Talks Juan Enriquez: Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo evolutis (Skip to minute 7:50)

He talks for about 7 minutes about finance. Most of us know all this already so skip to the good part! Go to minute 7:50. That's when he starts his most excellent recap of the latest BIO technology.

How plants make decisions

In the early edition of PNAS this week is Ecological modulation of plant defense via phytochrome control of jasmonate sensitivity.

This paper describes how plants balance the tradeoff between growth and defence. The same light sensor that detects other plants crowding in and gives the signal to switch on the synthesis of the plant growth hormone auxin reduces the plant's responsiveness to the hormone jasmonic acid, which orchestrates the synthesis of a whole array of defensive chemicals.

Coupling shade avoidance syndrome with the regulation of resource allocation to defense could provide a major selective advantage for plants growing in the wild, but might increase the vulnerability of densely planted crops to insects.

Hmm. I guess this is more relevant to next quarter but I thought it was an interesting paper. Here are a couple of past posts of more relevance to our current topics:

• Hox
• Woof

Developmental Biology of a Simple Organism by Richard Losick, April 2008 - Part 1: How Bacillus Subtilis Makes a Spore (28:57)

How do simple cells differentiate, assemble into communities, and cope with change? Losick's seminar addresses these questions in the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Part I is an overview of how B. subtilis makes a spore. For further information see: http://www.ascb.org/ibioseminars/Losick/Losick1.cfm » More

How do simple cells differentiate, assemble into communities, and cope with change? Losick's seminar addresses these questions in the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Part I is an overview of how B. subtilis makes a spore.

Part 2: New Research on Multicellularity (18:13)

Part 3: Stochasticity and Cell Fate (25:03)


For further information see: http://www.ascb.org/ibioseminars/Losick/Losick1.cfm

Sex and Smell: Molecular Biology of Pheromone Perception by Catherine Dulac - Part 1: Introduction: Genes and Chemosensory Detection (15:31)

Pheromones have evolved to signal the sex and the dominance status of animals and to promote social and mating rituals. In this lecture, I discuss the how pheromone sensing operates in mammals. I will discuss the molecular biology of the chemosensory receptors that are involved the first steps of pheromone sensing. At a higher level of complexity, I will discuss a distinct olfactory structure called the vomeronasal organ (VNO) and how it contributes to sex-specific behavioral responses.

For further information see: http://www.ascb.org/ibioseminars/Dulac/Dulac1.cfm

Part 2: Molecular Biology of Pheromone Perception (43:43)

Part 3: Sex-Specificity of Pheromone Responses (30:39)


dulac_powerpoint_pt1.pdf
Sex and Smell: Molecular Biology of Pheromone Perception (presentation slides)

We have discovered a new blog dedicated to LAB TUTORIALS!

http://labtutorials.org/
Labtutorials in Biology is a blog that provides step-by-step tutorials in molecular biology. Bálint L. Bálint, junior lecturer, is behind the whole concept and he’s been making videos and writing descriptions for weeks.

Toco Toucan Tradeoff

A Toco Toucan at London Zoo.

I was doing some reading about Toucans. I confess I was never this enthusiastic as a student but these days I seem to be finding everything interesting. Anyway, I came across this curious conservation paper: Conservation puzzle: Endangered hyacinth macaw depends on its nest predator for reproduction.

In the Pantanal wetlands of Central Brazil, the endangered hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), the largest psitacid in the world, makes its nest almost exclusively in natural hollows found in the manduvi tree (Sterculia apetala). The recruitment of manduvis greatly depends on the seed dispersal services provided by the toco toucan (Ramphastos toco), responsible for 83.3% of the seed dispersal. The toco toucan, however, is responsible for about 53% of the preyed eggs, resulting in a case of conflicting ecological pressures in which the reproduction of the hyacinth macaw is indirectly dependent on the seed dispersal services of its nest predator.

For New Yorkers: NON BIO SPECIFIC - The Secret Science Club Lectures

The Secret Science Club is a free science lecture and arts series. It is open to the public and meets the first Wednesday of every month in the basement of Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Find out more here: http://secretscienceclub.blogspot.com/

On Febuary 4th the club featured: Dr. Pieribone, A cellular and molecular biologist at Yale University’s School of Medicine and the co-author of Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence. Dr. Pieribone asked:
--What do jellyfish and coral reefs have to do with the human brain and quest for medical cures?
--What makes undersea animals glow?
--How can biofluorescent technology link the human mind with machines?
--What are the latest advances in fluorescent micro-photography?
--And whatever happened to that transgenic, glow-in-the-blacklight rabbit in France?