7 posts · 816 views
I want to make cutting-edge biology research accessible to those who do not have the background, and to attempt to illuminate why it is so important that we spend billions of dollars each year to study how sex is determined in a nematode, how a particular species of tree disperses its seeds, or what changes take place when a yeast cell ages and dies. These studies may not seem relevant — but I will try to convince you, along with myself, that they are, and how they could change the way we live.
Hannah Waters
7 posts
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- March 2, 2010
- 11:14 PM
- 54 views
Invasive species corrupt DNA, not just ecosystems (Fitzpatrick et al., PNAS 2010)
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
I rarely think about how invasive species affect genetics. It’s always in terms of ecosystems or species: invasive brown tree snakes gobbling up birds and lizards in Guam, or zebra mussels overwhelming and altering the environment of the Great Lakes. How one species outcompetes and replaces another, changing the natural system. This is partly [...]... Read more »
Fitzpatrick, B., Johnson, J., Kump, D., Smith, J., Voss, S., & Shaffer, H. (2010) Rapid spread of invasive genes into a threatened native species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(8), 3606-3610. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0911802107
- February 11, 2010
- 06:54 AM
- 93 views
Nature-inspired network design: recent studies in slime mold and leaf veins
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
Nature-inspired design: this phrase makes me think of shark-skin swimsuits, velcro, and an endless assortment of coffee tables using natural knots and tree branches. There is logic behind design reliant upon natural elements. After all, organisms have been undergoing evolution for millions of years for the sake of efficiency. If anyone knows how to [...]... Read more »
Andrew Adamatzky, & Jeff Jones. (2009) Road planning with slime mould: If Physarum built motorways it would route M6/M74 through Newcastle. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos. arXiv: 0912.3967v1
Katifori, E., Szöllősi, G., & Magnasco, M. (2010) Damage and Fluctuations Induce Loops in Optimal Transport Networks. Physical Review Letters, 104(4). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.048704
Tero A, Takagi S, Saigusa T, Ito K, Bebber DP, Fricker MD, Yumiki K, Kobayashi R, & Nakagaki T. (2010) Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design. Science (New York, N.Y.), 327(5964), 439-42. PMID: 20093467
- February 5, 2010
- 03:29 PM
- 107 views
How to measure the progress of science (Rosvall and Bergstrom, PLoS 2010)
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
No one can deny that the field of science is undergoing explosive growth. The “technological age” has treated it kindly, giving it both access to new equipment and techniques, as well as creating a larger scientific community with more connections between labs around the world. We are bombarded with information in general: hundreds of papers [...]... Read more »
Rosvall, M., & Bergstrom, C. (2010) Mapping Change in Large Networks. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008694
- January 21, 2010
- 12:16 AM
- 103 views
Photosynthetic Evolution: how 2 organisms gained or lost the ability to eat sunshine
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
Biologists and taxonomists love to put organisms into categories to help us organize the complicated living world. I grew up on the 5 kingdom system of classification: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and protists. The first four categories seemed simple enough, but the term “protists” always confused me. This kingdom seemed to be a dumping ground [...]... Read more »
de Castro, F., Gaedke, U., & Boenigk, J. (2009) Reverse Evolution: Driving Forces Behind the Loss of Acquired Photosynthetic Traits. PLoS ONE, 4(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008465
Rumpho, M., Worful, J., Lee, J., Kannan, K., Tyler, M., Bhattacharya, D., Moustafa, A., & Manhart, J. (2008) Horizontal gene transfer of the algal nuclear gene psbO to the photosynthetic sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(46), 17867-17871. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0804968105
- January 12, 2010
- 12:26 AM
- 145 views
Why research articles should be publicly accessible (Shulenburger 2009, PLoS Biology)
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
I cannot even count the number of times when I have been denied access to a journal article I needed. Oftentimes, it was while I was working on a paper in college and couldn’t read the paper that all the other scholars cited, or the paper that supported an argument I was trying to make. [...]... Read more »
Shulenburger, D. (2009) University Public-Access Mandates Are Good for Science. PLoS Biology, 7(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000237
- December 24, 2009
- 12:31 PM
- 169 views
How dirt affects global atmospheric carbon dioxide (Wingate et al. 2009, PNAS)
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
I have a tendency to root for the underdog. I rooted for the Phillies throughout the 90s, when my heroes Lenny Dykstra and Darren Dalton could rarely lead them to a win. It’s a mixture of a desire for upheaval, that the unexpected can happen, as well as pure sympathy for the ones who [...]... Read more »
Wingate, L., Ogee, J., Cuntz, M., Genty, B., Reiter, I., Seibt, U., Yakir, D., Maseyk, K., Pendall, E., Barbour, M.... (2009) The impact of soil microorganisms on the global budget of 18O in atmospheric CO2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0905210106
- December 15, 2009
- 08:55 AM
- 145 views
Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is regulated by the protein RanBPM (Atabakhsh et al. 2009, Molecular Cancer Research)
by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings
I have been fearful of molecular biology for most of my life. This is partially because I so clearly defined myself as an ecologist that I partitioned molecules into “little biology” and out of my range. But mostly it was a fear of what I considered unnatural. Scientists who play around with chemicals and [...]... Read more »
Atabakhsh, E., Bryce, D., Lefebvre, K., & Schild-Poulter, C. (2009) RanBPM Has Proapoptotic Activities That Regulate Cell Death Pathways in Response to DNA Damage. Molecular Cancer Research. DOI: 10.1158/1541-7786.MCR-09-0098
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