Tulip Podcast

Posted by & filed under Education, Interview.

Photo Credit: Ari Daniel Shapiro

Photo Credit: Ari Daniel Shapiro

When you think of the tools of the modern geneticist, the lowly razor blade probably don’t come to mind. But this low-tech tool is essential to the work of Dutch geneticist and passionate gardener Ben Zonneveld, who is using it to tease apart the genetic secrets of the flower whose spectacular genetic variation caused “tulip mania” in the 1600s and has made it a star in the genetics lab in the twenty-first century. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Leiden, the Netherlands.

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Learn more about Tulips on the Encyclopedia of Life

EOL’s One Species at a Time podcasts are hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro. Brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media.

Fungi Podcast

Posted by & filed under Just cause.

Photo Credit: Hypholoma fasciculare. Albert P. Bekker, CalPhotos. CC BY-NC-SA

This week’s podcast begins with a riddle about a life form that’s all around us, yet rarely seen. Working under cover, it sends its ghostly tendrils into almost every corner of the terrestrial world. We associate it with death and decay, but life as we know it would be impossible without it. Come for a walk in the woods and learn how this mysterious form of life, neither animal nor vegetable, shapes our world.

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Learn more about Fungi on the Encyclopedia of Life

EOL’s One Species at a Time podcasts are hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro. Brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media.

Marabou Stork Podcast

Posted by & filed under Interview.

Photo Credit: David d'O. CC BY-NC-SA

The marabou stork of southern Africa isn’t much to look at—it’s large, ungainly, and bald like a vulture, with a nasty appetite for carrion. This bird is increasingly making a home in urban areas like the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where human city dwellers don’t much like the habits of these winged neighbors. But graduate student Lillian Twanza has been studying the storks, with growing respect. She tells Ari Daniel Shapiro the ways that people have unknowingly put out the welcome mat for these scavengers.

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Learn more about the Marabou Stork on the Encyclopedia of Life

One Species at a Time podcasts are hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro. Brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media.

3D printed “smart” rection vessels

Posted by & filed under Feature.

Leroy Cronin and his team out of the University of Glasgow have used a 3D printer they modified to use bathroom sealant to develop a wide variety of custom reaction vessels. The video above shows the printing of such a vessel and how it allows for much more detailed reaction monitoring.

 One vessel was printed with catalyst-laced ‘ink’, enabling the container walls to drive chemical reactions. Another container included built-in electrodes, made from skinny strips of polymer printed with a conductive carbon-based additive. The strips carried currents that stimulated an electrochemical reaction within the vessel.

Using these new vessels they were able to synthesize three new compounds. But even more exciting than the prospect of new compounds is the possibility that using a smart vessel one could find alternative and possibly cheaper routes to the synthesis of known compounds, especially drugs targeting rare diseases where small market keeps the prices abnormally hire.

via Cronin Group

“Reinventing Discovery” with Michael Nielsen

Posted by & filed under Feature.

Physicist and Open Science advocate Michael Nielsen has written a new book called, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. Nielsen walks us through some of the amazing ways science has been effected by the ability to rapidly exchange information and ideas over the internet. The most telling example of the emergent properties that come about through networked science is seen when Nielsen details the impressive chess match between Kasparov and the world. It’s really a phenomenal read. Nielsen doesn’t just sing the praises of Networked science, he also details some of the failings and possible areas in which networked science can improve. So whether you’ve years of experience or are just learning that networked science is a thing, I’d strongly recommend giving it a read or two (preferably with a notebook and pen nearby)

“Anybody can participate in these kinds of projects and do some real work, some things which are really, deeply meaningful — at least for some people,” Nielsen said. “Not everybody’s going to love it, but for those who do what a fantastic opportunity.”

Join us as we talk with Michael Nielsen:

Direct Link:Reinventing Discovery Interview with Michael Nielsen

 

Mapping the Retinal Connectome

Posted by & filed under Project.

The connectome is the map of the connections between each of your neurons. According to Sebabstian Seung it is the connectome, more so than your DNA, that is responsible for the uniqueness of a person.  To develop this theory Seung and his lab have recently launched a webapp called EyeWire to allow anyone to take part in charting the connections in the human retina.

To take part you simply explore a 3D section layer by layer coloring in the spaces where the computer algorithm missed. It’s as easy as coloring in between the lines. And as you can see by my score of 0 up above I’m not too good at coloring between the lines.

If you are interested in learning more about the connectome Sebastien has given a wonderful talk on the subject and if you’re interested in delving deeper, a massive amount of data and the tools to process it have been made freely available courtesy of the the Human Connectome Project.

 

CSQ content is now CC By-SA

Posted by & filed under Announcement.

As of this post, CitizenScienceQuarterly.com and all future print issues will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike license. This means you are free to share any information we post as long as you share under the same license and attribute the work properly

Note: This does not refer to past issues, because of some of the artwork they will remain by/nc/sa.

The Corpse Flower Podcast

Posted by & filed under Interview.


Image Credit: Amorphophallus titanum, Paul Morris, BY-SA

Corpse Flowers
Amorphophallus

Let’s face it—when you think of charismatic megaflora, chances are you have in mind something majestic, like a towering Sequoia, or something ancient, like a Joshua tree. But a plant with a four-foot stalk that smells like a cross between rotting stinky cheese and animal feces? This week’s podcast takes us to a sacred island off the coast of Madagascar, where an intrepid botanist braved fever and worse to bring a specimen of this unlikely botanical superstar back alive. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports.

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One Species at a Time podcasts are hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro. Brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media

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About the Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life is a collaborative effort among scientists and the general public to bring information together about all 1.9 million named and known species, in a common format, freely available on the internet. Learn more at www.eol.org.

 

Arctic Tern Google Earth Tour

Posted by & filed under Interview.

The arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) makes an incredible migration each year. These small birds travel distances of more than 50,000 miles, from pole to pole, crossing through temperate and tropical regions along the way. Carsten Egevang used geo-locator tags to track some of these terns, and he shares their story with us in this tour.

The Arctic Tern Google Earth Tour is narrated by Ari Daniel Shapiro. Produced byAtlantic Public Media and Eduardo Garcia Milagros.

Download the Google Earth KMZ file