This is an artist's rendering of the McCallie School's new sciences building set to open in January 2015. Students planted Arabidopsis, or rockcress, seeds Friday morning in shot-glass-size containers in Elizabeth Forrester's advanced placement biology class at McCallie School. A relative of mustard and cabbage, Arabidopsis is a go-to plant for genetic research -- but it must be refrigerated before it will sprout. "I'm actually taking these home to my refrigerator," said Forrester. That won't be necessary much longer, because refrigerated storage space will be included in a $15 million, three-story, 40,000-square-foot science building that's under construction and is slated to open in January 2016 on the campus of the all-boys private school on the slopes of Missionary Ridge off Dodds Avenue. It's the latest sign of growth and improvement at McCallie, which also has built an indoor tennis center, two new dormitories, a dining hall and renovated its chapel over the past 10 years. "It's going to be state-of-the-art," McCallie Headmaster Lee Burns III said of the new science building. "We're excited." It will have space for chemistry and biology labs on the top floor, physics and biology classes on the second floor and a first-floor engineering lab equipped … Continue reading →

4 hours ago by Sandra Hines The percentage of mammal species unable to outrun climate change range from zero to low, shown in blue, to a high of nearly 40 percent, in light orange (UWs Josh Lawler, published 2012) . Applying whats known of evolutionary biology could guide efforts to help. Credit: U of Washington To many, the term evolutionary biology encompasses the realm of fossils, dinosaurs and changes over eons. But evolutionary biology has tremendous potential to help solve many of today's pressing problems, according to nine international scientists, including Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington professor of biology. The scientists point to everything from food security to emerging diseases in their article, "Applying evolutionary biology to address global challenges," published online Sept. 11 by Science. Using evolutionary biology is one way to try to outwit evolution where it is happening too quickly as when pests and diseases adapt rapidly and defeat our attempts to control them and to perhaps find accommodations when evolution occurs too slowly as when species can't adapt to habitat altered by climate change. "Evolutionary biology is often thought of as figuring out things in the past," Bergstrom said. "Very often it's viewed as a … Continue reading →