Shreyas Insights

The agricultural challenge Right now, humanity has a big challenge to solve. Our population is growing that we need to feed. However, traditional agriculture is feeding the world at the expense of important ecosystems. The big challenge is, how do we feed a growing population without endangering natural ecosystems?  In this post, we will be talking about vertical farming. So, what is vertical farming? What is vertical farming?  Vertical farming is basically farming plants vertically, but why would you do that? Think of this, how many books are in your library? You'd probably say that is impossible, but you can walk through you library and not be exhausted, right? So how can a library store so many books in one building? It's because they store books on shelves, right? That's basically what vertical farms are trying to do, except with crops. Vertical farming is indoors so unlike agriculture that  happens outside, you can precisely control the conditions your crops grow in....

  What are prairies? Prairies are a type of North American grassland with different grasses and flowers. The types of grasses are quite hardy and can survive harsh winters and more. Prairies have little trees around.  At the border of prairie and forest, there is a constant battle going on. Tree saplings start invading prairie but then fire comes and pushes the forest back. Before Christopher Columbus, prairie was as far south as Louisiana and as far east as Pennsylvania. It was because the Indigenous people of the Great Plains eliminated forest competition using fire. In turn, there was more bison so they had more food.  Keystone prairie species Bison are one of keystone prairie species as they graze on grass and keep it from overgrowing. Prairie dogs come with the same benefit and also they are prey for lots of animals. With out both of these species, a prairie would die out. Their decline After Columbus' discovery, colonization of North America happened and N...

What is the name of this mission and what does it look like?  The name of this mission is Dragonfly and it is a quadcopter. A quadcopter is a drone that has   4 rotors.   (Dragonfly drone image from NASA) Where did it get its body design and what will it do?  So, why was it a drone when it could be a rover? Well, rovers are really slow and we want to cover more ground so you also have a drone. A drone can definitely cover more space than a rover because you won't encounter land obstacles. Dragonfly will build on the current understanding we have from our telescopes and the Cassini-Huygens mission. It will gather more data about the atmosphere while it is flying and will go to specific landing sites to drill rock samples and analyze them. Also Dragonfly will have to navigate Titan by itself because sending instructions from NASA to Dragonfly will take hours. Why is NASA going to send Dragonfly to Titan?  NASA wants to send Dragonfly to Titan to see how Earth migh...

  Introduction A cotton fiber is a cell with a multiple layered cell wall that grows with other fiber cells on a seed. The environment around the cotton fiber defines its growth and quality. Growth and death of a cotton fiber When a cotton fiber shoots up, its growth phase has begun. The fiber gets taller and taller for 16 days. Then, it starts making cellulose to strengthen its primary cell wall, and once that's over it starts making cellulose to increase the density of its secondary cell wall. In about 50 days, the fiber is fully grown and cell dies off. All that's left of the cell is their cell wall, which determines the quality of the cotton. Bibliography Click the link for further information! Why is cotton in everything? - Michael R. Stiff

The standard way of telling how global warming happens Okay yeah, we all know by now that greenhouse gases absorb heat and warm the planet. But here comes the catch. Most of us don't know actually how they trap heat and warm the planet. Today, I will answer that question. How greenhouse gasses trap heat and warm the planet  When the sun's rays hit the earth, the earth emits some of that light as heat or infrared radiation. Then, greenhouse gasses absorb that heat and emits an infrared particle in a random direction. So the more greenhouse gasses there are the more heat builds up in the atmosphere. Bye bye blog readers! See you soon! Bibliography Click on the following links to learn more! How quantum mechanics explains global warming - Lieven Scheire   How exactly does carbon dioxide cause global warming?

What are vapor cones?   A vapor cone is made when an aircraft is flying at transonic speed. Air moving over the aircraft goes fast at some parts of it, and the air goes slower at the other places. This generates lift, which helps the aircraft fly. When the aircraft is at transonic speed, the air above the aircraft is accelerating at supersonic speeds. So at the back of the aircraft there's a sonic boom, and then that sonic boom slows the air back to its normal speed. That causes the air pressure and temperature to be lowered suddenly. If air temperature is low, then that same air cannot hold much water vapor hence, making a vapor cone.  Bonus Click here  for a nice surprise!  Glossary transonic-below but near the speed of sound supersonic-above the speed of sound

Introduction                  Today we are going to learn about CRISPIR. So let's roll and learn about it! What is CRISPIR?                                                             CRISPIR is nothing but editing DNA.  What is Cas9 and how does it work? Cas9 is a protein. Let's say yellow fever enters the body and body makes the protein Cas9. Now the body has faced yellow fever before and it has a fragment of the virus' DNA. It creates the Cas9 protein and puts the fragment of viral DNA in the protein. Then the body leaves it to go on patrol. So Cas9 like "scans" every "invader" DNA in the body with the fragment it has. Then snip snap it cuts the DNA. In other words Cas9 patrols the body until it finds an "invader" with the DNA fragment Cas9 has. If that...