Check out this New York Times article featuring the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology -- "retracing the steps of a century-old wildlife survey, ecologists find that birds are making remarkable adaptations to climate change."
New research coming out of Assistant Professor Britt Koskella's lab found that spraying tomatoes with microbes from healthy tomatoes protected them from disease-causing bacteria, but that fertilizing the tomatoes beforehand negated the protection, leading to an increase in the population of pathogenic microbes on the plants’ leaves. Read more...
What is stress? According to IB's Professor Daniela Kaufer, stress can be a healthy response to a perceived threat. But there is a fine line between feeling a small amount of stress, which can make your brain stronger, and going through traumatic events, a kind of stress that brings on conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The difference between the two has profoundly different long-term effects on the brain. Read more...
Noah Whiteman, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, has always known how to survive. He moved to Sax-Zim, a rural area in Minnesota, when he was 11 and spent the next seven years learning to fish and hunt with his naturalist dad and hiding that he was gay. When a boy he’d been friends with started to bully him at every chance he got, Noah knew it was time to get out.
The 2018 IB Commencement Ceremony recording is available for viewing. Relive the speeches from Prof. Daniela Kaufer, Sofia Chang, and Hiep Nguyen and follow along as our graduates are recognized for their hard work and achievements.
Professor George Brooks has published a paper in in the journal Cell Metabolism which reviews the evolution of our understanding of the role lactate plays in metabolism, from a poison that causes muscle fatigue to an essential fuel that helps cells repair themselves after stress or injury.
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Dr. Leslea Hlusko, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, and her lab have interesting new findings. "The critical role that breast feeding plays in infant survival may have led, during the last ice age, to a common genetic mutation in East Asians and Native Americans that also, surprisingly, affects the shape of their teeth." Read more...
Anyone who’s tried to kill a cockroach knows that the ancient pests have some world-class evasive maneuvers. Or at least they appear to.
