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Ideas built around using Angry Birds in lessons to engage students... 
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Scoop.it!
Although the title is reminiscent of an Indiana Jones film, this is an interesting and well-produced biography of Harry Marshall Ward, one of the first people to work on physiological plant pathology. A review in the Annals of Botany is highly appropriate because he was a joint author of the first paper ever published in the journal (Ward HM, Dunlop J. 1887. On some points on the histology and physiology of the fruits and seeds of Rhamnus. Annals of Botany 1: 1–26) and the first book reviewed was his translation of Sachs' Lectures on the Physiology of Plants. Both these are typical of Ward's work in that they are concerned with how plants function. Via Kamoun Lab @ TSL
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On April 25, the Romans celebrated Robigalia, an ancient agricultural festival held in honor of Robigo (or Robigus, the gender was uncertain), the goddess of blight, red rust, or mildew. The main ritual was the sacrifice of a red dog (color of rust) to protect grain crops from disease. Today, Robigus (wheat rust) is back with a vengance and still threatens wheat crops worldwide. Perhaps April 25, Robigalia day, should be wheat rust awareness day?
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robigalia Via Kamoun Lab @ TSL
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Light receptors require a chromophore, right? Not always. The UVR8 UV-B receptor manages to sense and signal light without a chromophore, using only amino acids - check out the story in Science.
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The key to tackling hunger in Africa is enriching its soil. The big debate is about how to do it.
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Five major crops that feed the world’s population are challenged by the fungal/oomycete diseases shown. All global harvests are from 2009/2010 (www.fao.org or FAOSTAT). *Figures are estimates and are based on 100% of milled rice and 100% of potato harvest being used for human consumption. However, 34% of the global wheat harvest is produced in developing countries, of which 100% is assumed to be used for human food, but only 45% of the total wheat harvest produced from developed countries is used for human food (the rest is used as animal feed and biofuel). Of the global maize harvest, 32% is produced in developing countries and 100% is assumed to be used for food and in the US 2.5% of their total harvest of 333m tonnes of maize (41% of global harvest) is used directly as food. Of the global soybean harvest, 36% is from US and Canada (10% of this is used as food, the rest goes into processed food and animal feed) and 64% is produced in developing nations, where 100% is assumed to be used as food. These figures do not take into account post‐harvest storage losses. **This is 8.5% ‐ 61.2% of the world’s population, based on the 2011 population estimate of 7 billion people.
Supplementary Material of Fisher et al. Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health. Nature (2012) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7393/extref/nature10947-s1.pdf Via Kamoun Lab @ TSL
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Mary Williams
April 5, 2012 3:55 AM
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Scoop.it!
Stickleback fish are an interesting model because, although their origins are marine, they have adapted to aquatic environments repeatedly, in parallel, and recently. This adaptation has invovled similar morphological and physiological changes, although they have occured independently in separate populations, raising the question, did all the popluations make the changes in the same way, or have there been many paths to the same (or similar) end?
This paper does genome-wide comparative analyses of 20 populations, including paired sets of closely related marine vs aquatic populations.
What did they learn? "we identify a genome-wide set of loci that are consistently associated with marine–freshwater divergence. Our results indicate that reuse of globally shared standing genetic variation, including chromosomal inversions, has an important role in repeated evolution of distinct marine and freshwater sticklebacks..." and
"Both coding and regulatory changes occur in the set of loci underlying marine–freshwater evolution, but regulatory changes appear to predominate in this well known example of repeated adaptive evolution in nature."
This would be an excellent paper to share with any group of upper-level biology students. The questions addressed are fundamental in nature, and the paper shows how genomic data can be used to probe these deep questions. The summaries linked to below are good ways to ease them into the article.
The headline links to theNature article, and here are links to a Nature News and Views about it (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/484046a.html), and the Science Daily summary (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120404133751.htm).
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Mary Williams
April 2, 2012 5:39 AM
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We ran a workshop at the SEB Education symposium last week, in which we challenged biology educators to come up with ideas for engaging students in a first year biology course. (Often, students are familiar enough with the material from their high school courses to be "bored", but don't have the mastery we'd like for university-level coursework.) Each team was assigned a topic, and designed a plan for a one hour lesson. The results were creative, exciting and very engaging.
See the lesson plans here: http://plantslifepeople.org/files/FirstYearBioLessons.pdf
The slides presenting the challenge are here:http://plantslifepeople.org/files/Makingthehorsethirsty.pdf
Unfortunately, we weren't able to video the many performances and physical demonstrations that emerged during our workshop, you'll just have to imagine what a human lipid bilayer looks like!
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Mary Williams
April 1, 2012 3:11 AM
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While end-of-term evaluations are common, a Boston University educator stands out for regularly soliciting students’ suggestions and fine-tuning his approach. May require a "thick skin", but worth it.
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Mary Williams
March 30, 2012 3:48 AM
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Super way to introduce developmental genetics! Also check out the Nature News summary:
http://www.nature.com/news/gene-behind-van-gogh-s-sunflowers-pinpointed-1.10364
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Mary Williams
March 26, 2012 9:23 AM
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It's Australian competition but open to all, and has categories for primary and secondary school students and "other" (including university students and professionals). The CHALLENGE: Create a short video that explains an Invention, an Experiment, a Science Concept or an idea, in 60 seconds or less. Cash prizes! Enter by mid August.
