X is for ....

Xylem

ha!  how's that for an X?  in 1985 i graduated with a B.S. in biology.  yes, a very useful degree when your grades aren't good enough to get you into medical school (fuck you organic chemistry and your little dog), but the mere thought of going back to school to study more biology is as about as tempting a prospect as getting a full body wax.   thank god i took typing in the 9th grade.  however, i did learn about xylem ... and it's friend, phloem.   and now i have an honest to good "X" post.  how many of you can say that?

xylem is made up of the cells that move water and anything dissolved in the water from the roots, up to the leaves and other parts of the plant.  phloem is made up of cells that bring food (phloem starts with the "f" sound -- for food) produced in the leaves through photosynthesis (so cool, photososynthesis, only second to protein synthesis which is my favorite synthesis ever) back down to the roots.  how xylem does this is very ingenius, but i'm not going to go into any details because this blog may be a lot of things, but what it is not is a botany blog.  (although i did  teach a botany lab  for one semester which is funny considering that i wouldn't know a plant if it bit me on the leg -- well i kind of would, since i'd guess it was a venus fly trap since it would be the plant most likely to actually bite me on the leg.  plants aren't big biters).

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i may be cracking open my old text books (or probably an updated version since i'm sure some information has changed in the past 20 years, although now with the democrats in the majority in congress, evolution is back on the table -- which is cool, because i love evolution) for a little review in the next few months.  i don't know yet.  i still have to do some research, but we'll see.