the sun and also volcanism, which brings new surface material to the surface. We didn't actually talk about it, but I know that volcanism would produce different types of rocks, and volcanic eruptions benefit the soil, making it extremely fertile and thus facilitating plant growth.

In terms of the heat budget, I don't remember it that well. Apparently not many people remember it :S But there's about 32% of insolation which is reflected from albedo (e.g. clouds and general reflection from surfaces). Then escaping there's things like latent heat. Also, some heat is absorbed by dust particles and clouds in the atmosphere. Because of the regulating effect of the atmosphere and also the many ecosystems existing in the biosphere [plants and animals] the average surface temperature of the Earth is 15 degrees celcius. The predicted value is -18 degrees, so the effect that animals and plants etc. have on the Earth system is quite significant.

We also talked about this thing called Daisyworld. Where the world is filled with daisies, which have only one factor that determines their growth (amount of solar radiation). And then also dark soil. Essentially, in Daisyworld, equilibrium is always achieved. If there's more solar energy, then more daisies grow, which increases the reflection of sunlight due to the albedo effect of the daisies (white, therefore more reflection).

And there was something about stability and metastability. Kinda like chemistry. When something is metastable, it requires an activation energy to attain stability.

Maths...well...it's maths. And it's ok, but I can see it getting hard sad

If you managed to read all that...I'm sorry I wasted all your time xD
A good bit of revision for me recalling all that stuff smile