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Mary Williams
March 25, 2012 1:51 PM
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1 meter high installation for Glasgow Botanic Garden, Fascination of Plants Day, 18 May
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Mary Williams
April 1, 2012 4:20 AM
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Friday July 20th
9:30 AM 10:30 AM Undergraduate Poster Session
Udergraduate students stand at their posters before moving them into the regular poster area - see what they've done, and encourage them to continue their engagement with plant biology!
10:30 AM 12:00 PM Small Colleges/PUI Networking Event (free). Requires preregistration) Don’t miss this! Meet faculty from teaching-oriented institutions
Saturday July 21st
12:00 PM 1:30 PM Career Information Luncheon (free, pre-registration required)
Information about lots of traditional and non-traditional career options
7:30 PM 10:00 PM How to be a great teacher: A hands on workshop for post-docs
and students (pre-reserved tickets required, $30/$25/$20) Sponsored
by Teaching Tools in Plant Biology and The Plant Cell
Sunday July 22nd
12:00 PM 1:30 PM Minority affairs Sponsored Lunch and Speaker (pre-reserved
tickets required - $28/ $12) (David Asai from the HHMI is speaking about challenges for science education)
7:30 PM 10:00 PM Case Study Teaching - Engaging Students in Plant Biology
Problem Solving (free, pre-reg required)
Monday July 23rd
3:45 PM 5:25 PM Minisymposia 26 – Education and Outreach
See the full schedule here
http://aspb.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/images/preliminary_pb2012_schedule_.pdf
And register here
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Scooped by
Mary Williams
April 20, 2012 3:58 AM
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Congratulations to ASPB member Nitya Jacob for the IBI prize for Inquiry Based Instruction and her excellent educational efforts. Check out the article in Science.
The lab manual for the course is published as Supplemental Online Material (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2012/03/28/335.6076.1588.DC1)
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Mary Williams
April 16, 2012 3:40 AM
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Science asked young scientists - "What is your definition of a successful scientist? How has this definition changed between your mentor's generation and your own?"
Check out the replies they got.
Also, a new question for young scientists,
"Describe a specific experience and how it changed your science, training or career goals" - submissions due 18 May.
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Mary Williams
from AnnBot
April 20, 2012 3:52 AM
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Nicolas Corradi and Paola Bonfante from Canada and Italy review an ancient and ecologically critical fungal lineage: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) represent a monophyletic fungal lineage (Glomeromycota) that benefits terrestrial ecosystems worldwide by establishing an intimate association with the roots of most land plants: the mycorrhizal symbiosis. This relationship results in an improved acquisition of nutrients (e.g., phosphate and nitrates) from the soil by the plant partners and, in exchange, allows the AMF to obtain the photosynthetically fixed carbon sources (e.g., sugars) necessary for their survival and propagation [1], [2] (Figure 1). This fungal lineage is known to impact the function and biodiversity of entire ecosystems by producing extensive underground networks, composed of hyphae and spores, that interconnect a number of unrelated individual plant species [1], [2]. These networks also function as a significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, and represent significant underground “nutrient highways” that benefit entire plant and microbial communities. Indeed, AMF spores and hyphae are also a valuable source of food for many soil microorganisms (i.e., bacteria, other fungi, and nematodes), and because of their many beneficial effects on terrestrial ecosystems, AMF are widely used in organic agriculture and plant nurseries to improve the growth of economically important species.
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Scooped by
Mary Williams
April 16, 2012 3:16 AM
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UK doctoral training centres prepare students to run a lab — or work outside academia.
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Mary Williams
from John Innes Centre on the web
April 6, 2012 3:59 AM
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Plant pathogenic oomycetes secrete a diverse repertoire of effector proteins that modulate host innate immunity and enable parasitic infection. Understanding how effectors evolve, translocate and traffic inside host cells, and perturb host processes are major themes in the study of oomycete–plant interactions. The last year has seen important progress in the study of oomycete effectors with, notably, the elucidation of the 3D structures of five RXLR effectors, and novel insights into how cytoplasmic effectors subvert host cells. In this review, we discuss these and other recent advances and highlight the most important open questions in oomycete effector biology.
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Mary Williams
April 4, 2012 2:45 PM
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The shortage of credible and diverse voices in science undermines the capacity of journalists to respond to development challenges.
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Mary Williams
April 1, 2012 3:14 AM
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Good article on the need for better teaching in universities, especially in science. It also includes links to some specific initiatives at several American universities to address this issue. Interesting comments too!
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Mary Williams
March 31, 2012 6:04 AM
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This short video visually show how our future actions, including changes in diet, reductions of food waste, and optimization of food yields through research, can increase the "safe space" for food production.
Also see the accompanying report that was released this month: "Achieving Food Security in a Changing Climate" http://ccafs.cgiar.org/commission/reports/
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Mary Williams
March 28, 2012 4:29 AM
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Running a teaching workshop for university lecturers and teachers at the SEB education symposium. The challenge - make an engaging lesson strategy for a one-hour first year biology course. Here's the template with examples from the teaching workshop - the participants lesson plans on topics including "the central dogma", "origin of species" and "membranes" will be posted shortly. Take home message - sharing ideas is engaging, whether at a teaching workshop or first year biology classroom.
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Mary Williams
March 26, 2012 8:59 AM
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Very interesting collection of essays on topics from food and water security, sustainable energy, global health and environmental change, and the green economy. Open access!
"The issue publishes papers on the topics of several policy briefs that are on the agenda of the annual United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development: energy, food and water security, green economy, health and well-being. The publication of the special issue ties in with the Planet under Pressure Conference, starting today in London, where each of the policy briefs are presented and discussed."
