Category Archives: Biology

MSUToday Rich Lenski elected associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization MSUToday Richard Lenski, Michigan State University John Hannah Distinguished Professor and evolutionary biologist renowned for his E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project, has been elected an associate member of the European Molecular Biology ... Read the original post: Rich Lenski elected associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization - MSUToday … Continue reading →

WWSB ABC 7 Local students wrap up a week of marine biology camp WWSB ABC 7 And a lot of them were very interested in marine biology but they never thought they'd see a manatee like they did yesterday when they went to Crystal River," said Alliance Co-Founder Tess Cieux. If you'd like to learn more or help sponsor next summer ... and more » See the original post: Local students wrap up a week of marine biology camp - WWSB ABC 7 … Continue reading →

UPDATED: Wed., June 14, 2017, 12:06 a.m. OLYMPIA Good news for high school seniors unable to pass their biology assessment test: The Senate passed a bill that would let them get their diplomas anyway. But the bad news for those seniors and others who were unable to pass the math or English language assessment test is its different than the House bill. And while it seems likely the Legislature is going to remove that barrier to graduation, the deal isnt done yet. On a 43-to-5 vote, the Senate approved a proposal to drop the requirement that all high school students pass a biology assessment test. The test is typically taken in freshman or sophomore year, at the end of a biology course. Students who fail at that point can retake it multiple times or submit a collection of evidence to show they understand the material. They can also submit a grade above a certain score from the science portion of the ACT test. Even with those options, some 3,300 seniors had not passed the test as of early May and couldnt qualify for a diploma even though they had completed all other requirements. Most schools are allowing those students to … Continue reading →

A protein model is built into an electron density map, amino acid by amino acid. The result is a snapshot of the protein or protein complex at work. Image courtesy of Dr Sebastian Guettler. Several research teams at the ICR are devoted to structural biology a crucial discipline in cancer research that is shedding light on some of lifes most fundamental processes. We are excited about the potential this field has to enable the discovery of brand new cancer drugs. There are five key reasons why structural biology research excites us: If you want to support our structural biology research, please have a look at our chromatography appeal which will help fund a new, state-of-the-art, chromatography machine. Support our chromatography appeal Structure of RNA polymerase II. Image credit: David Bushnell, Ken Westover and Roger Kornberg, Stanford University. CC BY-NC 2.0. Our structural biologists explore the shapes of proteins in detail, down to the individual atom, and work out how they interlock with other proteins and potential drugs. Proteins are the drivers of all our biological processes, which are hijackedin cancer to drive cell growth and spread. Were interested in finding out what a protein looks like in three dimensions, to … Continue reading →

As part of its mission to encourage engagement within the genetics community, PLOS Genetics is supporting a number of conferences and meetings this year. In order to raise awareness about these conferences and the researchers who attend them, we are featuring a number of these conferences on Biologue, with posts written by the organizers, or the PLOS Genetics editors who are involved. PLOS Genetics will be supporting the 18th International Congress of Developmental Biology (ISDB2017), which will take place at the University Cultural Centre of the National University of Singapore from June 18th 22nd. We asked Hongyan Wang, a member of the local conference programme committee and PLOS Genetics Associate Editor, about the event. Organised by the International Society of Developmental Biologists (ISDB), the quadrennial ISDB congress will bring together over 700 developmental biologists from 35 different countries to share their exciting findings. The lead organiser of the 18th ISDB is Philip Ingham, current president of the ISDB, based in both Singapore and the United Kingdom. Singapore is now recognized as a leading biomedical research hub in Asia, and has a vibrant Developmental Biology research community. It was on this recognition that Philips bid to stage the 2017 Congress was … Continue reading →

Decades of research into characterization, prevention, detection and treatment have substantially expanded our collective understanding of cancer biology. However, these insights elicit a new generation of unanswered questions about the complexity of this group of often-deadly diseases. Historical investigations yielded the key understandings that cancer cells arise from indigenous cells, and most, if not all, tumors are derived from a single parent cell1. In 2000, Hanahan and Weinberg simplified the many aspects of transformation from normal human cells into cancerous ones through six essential cell physiology alterations. These so-called hallmarks of cancer include self-sufficiency in growth signals, insensitivity to anti-growth or inhibitory signals, evasion of apoptosis, unlimited replication capability, sustained angiogenesis, and tissue invasion and metastasis2. They later added deregulating cellular energetics and avoiding immune destruction as emerging hallmarks; genome instability and mutation and tumor-promoting inflammation as enabling characteristics3. The impact of external stimuli, interactions with neighboring cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM), heterogeneity, inherited traits, and other factors further complicate the elucidation of cancer biology. Along with the expanding scope of research interests, methodologies have evolved to include live cell studies in addition to conventional biochemical and fixed cell assays. Live cell assays allow researchers to dynamically study a … Continue reading →

