Blog post of the week

I think this research project can be pretty beneficial to me since i am researching a topic that i want to pursue in the future. I am interested to learn more about the hydroponic industry because i love hydroponics so much and i want to learn more about the industry that surrounds it and what kind of jobs it has to offer. This might help me decide what i want to do in the future. I already plan to go to college for plant science, but i am not sure about the jobs in that field and that is why this project can be helpful to me.

For my research project presentation i would like to present with alot of visual aid. I think with the smart board because of its size i can include a nice powerpoint presentation, along with posters. I would also like to carry a pointer with me to point things out. As far as what the presentation will include and what i want to teach the class i have some good ideas. I would first like to teach the class about the backround of hydroponics; what it about, how it works, and the different methods. Then go on to benefits of hydroponics, followed by information about the whole industry. I still have other ideas and am continuing to think of new ones and i will post them in future blogs

What I Learned From Presentations

A cool thing i learned about in these presentations was social bookmarking. I had not ever even heard about it before. It is an interesting concept and i can see how it would be useful to some people. The idea is that you can keep all of your bookmarks on a page accessable from any computer. So, all of your favorite websites or pages can be kept in an archive with easy access in case you need to bring one up from somewhere besides your own computer. I think the concept is neat and can see how it may be helpful to some people but i also think it might be a pain to log in all of the time and go to a whole separate page every time you want to bookmark something or retrieve a bookmark. I guess some of these sites have buttons you can press to just bookmark something quickly, but it still seems like a hastle to me. I think i would only use this if i used bookmarks a whole lot.

I have a pretty interesting plant science blog in my google reader. It is from biologyblog.com, and it is in the plant science section. I think it is the best plant science blog i have found so far because people talk about what i am interested in. I have other science and plant science blogs subscribed, but this one offers the most interesting posts. One i have subscribed offers good info but i think alot of it is way too complex and scientific for enjoyable reading.

I have been having a little bit of a problem with my reader. I have subscribed to many news sites but i am not getting the information I want about my topic. By subscribing to sites such as CNN and NY Times my reader account is getting flooded with all different kinds of news updates, and most of them are not related to science technology. To resolve the problem of such clutter I have deleted them from my subscribtions. I still have many other science and technology subscriptions that are strictly for that topic, so i dont think it will deprive me of too many stories. On anote though, i have found some interesting things. It is still a little hard to sift through everything, but after a little looking i can find some interesting things abut my topic. I've subscribed to general science, plant science, solar science, nature, and electronics blogs. It is a good way to find interesting articles. I am enjoying google reader so far and plan on maybe using it in my free time as well. It is different from just going to the site becuase it is all there for you, it saves a lot of time. One thing i found, which caught my eye, was an article about a seed bank in the UK.

They have recently reached their initial goal of collecting 10% of the worlds known wild plant species. This seed bank is the largest in the world for wild plant species. ''The idea is that the seeds can all be accessed in one place to help researchers hunt for potential medicinal species and crops resilient to climate change.'' The Kew Gardens seed bank's next goal is to reach one quarter of the worlds wild plant species by 2020. I have also heard of other instances of seed banks around the world for other reasons being in case of draught, famine, disease or nuclear explosion. The idea behind these is that in case of these events we will still have all of the seeds to bring back any lost plants. The one i have heard of, also mentioned in the article, is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway consealed up high in the snowy mountains, aka the doomsday seedbank.

I think these seedbanks are a great idea becuase in case of a disater it would be a shame to lose some of the worlds plant species forever. It is like an animal becoming extinct, perhaps they will store animal DNA in the future in hopes to be able to clone them in case of disater? That would be interesting.

I recently read a blog about the GE solar panels mentioned in my last post. This guy seems interested in the topic and thinks that GE will be successful in their step to make solar panels, although mostly large buisinesses will be the ones to purchase the product.

New Solar Power by GE

General Electric is planning to boost its solar buisiness within the next two years by providing a solar pannel with thin solar cells that are hte cheapest on the market. ''In 2011, the energy giant expects to produce solar panels made with cadmium telluride, a thin-film solar cell material, said Michael Idelchik, vice president of advanced technologies at GE Global Research at the EmTech conference here on Wednesday. '' This is newsworthy because it is one of the futures more popular energy sources, as the demand for greener energy grows. Teens should be interested as well becuase this may even be what powers their homes and most businesses as they get older.