March 10, 2011

Today I talked about some more ideas with Michael.  He would like to do something with animals, but plants are a simpler model.  For now he can't find an aspect of plants that strike his fancy, so will keep working on it.  Some ideas from today include:

• Do pigments in leaves change over time?  For example, when cherry trees begin leafing, do early leaves have different pigments than later leaves?  Early leaves on some plants are red while mature leaves are green.  Is this true at all times of the year or only spring?
• Do pigments in leaves, in Spring, reflect available light at that time of year?  For example, maybe in early spring more long wavelength light reaches the earth since the air is so dry and mositure absorbs long wavelength light (like water in atmosphere).  maybe leaves have more pigment for absorbing rd light in early spring and more pigment for absorbing higher energy like blue and green later in the summer.

Date?

Today