Goes into four answers to why we should celebrate the publication of the genome of the fourth grass ever sequenced (sometimes referred to either affectionately or derisively as the Arabidopsis of the plant world), along with some pretty pictures of the plant itself and a little basic genome analysis.
Posts under ‘biology’
Scientists at India’s NIPGR Create a Longer-Lasting Tomato (Studying The Regulation of Fruit Ripening)
Author’s note: This would seem to be the week for vegetables I hated as a kid. Yesterday was onion, today tomato, if there’s a story about brinjal/eggplant in the next few days we’ll have hit all the big ones. I was recently pointed to an early publication paper that went up on the Proceedings of [...]
Some Evidence Suggests Trees Are Growing Faster
In a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper from this week that has been picked up across the popular press, researchers in Maryland report that the trees they’re studying are growing measurably faster than they “should” be. From US News and World Report: During the past 22 years CO2 levels at SERC have [...]
We got to genetics in class today and the story of the shrunken 2 gene
The origin story of shrunken2, the gene behind much of the sweet corn we eat today. Pictures of the phenotype of CAL mutants in arabidopsis (the gene I mentioned last week for its role in differentiating between broccoli and cauliflower).
First Day Teaching (epilogue)
The belated after-action report from my first day teaching, and a question about how to get people excited about learning the parts of a flower. For me, it was the ABC model of floral development, but both time and a lack of background in genetics prevent me from using that as my hook to draw students in.
Strawberry Genome Sequenced (Correction included)
After already needing to correct this post, I must now invalidate the whole thing. Seems I’ve been taken in by a premature press release that was turned into reliable sounding articles on news sites and was then picked up by blogs like mine that took the those sites to be credible sources. It’s a big [...]
Feeding birds on a large scale can lead to speciation?
From The Hindu: Humans are inadvertently manipulating bird genetics by innocently providing birds with feeders in winter, according to findings by German researchers. Over less than 30 generations, birds visiting British and European gardens in winter have evolved different-shaped wings and beaks, the scientists say. In time, they could eventually become a distinct species. The [...]