Reposted and slightly modified from Classic DigitalBio. Some people say that science takes the magic out of everyday life. Not me! I've learned some things by reading Science (1) that might give some people nightmares, especially young children. Remember that scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when the trees get ...
The Ask a Science Blogger question of the week asks if organic foods are really worth the hype. I'm afraid my answer can't fit into one blog post. Let me start by telling you about my garden. This year my garden has been a home to local wildlife, but during ...
tags: How does grass grow in the extremely hot soils of Yellowstone National Park? The quest continues. Read part I, part II, part III, and part IV to see how we got here. And read onward to see where will we go. In our last episode, I discovered a new ...
In last week's episode, your assignment was to think of an interesting plant trait and find a description about a gene, related to that trait, by searching PubMed. Since coming up with an interesting trait might be a challenge for some people, let's think about how to approach this step ...
This the second part of three part case study where we see what happens when high school students clone and sequence genomic plant DNA. In this part, we do a bit of forensics to see how well their sequencing worked and to see if we can anything that could help ...
This the third part of case study where we see what happens when high school students clone and sequence genomic plant DNA. In this last part, we use the results from an automated comparison program to determine if the students cloned any genes at all and, if so, which genes ...
For those of you who may have been wondering where I've been, these past few weeks have seen me grading final projects, writing a chapter on analyzing Next Gen DNA sequencing data for the Current Protocols series, and flying back and forth between Seattle and various meetings elsewhere in the ...
One of my hobbies lately has been to get either RNA seq or microarray data from GEO and do quick analyses. Not only is this fun, I can find good examples to use for teaching biology. One of these fun examples comes from some Arabidopsis data. In this experiment, some ...
Grasses at Yellowstone National Park are able to grow temperatures (65°; C) that would toast most living things. Step right up! Watch original research, as it happens, on the web! I'm going to use bioinformatics to see if I can find that answer to the puzzle of heat-tolerant plants. Previous ...
Yesterday, both Joshua and I wrote about grasses that grow in the unusually hot soil at Yellowstone National Park. Now, I knew that hot springs bacteria can tolerate high temperatures, but I was really surprised to learn that plants could. It was even more surprising to learn that this amazing ...
A long time ago, I saw a Star Trek episode where the crew encountered aliens who lived at a different frequency. I may have this backwards, but I think the aliens moved so quickly that no one knew they were there. And until problems struck, our heroes were happily oblivious ...
Are viral and fungal infections always a bad thing? Maybe not if you're a plant. In fact, if you're a plant trying to grow in the hot (65°; C) soils of Yellowstone National Park, you're going to need all the help you can get. A new study by Márquez, et.al ...
My garden at home is looking a bit bleak after all the snow, Mendel's Garden is blooming wonderfully at Jeremy Cherfas' blog Another Blasted Weblog. Jeremy has prepared a nice collection of perennial favorites. I especially like the story about pea breeding and, if you view the post, there are ...
A crystalline botanical fashion show. Awhile back Chemical & Engineering News published a fascinating article called " The Secret Life of Plant Crystals" with some wonderful photos of calcium oxalate crystals. Special cells ( called "idioblasts") produce these crystals, with shapes that are unique to each type of plant. Reposted ...
Awhile back Chemical & Engineering News published a fascinating article called " The Secret Life of Plant Crystals" with some wonderful photos of calcium oxalate crystals. Special cells ( called "idioblasts") produce these crystals, with shapes that are unique to each type of plant. Even though 75% of flowering plants ...
At the Seattle Art Museum's new sculpture garden, we can read all the signs. The artworks are easily offended. The unsanctioned baby eaglets have disappeared. The grass won't grow without your help. We pay attention to the grass.
An introduction to our Alaskan NSF Chautauqua course and a pre-course assignment. I don't know how well this will work, but I thought it might be interesting this year to experiment with blogging about our course and sharing some of our experiences with the rest of the world. Here's your ...
The first research assignment for our Alaska NSF Chautauqua course has been posted. Your task is to find a wound-inducible plant gene, learn something about it, and post a description in the comment section. We've already had one excellent answer, but I know there are at least 54 wound-inducible genes ...
Dave Robinson and Joann Lau from Bellarmine College in Kentucky are going to be describing their student project in a free webinar next Friday, May 16th. Their students clone GAPDH (Glyceraldehyde 3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase) genes from new plants, assemble the DNA sequences, and submit them to the NCBI. Here's an example ...