Almost 19,000 students sat the OCR biology A-level paper on Monday that contained an error. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA One of Englands main examination boards has been forced to issue an apology for the third time in a little over a fortnight after students and teachers spotted yet another error on one of its papers. The mistake occurred on OCRs A-level biology paper, which was sat by almost 19,000 students on Monday. A question asked students to calculate a standard deviation but failed to provide the formula needed for the calculation, as required by the syllabus. Pupils took to student forums and social media to express their anger about the error and worries about the possible impact on their overall grade. OCR apologised and said it would address any impact during marking and grading. Exam watchdog Ofqual was also notified about an error in an AQA chemistry A-level, which 20,000 students took on Tuesday. A two-mark question included an incorrect equation, in which a 3 was printed instead of a 2, which made it unanswerable. A spokesman for Ofqual said: We expect all papers to be error-free. When errors are not identified before the exam, we expect the exam boards to … Continue reading →

Topical questions included the incinerator at Poolbeg. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons This years higher-level Leaving Cert biology paper was particularly topical and challenging, though it was not unfair, according to teachers. Students would have enjoyed the experiment questions on this afternoons paper but it was not without its harder sections, said Luke Saunders, founder of Studyclix.ie and a biology teacher at Jesus and Mary Secondary School in Enniscrone. Students who had prepared using past exams wouldnt have found much to shock them. The popular topic of ecology featured heavily throughout which would have brought smiles to many students because it allowed them to make lots of references to one of the more practical areas of the course. Ciara OShea, ASTI subject representative and deputy principal at Scoil Mhuire agus Padraig in Swinford, Co Mayo, said the paper rewarded students who had put the work in. There was nothing too tricky and there were questions from right across the syllabus. It was particularly good to see topical questions on the paper, including the incinerator at Poolbeg, the Zika virus and IVF. More of this would be welcome in future years. Mona Murray a biology teacher at the Institute of Education in Dublin, … Continue reading →

June 13, 2017 One of biology's most enduring relationships, credited with helping plants to colonise land more than 400 million years ago, has yielded a fundamental survival secret with implications for agriculture and biotechnology. Plant scientists have discovered that a particular form of fungi, which invades plant roots and then helps the colonised plants to absorb nutrients from soil, receive life-sustaining carbon from their symbiotic hosts in the form of long-chain fatty acids, a building block for essential lipids. Previously, scientists had thought that the fungi received carbon from their hosts only in the form of carbohydrates, which the fungi used to make their own fatty acids and then the more complex lipids necessary for survival. It's now clear that the main source of carbon from the host plants are fatty acids, and that these fatty acids are necessary before the fungi can create the more complex lipids that are needed for storing energy, for signalling and for cellular membranes. The latest work, published by the journal Science, comes from a joint team of scientists from the John Innes Centre, based at Norwich Research Park, and Rothamsted Research. This field of science is very competitive currently, with research groups in … Continue reading →

There is a certain characteristic shallowness to the storytelling exercise that is evolutionary biology. Evolutionists spin a narrative about lifes history, about events that no one can or ever will witness. Theyre trying to explain how complex, functional living systems come into existence, and the imaginative tale-telling gets them out of having to grapple with what it takes, practically, for any complex living being to fight the battle of staying alive in the first place. Evolutionists dont worry much about how living things work, the irreducible complexity of it, or how other complex systems work, either. For insights on function you have to go to physicians and engineers. Thats a point underlying much of the writing done by two of our contributors, Steve Laufmann and Dr. Howard Glicksman. In a new ID the Future podcast with interviewer Todd Butterfield, Laufmann reflects on the evidence of design in the human body, presented in Dr. Glicksmans series, The Designed Body. Listen to the podcast here, or download it here. Laufmanns specialty is the architecture of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. He looks at biology from an engineers perspective, which is … Continue reading →