Firefly - research for energy

Fireflies (Lampyridae) are familiar, but few realize that these insects are actually beetles, nocturnal members of the family Lampyridae. Most fireflies are winged, which distinguishes them from other luminescent insects of the same family, commonly known as glowworms.

There are about 2,000 firefly species. These insects live in a variety of warm environments, as well as in more temperate regions, and are a familiar sight on summer evenings. Fireflies love moisture and often live in humid regions of Asia and the Americas. In drier areas, they are found around wet or damp areas that retain moisture.

What do adult firefly eat?

1. The larvae of most species are specialized predators and feed on other larvae, terrestrial snails, and slugs.
2. The diet of adults is variable. It has been reported that some are predatory, while others find food on plant pollen and sometimes nectar.

How do firefly produce light?

Light production in fireflies is due to a type of chemical reaction called bioluminescence is known as "cold light" because it emits almost no heat. Fireflies (or lightning bugs) produce light via a chemical reaction when oxygen, breathed in through their abdominal trachea, combines with a substance called luciferin in the presence of the enzyme luciferase, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in special cells called podocytes. When these components are added, light is produced.

Bioluminescence is a very efficient process. Almost 100% of a Firefly's luminescence light is given off as light. By comparison, a normal electric light bulb gives off only 10% of its energy as light, while 90% is wasted entirely as heat.

Photo gallery of firefly

History of Energy - Research for energy

Energy is the fundamental resource for lives in the cell world. Human at the beginning of life are able to explore the energy from nature. To understand more about energy, research in history of energy is to be done at the beginning of the micro team project.

The article shows the history of energy.

"The earliest "energy tools" were those used to hunt animals, harvest edible plants, catch fish and fowl, and process and transport foodstuffs. Most of the family structures, societal groupings, and political and economic institutions created over thousands of years focused primarily on the extraction, processing, exchange, and marketing of food, as well as of "fossil and organic energy sources (wood, peat, coal) ... used ... for heating, cooking, lighting, or for firing the kilns and furnaces used in smelting ores."⁴The vast array of unique human cultures absorbed the quest for these basic energy resources into the widest range of human activities—rituals, festivals, taboos, myth, dance, games, religion, language, art, and warfare—all of which embody humanity's cultural values in their most fundamental forms.⁵ Quite simply, human existence has been dominated by the age-old necessity for energy."

Energy of the Past, Fuels for the Future: A Historical Outline of Biofuels in Scandinavia and the U.S.

energy of reaction

Mental communication

In this project, we are looking for a way that explores the potential ability of human mind. Mental communication maybe a way that how human communicate with the nature in the future. Future human will have the capability to have communication in a particular way that involves the new technology. Nowadays, there are multiple science research project on mental communication. For example, the case showed below:

A $4 million award from the Army Research Office has allowed UC Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Maryland scientists to begin research on imagined speech that could lead to technology that converts brain waves into text.

The research, which is being pursued with the intent of aiding silent communication among soldiers, may also have an application in the commercial sector, with a device that could help the mute communicate.

mental communication article

The Plants Respond-Cleve Backster

In the study of paranormal phenomenon Plant perception, or biocommunication in plant cells, has come to mean abelief that plants feel emotions such as fear and affection. Believers hold that plants have the ability to communicate with humans and other forms of life in a recognizable manner. While plants can communicate through chemical signals, and certainly have complex responses to stimuli, the belief that they possess advanced cognitive abilities receives little support except in the parapsychology studies community and among believers in the Gaia hypothesis.

Published in 1973, The Secret Life of Plants was written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. It is described as "A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man."

Essentially, the subject of the book is the idea that plants may be sentient, despite their lack of a nervous system. This sentience is observed primarily through changes in the plant's conductivity, as through a polygraph, as pioneered by Cleve Backster. The book also contains a summary of Goethe's theory of plant metamorphosis.

Cleve Backster interview:

Backster: Next, I noticed something on the chart that resembled a human response on a polygraph. In other words, the contour of the pen tracing was not what I would expect from water entering a leaf, but instead what I would expect from a person taking a lie-detector test. Lie detectors work on the principle that when people perceive a threat to their well-being, they physiologically respond in predictable ways. If you were conducting a polygraph as part of a murder investigation, you might ask a suspect, "Was it you who fired the shot that was fatal to so and so?" If the true answer is yes, the suspect will fear getting caught lying, and electrodes on their skin will pick up the response to that fear. So I began to think about how I could threaten the well-being of the plant. First I tried putting a neighboring leaf in a cup of warm coffee. The plant, if anything, showed what I now recognize as boredom--it just kept trending downward.

