Fungus (part II)

(In other words what happens when it is finals week and I am studying for exams)
What is a Fungus?
A Eukaryotic Multicellular organism-geeze that narrows it down then
Primary Storage unit is Glycogen- If I knew what Glycogen this would be infinitely more interesting.
Heterotrophic organism devoid of chloryphyll- In other words a Fungus is an organism that makes it’s living by leeching from others. Like a vampire, taking the life blood away from other things… like my cheese and bread for instance. Curse you Rhizopus nigricans.
Has cell walls- What if it didn’t have cell walls? Would they be as good on pizza or in pasta sauces? I don’t think so…oh and their cell walls are made out of the same substance that makes up an insect’s exoskeleton…so if you want to work your way to eating bugs just munch on some fungus and you’ll get used to it…eventually.
Non motile- Imagine a world where fungus were motile. Forget about speaking German, we’d be speaking chemical pathways… because if they can move it’s only a matter of time before they can speak… and if you know your science fiction as soon as they learn to speak they will try to dominate the human race!
Reproduces by spores- To be honest when I first read these notes I thought that it read ‘sores’ and I thought that my professor was a little crazy. Imagine reproducing by sores… “sorry honey, it may be painful but think about how cute little Johnny is going to be when the sores are gone”
Hypha-(plural:Hyphae)
Fungi are like living threads… these threads are called hyphae and are called mycelium if they are enough of them. They elongate by atypical—I mean apical growth…in other words they grow from their tips. If we grew atypically we would all have short torsos and long limbs, and you would be able to Identify Grandpa by the length of his fingers… weird hua?
These living threads will often live on your trees and flowers and things. Yeah you heard me right… a relative of the green thing growing m=on my cheese is also growing on an orange tree in my family’s backyard…but before you get the fungicide remember that the plants need the mycorrizal fungus to grow as big as they do. Without the fungus that fertilizer that you tossed on it yesterday was useless.

Micro/Macroscape

Have you ever tried to go through a corn maze? Going from place to place, making turn upon turn wondering where the correct turns are so that you don’t end up lost in the maze forever? (Unless you are trying to get lost in the maze, then of course you hope that each successive turn you make makes you guys more lost in the space) You definitely don’t focus on the little things… I can follow that grasshopper all day long and I doubt that I’d be able to follow it out of a paper bag (how you got into the bag with a grasshopper is another question entirely.) If you are in a professional maze then you can climb on top of a platform and see your surroundings, and see where the maze is going. If you are not in a professional maze then you can stand on the shoulders of the tallest consenting adult. the same can be said when you are writing a narrative. If I were to tell you what was important about today I would leave out information that might be used in a later story I tell you. Honestly I didn’t think twice about the tall red headed guy in my freshmen orientation, but I sure remembered that detail after he started working in my lab. the same thing can be said when you are talking about the narrative of John in the Gospels. John was the latest tale of Christ, all of the other synoptic gospels had already been written, as well as most of the Pauline letters. he had the chance to see what was important in the story, to see how the intricate pieces came together to make a wonderful narrative, He didn’t focus on the grasshoppers that Mark did, as much as I love reading his gospel he does tend to spending time on details that are not necessary for the story to be told. John has the scope, the vision, the interconnectedness of the story. he knows where there are details omitted that needed to be there to understand some of Christ’s teachings. He saw the end of the maze (well closer to it than the others did) and he made certain that his reader could understand the way they needed to go to make the most sense out of the information. now if only I could write something so distinct and apt as that narrative. Oh well, practice makes perfect and I should look at the macroscope not the microscope for a change.

Stars

After watching my two favorite movies this weekend (being sick does have it’s advantages) I realized that we are always interested in the stars. Gattaca, a movie about a guy who wants to be an astronaut and Wall-E, a story about a robot going into space, are sme of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Something about those ‘great big balls of gas, burning millions of miles away’ inspires songs, stories, everything…

Why do we send astronauts out into the stars? Humans seem to have objectified stars to mean what we do not understand, but what we think is beautiful…  We do not understand a lot about the stars, yes we know their composition, yes we can guesstimate their ages, yes we can guess about how they were formed, but the interesting is that we rarely know exactly what they are. Unlike a micobe, it’s rather difficult to closely study a star, well if you don’t want to burn to a crisp almost instantaneously. It’s beautiful, but confusing as anything. Perhaps that is why we associate stars with Love.

What did they call Romeo and Juliet? ‘Star’crossed lovers. What do we call someone who is in awe of someone? ‘Star’struck. What do we call the person who we focus out life on? A northern ‘star.’

It is interesting to note that the stars, which can be used to describe love, are what brought the Wise men out of their tents to try and find the Christ child. For “when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy,” at least that is what Matthew said about the situation. Why did our Heavenly Father choose a star to herald the coming of his Son? Perhaps He knew that humans are always looking up, sometimes to dream of the eternities, sometimes to wish that they could be somewhere else, sometimes just to enjoy the beauty that the stars bring. Perhaps He wanted to commemorate his Son’s birth with something a little more lasting than a song. Whatever the reason, I bet it’s written in the stars.