Alteration of gametophyte and sporophyte generations

All living species in their life cycle go through 2 phases or generations- the gametophytic and sporophytic-for cytogenetics we call it the N and 2N phases where N refers to the complement or set of chromosomes.

After browsing through one of my old books on botany I found graphs throughout this book showing alterations and dominance of these 2 cycles or phases. Basically there was a shift from dominance of the gametophytic or N generation found in the lower forms of life to the sporophytic or 2N degeneration in the higer forms of life like the gymnosperms and angiosperms. I cant imagine an animal kingdom sporophyte being a "parasite" first before shifting or evolving to the dominant phase in the higher forms of life but it would appear that this evolutionary shift also occurred in the animal kingdom.

Unfortunately, there is no way to include these cycles (diagrams) in a more descriptive blog because the book was published over a century ago. Still, this is a most fascinating piece of evolution and survival.

Please follow the postings on my new blog for future updates.

A Blog for MUGS

Our new president of MUGS Tom Cherveny who is also the web master for our club asked me to give a short presentation at our January 2008 meeting on how to create a blog. I agreed but have decided to expand the demonstration to include iWeb and podcast features which require a dotMac account.

Following the presentation I will add a blog to let you all know how the presentation went. I might add that I am somewhat uncomfortable making any presentations re: Mac computers as I am a novice at this game.

docSam

Problems with blogging

When I use Safari as my web browser I have difficulty opening my blog to review previous posts.
Computer suggests that I try using Firefox as the search engine instead. Problems are resolved. Thanks computer.

New Blog format

To My Viewers
Welcome to my new Blog format. I hope I can make them more informative with photos and links. Learning new skills is more challenging especially for octogenarians and those using the Mac computer when most of their friends use that XXX other computer system. I have just transferred one of my "stickies " to this blog.

March 04/2007- War and terrorism
I fail to see the difference- they both try to kill their enemy there is only a difference of magnitude. Nations or large religious groups execute well organized wars while terrorists employ guerilla or surprise attacks on a small section of the population. Goals are similar- for wars its to conquer a nation or liquidate another army, for terrorists its to demand and/or seek freedom or " human rights ? "rights for a small group.Both sacrifice human lives. - only difference is that in wars the casualty numbers are often unpredictable , for terrorists the numbers are targeted and specific. Both involve the loss of innocent life- In wars its called collateral damage- for terrorists its so called justice

docSam