GRADUATE STUDENTS ON BIODIVERSITY SCIENCE
Bats are critical to many ecosystems across the globe, and their elimination would have countless negative environmental and economic impacts. To some extent, we have already seen the impacts of lack of bats in areas most severely impacted by White nose syndrome such as the Northeastern United States. Bats consume millions of insects worldwide, helping control the populations of insects […]
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What is Meiosis? Meiosis is the process that creates gametes, better known as eggs and sperm, which are essential for sexual reproduction. Gametes are formed from germ cells, which are found in the reproductive organs, the testes (males) or the ovaries (females). The germ cells are undifferentiated cells that remain inactive until an organism reaches sexual maturity. When an organism […]
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Originally posted at Hippo Reads. Heaving ourselves out of bed each morning is a trying feat for most of us. But what happens when the initial movements — peeling back the covers, lifting yourself upright, spinning your legs over the side of the bed — become too overwhelming to perform? Greg* experienced this for three months in the middle of […]
Read moreNo plant indicates that you are in the American South as clearly as the loblolly pine. Driving from western Texas through the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia, they are a constant roadside companion. In addition to being ubiquitous pretty much throughout the coastal plains and Piedmont of the region, they’re also huge. This characteristic, along with others mentioned later […]
Read moreMitochondria are often described as the “powerhouse” of the cell. These organelles are responsible for production of the majority of the energy (in the form of ATP) used by eukaryotic cells and are thought to have arisen over 2 billion years ago when a proto-eukaryote “ate”, but did not digest, a prokaryotic cell. Over time, the host cell and […]
Read moreI think I deserve a pat on the back – using only the power of my mind, I have, in one fell swoop, done what every land manager has been trying to do for decades and deleted every non-native species from the planet – all without chemicals or having to do the dirty work of eradication. Let’s put some bounds […]
Read moreAscophyllum nodosum is a brown seaweed and a ubiquitous member of intertidal communities throughout the temperate North Atlantic. This cold- and calm-water loving species has long strappy branches and air bladders along its axis. It grows in dense stands that are up to a meter tall – forming beautiful floating meadows at high tide and thick, floppy mats of seaweed […]
Read moreMost of us learned back in grade school that mitochondria are the power plants of our cells. These tiny organelles, some as small as half a micrometer, give our cells the energy needed to carry out basic functions. Our teachers probably spent just as much time covering mitochondria as they did covering the endoplasmic reticulum (our cell’s factory) and the […]
Read more100 years ago, the Eastern United States was a lot different than it is today. Yeah, there was less urban development, and there were fewer paved roads, dams, and railroads, but by far the biggest difference (at least to an ecologist) was the makeup of the forests. 100 years ago, there stood a huge and dominant tree that is now […]
Read moreIf norepinephrine were suddenly deleted from the face of the earth, you probably wouldn’t wake up in the morning. If you did, you might not get very far from the covers. Norepinephrine is small molecule that is found in the central and peripheral nervous system and it is a master arouser. If you’ve got a problem, norepinephrine is going to […]
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