Then at thirteen minutes, fifty-five seconds chart time, the imagery entered my mind of burning the leaf I was testing. I didn't verbalize, I didn't touch the plant, I didn't touch the equipment. The only new thing that could have been a stimulus for the plant was the mental image. Yet the plant went wild. The pen jumped right off the top of the chart.

Experiment in progress

Plant can feel the acoustic wave from sound.

Sound is a way that plant absorb the invisible energy from human and surroundings.

Plant can response

The world is alive and sentient. We try to understand that how they feel us. This is the initial communication between human and nature. Plant is the initial subject.

| Touch

Plant also can absorb the energy through touching.

Thigmotropism is a movement in which an organism moves or grows in response to touch or contact stimuli. The prefix thigmo- comes from the Greek for "touch". Usually thigmotropism occurs when plants grow around a surface, such as a wall, pot, or trellis. Climbing plants, such as vines, contain tendrils that coil around supporting objects. Touched cells produce auxin and transport it to untouched cells. Some untouched cells will then elongate faster so growth bends around the object.

|Sound

Acoustic wave is a way to transfer the energy to plant. Plant can hear us.

Plants are organism that grow and reproduce themselves. They need soil, light, water, air and space to grow.

Plants are able to response to our activities, we are affecting their growth. It is not kidding. It is reality. From the plant to all the organism and surrounding objects in this planet have capability to sense the world.

We are living with different kinds of organism on the earth, plants are one kind of them. New research found that plants can response to our activities. The interaction between human and plant will increase their growth speed because they are absorbing our energy and mind. In the future, we can communicate with the surroundings, absorb and transfer energy from each other and reducing the cost of natural resource.

"Sometimes we have a tendency to see ourselves as the most highly evolved lifeform on the planet. We're very successful at intellectual endeavors. But these may not be the ultimate scales by which to judge. It could be that there are others who are more advanced spiritually. It also could be that we are approaching a place where we may be able to safely enhance our perception"-----The Plants Respond: An Interview with Cleve Backster

Myth-busters experiments on plant-research

Thanks to Ryan for giving me the information about Myth-busters experiments on plant. They did experiments on watering plant by using mental energy in positive and negative way. It is interesting to explore on sensory and response of plant.

The plant and the whole world is live. What we need to do is to understand the surroundings and share the energy with them to reduce the using of natural resource and create a world much more sustainable.

Does it affect their growth?

“He concluded that the plants were acting like batteries, storing the energy of his thoughts and intentions. He said of these experiments: “I learned that there is energy connected with thought. Thought can be pulsed and the energy connected with it becomes coherent and has a laser-like power.”(Rumi Da, purveyor of fine crystals)”

1.Sensing Plants – the Backster Effect

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86651

2.Mythbusters Experiment on Talking and Music Effects on Plant Growth

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/plant-ed/2004-December/007770.htmlbs.marketwatch.com/

3.Volatile Signaling in Plant-Plant Interactions: “Talking Trees” in the Genomics Era

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5762/812

4.plant perception (a.k.a. the Backster effect)

http://skepdic.com/plants.html

5.Talking To Plants or Getting To The Root Of The Matter

http://hubpages.com/hub/Talking-To-Plants-or-Getting-To-The-Root-Of-The-Matter

My part for Group philosophy

For hundreds of years, humans have invested more time and energy into using the world’s resources. Solely to satisfy their own needs and requirement, allowing them to existent upon the earth’s surface. Natural resources where reducing at an incredible rate; the world could no longer sustain us all. The conflict between humans and nature was imbalance; it was at this time that the hybrid learns how to bridge the space between one life form and that of another.

No longer does the Hybrid live for the self, now they share the space along side nature by openly absorbing and giving of energy from each other, to create a peaceful coexist world that is more sustainable for life.

This is my part for group philosophy. Many thanks to Beth and Jess for helping with modifying.

Manmade

The reason why we want to create a sustainable world.

