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Is the plural Calyptrae or Calyptras?
The moss calyptra is a small cap of gametophyte tissue that covers the apex of the moss sporophyte during its development. This little structure was the focus of my dissertation. Below is part of a...
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Brachythecium salebrosum: Some Like It Temperate
Brachythecium salebrosum, photographed in Slovakia by M. Lüth. Brachythecium salebrosum is a species of moss found in many temperate regions of the world. It often grows in drier habitats than other...
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If You Give an Opossum a Mozzarella Stick
When the bus driver pulled away and I was left standing with a dozen near-strangers in the lobby of Durham's Museum of Life and Science, I admit I felt some doubt. It was the second day of Science...
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How Drugs Work: Cold and Flu Medications
Oh, it’s that time of year again. My morning commute is full of people coughing an astonishing array of germs in my general direction. Usually while also stealing my seat. Those people sensible enough...
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Oldest Known Dinosaurian Nesting Site
Here is the abstract and link to the article discussed in the linked news report from yesterday. Reisz, R. R., Evans, D. C., Roberts, E. M., Sues, H.-D., and A. M. Yates. 2012. Oldest known...
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Introverts, extroverts and modern science
Over at "In the Pipeline", Derek has a post that indirectly asks the following question; all other factors being the same, is modern scientific research more conducive toward introverts or extroverts?...
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My Star Wars name is Tol Rukbat A slave master from Exodo II (my students may say Im from Maine) Get your own Star Wars names from The Star Wars Name Generator! H/T Mike
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Will quantum physics help us cure Alzheimer's disease?
There's an interesting bit of writing out in the journal ChemMedChem by Jean-Louis Kraus, a medicinal chemist in France who has worked on drug discovery for Alzheimer's disease. The article is...
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Embryonic stem cells: can we really restore vision to the blind?
Restoring sight to the blind is, literally, a miracle. For centuries, men have told stories of miracles in which a blind person suddenly was able to see again. In modern times, there have been cases...
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The science public information officer: it's complicated
The glamorous life of a PIO. Via Wikimedia Commons.So, as many of my graduate school friends would begin a story, I used to be a public information officer (PIO). I worked for a large state agency in a...
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Universal chemistry
The Phactor has a penchant for starting at the beginning, and the botany textbook for this new course is strangely written in places. For example, the textbook correctly notes that only 6 elements...
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The Hong Kong Outbreak
When we think of Scarlet fever, we think of the Victorian era, of the Velveteen Rabbit and Little Women. Since the invention of antibiotics broke the back of bacterial disease in the 1940s, Scarlet...
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What makes a molecule beautiful?
I just finished a piece for the March issue of Nature Chemistry on what (in my mind) make a molecule beautiful. I will admit a preference for sparer, less baroque structures. (If you want to know more...
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Link between political views and physiology
It is becoming more and more clear that political views are in fact not completely decided by rational considerations, as common sense would have us believe. Rather, previous studies have shown a link...
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The Sheri Sangji accident: The experimental details
Science has just published a summary of the report by California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health about the tragic accident involving Sheri Sangji and tert-butyl lithium. The summary is the...
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New Postcranial material of Proterochampsa barrionuevoi from the Upper...
Trotteyn, M. J. 2011. Material postcraneano de Proterochampsa barrionuevoi Reig, 1959 (Diapsida: Archosauriformes) del Triásico Superior del centro-oeste de Argentina. Ameghiniana 48:424-446....
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Growing on Trees in Acadia National Park
My first volume of the journal Bryologist for 2012 has arrived. Thus, I am trying to finish up my reading of articles from 2011. The last one I had to read looked at the interaction between the...
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Orchids are fun
Orchids, more precisely, orchid flowers are fun. Who can argue? First a couple of caveats. Most orchids have pretty small flowers; only a few have big, really gaudy flowers, and people are more...
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Wildlife friendly lawns - Not!
Yes, everyone needs money, but in general you don't see money buy such strange bed fellows as Scots Miracle-Gro and the National Wildlife Federation, so you figure a pretty hefty corporate donation was...
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Sorry for lack of posts...
We're busy finishing the Science/arseniclife paper, and the postdoc's uptake paper, and the RA's E. coli competence paper (submitted!), and an old visitor's competence paper, and my article about...
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