Is It Alive?

By: Patrick Adelmann Boldea, Arkan Abuyazid, Tierra Buck, and Llarsania Galloza

What is this thing?

Well, that's an excellent question. It is a sizeable mass of some odd brown objects that are circular in shape.

How are we going to prove if it's living?

Well, we can't do an EKG or an fMRI on it, so we are going to have to test it for several characteristics.

Characteristics of Living Things

● Does it Grow?● Produce carbon dioxide?● Does it consume food?● Does it have cells?

Does it Grow?

The seeds started without tails, but after two days in different environments, they began to sprout them. They grow up so fast T-T I think I need a moment...

Consumption of energy

We weighed the cup with water and sugar and the unknown, then weighed it again after four days. The weight had changed slightly, indicating an exudation of CO2 and consumption of the sugar.

Does it Have Cells?

As you can tell from the picture of a slide under a microscope, there are rectangular structures throughout the "Tail" of the plant. These are plant cells.

Does it Produce CO2

When placed in a bromothymol blue the seeds that had began to grow turned the liquid slightly yellow, proving that they do exude CO2 while the original unknown did not.

Conclusions

Based on the reactions of our different experiments, we have concluded that our unknown has cells, produces CO2, and is capable of growth. Therefore we have concluded that our unknown is in fact alive.

Although we believe that our unknown is alive, we have yet to discover many different variables. How does our unknown reproduce? What is it? What kind of environment will support it once it gets bigger?