All organisms depend on their environments for energy and the materials needed to sustain life. However, the human activities have inflicted harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. Looking at the current situation, the heavy demands on the groundwater have resulted in serious shortages in more than 80 countries, containing 40 percent of the world’s population. Forests are being destroyed rapidly and some critical forest types will be gone in a few years. With them will go large numbers of plant and animal species, which lead to serious effect on medicinal and other health care benefits. A four-year report by the world health organization warned that the change of ecosystem, including changed biodiversity, may also contributes to the spread of new diseases like bird flu and SARS, as well as influencing the risk of transmission of diseases to human. The environmental changes are already affecting human health and the effects could grow rapidly over the next 50 years.

As the earth is finite, its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and harmful materials is finite. Looking at the rate of how human exploiting the earth natural resources and do not take environment responsible behavior into serious concern, lack of basic necessities and the spread of new diseases would become a significant cause of human mortality. Equate foresee that in 40 to 50 years time, the world population may deplete to one third of current population.

When the collision between human beings and the natural world is at the verge where it is no longer able to sustain life, for survival human will have no choice but to turn to science and technology to save what is left of humanity.

Words,description & questions

Words to describe my work: response, interaction.

Description: my experiment is focusing on looking for the ways of connecting and communicating with the nature, how they response and interact with us?

Questions for the experts:
1. Do you think if we have capability to communicate with nature after 80 years later, human and nature will be sharing the world properly?

2. Which way do you think that is good for human to use their technology to absorb the energy from the nature such like a plant, sharing the resources from the earth with nature to improve human’s health and life quality but no destroy to the environment in the future?
3. What word do you think is able to describe the relationship between human, nature and technology in 80 years from now?

Return to nature

My experiments focus on the connection between human and nature. To discover the ways human communicate with nature. To get more knowledge of understanding the surroundings.

We are equation. Nature=Human. Controlling is not exist between us. When you talk to a plant, you are transferring your energy into the plant to allow it absorb your energy and you absorb its energy. It is a communication between you and the plant. It is all about sharing. You are getting mutual benefit from each other. Human and nature are all on the same level. They are equate to each other.

“Nature theory”
/The original theory, arguably, underlying human experience is the notion that ‘returning to nature’ is good. This could perhaps be called “Garden of Eden” theory.

Throughout the ages, shifting from urbanized, complex environments to more natural environments has seen as valuable for relaxing, calming, healing, re-connecting, and strengthening human beings.

Research findings in health, medicine and psychology also appear to be supportive of the proposition that nature has some inherently positive effects on physical and psychological well-being for humans (and other animals).

Two of the best known researchers in this area are Robert Ulrich from Texas A&M, who has researched the effects of natural vistas on hospital patients, and Dr. Howard S. Frumkin [Google search for "Frumkin effects of nature], who has reviewed the research literature on the physical health benefits of natural environments.

What seems to be lacking, however, is well-developed theory for explaining exactly how natural environments may influence human beings. For example, given the positive findings for viewing natural scenes (even in pictures), can visualizing natural environments provide positive effects? Or are there additional, benefits of real, natural environments?

The most popular, scientific-type “nature is good” hypothesis is Edward O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis, which proposes that the positive effects are due to our long evolutionary (and consequently genetic) links to having a preference for being in natural environments. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis has been debated and critiqued. One of the issues appears to be that Wilson based his ideas on his study of insects and that the idea is too simplistic to fully account for human’s relations with natural environments, since clearly humans have also shown a capacity to adapt to artificial environments.

“Psycho-evolutionary theory of outdoor education (James Neill)”
Outdoor education is a young field or industry that is rapidly changing and evolving and it is emerging during a massive cultural revolution which is stretching the gap between genetic human make up and cultural living environmental conditions. Outdoor education, in a way, bridges the two worlds, by taking people from Western world lifestyles into a world with less technology and requiring more basic, physical and psychological self-reliance and direct engagement on hands-on survival-type tasks with others.

It may be that the re-engagement of the human being with environments and activities that are more akin to the environments of his/her ancestors and reflected in his/her genetic makeup, could awaken or activate particular types of physical and psychological “indigenous” responses. It could be this feature, for example, of outdoor education which can account for the sometimes phenomenal life changing effects of not only outdoor education programs, but also the sometimes miraculous reports resulting from overseas travel, extreme sport participation, near-death experiences, etc.

For more, see A Psycho-evolutionary Theory of Outdoor Education

fromhttp://wilderdom.com/theory/NatureTheory.html

It seems that there is a close relationship between nature and human-being.How natural environment influence people? How people communicate with the nature? How the adventure of technology plays a role in the connection between nature and human? How we understand the surroundings in our life? There are sorts of questions need to figure out.