[Photo by Aaron Carlson via CC 2.0] The Talk: Can silvicultural practices be leveraged to maintain diversity in understory plant communities? In Plain English: How does cutting down trees affect plant life on the ground? The Speaker: Julia Burton of Utah State University The Sponsor: USU College of Natural Resources What It Covered: Julia Burton …
[Computer rendering of DNA. Via Caroline Davis2010 on Flickr & CC 2.0] The Talk: “DNA-mediated Signaling with Metalloproteins” In Plain English: DNA can conduct electricity–like metal wire–and that helps the cell life The Speaker: Jacqueline Barton of Caltech The Sponsor: MIT Inorganic Chemistry (invited by the grad students) What It Covered: When Jacqueline Barton’s lab …
[Above: Rendering of DNA–aka “what most people think about when they hear ‘molecular identity’”–via ynse on Flickr & Creative Commons. Below: What scientists actually look at when they’re trying to sort out molecular identities. By Micah Baldwin via Flickr & Creative Commons] Two posts and two weeks later, I’ve only covered a fraction of the …
[A hybrid orchid. Photo by Mark Freeth.] [“Molecularization of Identity” Workshop Recap, Part 2] Genomes of indigenous people, which often include genes found nowhere else in the world, can be powerful symbols for nations that want to showcase their uniqueness. But when the Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica (INMEGEN) set out to find examples …
[Image via Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary & Creative Commons] [“Molecularization of Identity” Workshop Recap, Part 1] The diagram of racism was shockingly simple: four highlighted brain regions with black arrows between them, forming an almost-isosceles triangle. [Diagram by Elizabeth Phelps’ group at NYU via The Brain Bank blog] Perception. Identification. Regulation. Those are the …
The Talk: Uncharted Waters: Novel Ecosystems in the Marine Environment (part of the Ecological Systems in the Anthropocene series) In Plain English: Humans have messed up the ocean, so Harvard asks marine biologists, “What are you excited about?!” The Speaker(s): Mary O’Connor of University of British Columbia, Jeremy Jackson of Scripps Institute for Oceanography, Trevor …
A year and a half ago, during the height of my brown-bag lunch crashing & recapping phase, I caught a talk by a young, charismatic Princeton researcher named Jason Lieb. His talk was awesome. He made gene regulation, a topic that very few people can discuss for an hour without lapsing into what sounds like …
The Talk: “Planetary Changes from Deep Time to the 4th Kind” In Plain English: Life doesn’t just adapt to geochemical features; it transforms them simply by…living. The Speaker: Andrew Knoll of Harvard and David Grinspoon of the Planetary Science Institute The Sponsor: Planet and Life Series, sponsored by MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences dept. …
The Talk: Storming the Ivory Tower: Why autism interventions don’t work as they should in the community and what to do about it In Plain English: Autism treatments & management techniques that succeed in neuroscience labs often fail in public schools. (And we really, really need to figure out why…) The Speaker: David Mandell of …
This past Saturday, I got to listen in on an all-star panel sponsored by the Future of Life Institute on the potential risks and benefits of technologies like artificial intelligence, personal genetics, and automated factories. We heard from George Church, one of the world’s best-known synthetic biologists, on the future of bioengineering; Ting Wu, director …