Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

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26 posts · 15,708 views

I want to make cutting-edge biology research accessible to those who do not have the background, and to attempt to illuminate why it is so important that we spend billions of dollars each year to study how sex is determined in a nematode, how a particular species of tree disperses its seeds, or what changes take place when a yeast cell ages and dies. These studies may not seem relevant — but I will try to convince you, along with myself, that they are, and how they could change the way we live.

Hannah Waters
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  • July 19, 2010
  • 09:19 AM
  • 1,256 views

DMS(P): the amazing story of a pervasive indicator molecule in the marine food web

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

Dimethylsulfide.  Does that word mean anything to you?  “Why yes,” you organic chemistry nerds may say, “It clearly is a molecule of sulfur with two methyl groups attached.”  That’s as far as I could have gotten – until this past week, when I inundated myself with information on dimethylsulfide (DMS) due to a paper published [...]... Read more »

G. V. Wolfe, M. Steinke, & G. O. Kirst. (1997) Grazing-activated chemical defence in a unicellular marine alga. Nature, 894-897. info:/

  • April 20, 2010
  • 11:21 AM
  • 1,000 views

Octopuses doing tricks on the internet and our search for non-human “intelligence”

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

An underwater photographer has his camera stolen by a thieving octopus, who flees with the device, filming along the way.  Sure, he was filming his own flesh, but baby’s first movie isn’t too shabby.

People love to talk about octopus “intelligence.”  The photographer specifies that the octopus wasn’t attacking him, but just wanted to steal [...]... Read more »

SETH, A., BAARS, B., & EDELMAN, D. (2005) Criteria for consciousness in humans and other mammals. Consciousness and Cognition, 14(1), 119-139. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2004.08.006  

  • June 18, 2010
  • 11:49 AM
  • 930 views

Microbe biogeography: the distribution, dispersal and evolution of the littlest organisms

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

In any high school biology class1, we learn that isolation is key to the evolution of species.  For example, take Australia, where an array of marsupials such as koalas and kangaroos reproduce like no other animals on the planet.  Isolation on a continental island allowed ancestral marsupials to evolve gestation via pouch, a trait which [...]... Read more »

Martiny, J., Bohannan, B., Brown, J., Colwell, R., Fuhrman, J., Green, J., Horner-Devine, M., Kane, M., Krumins, J., Kuske, C.... (2006) Microbial biogeography: putting microorganisms on the map. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 4(2), 102-112. DOI: 10.1038/nrmicro1341  

  • February 11, 2010
  • 06:54 AM
  • 754 views

Nature-inspired network design: recent studies in slime mold and leaf veins

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

Nature-inspired design:  this phrase makes me think of shark-skin swimsuits, velcro, and an endless assortment of coffee tables using natural knots and tree branches.  There is logic behind design reliant upon natural elements.  After all, organisms have been undergoing evolution for millions of years for the sake of efficiency.  If anyone knows how to [...]... Read more »

Andrew Adamatzky, & Jeff Jones. (2009) Road planning with slime mould: If Physarum built motorways it would route M6/M74 through Newcastle. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos. arXiv: 0912.3967v1

Tero A, Takagi S, Saigusa T, Ito K, Bebber DP, Fricker MD, Yumiki K, Kobayashi R, & Nakagaki T. (2010) Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design. Science (New York, N.Y.), 327(5964), 439-42. PMID: 20093467  

  • December 24, 2009
  • 12:31 PM
  • 744 views

How dirt affects global atmospheric carbon dioxide (Wingate et al. 2009, PNAS)

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

I have a tendency to root for the underdog.  I rooted for the Phillies throughout the 90s, when my heroes Lenny Dykstra and Darren Dalton could rarely lead them to a win.  It’s a mixture of a desire for upheaval, that the unexpected can happen, as well as pure sympathy for the ones who [...]... Read more »

Wingate, L., Ogee, J., Cuntz, M., Genty, B., Reiter, I., Seibt, U., Yakir, D., Maseyk, K., Pendall, E., Barbour, M.... (2009) The impact of soil microorganisms on the global budget of  18O in atmospheric CO2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0905210106  

  • March 2, 2010
  • 11:14 PM
  • 737 views

Invasive species corrupt DNA, not just ecosystems (Fitzpatrick et al., PNAS 2010)

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings


I rarely think about how invasive species affect genetics.  It’s always in terms of ecosystems or species: invasive brown tree snakes gobbling up birds and lizards in Guam, or zebra mussels overwhelming and altering the environment of the Great Lakes.  How one species outcompetes and replaces another, changing the natural system.  This is partly [...]... Read more »

Fitzpatrick, B., Johnson, J., Kump, D., Smith, J., Voss, S., & Shaffer, H. (2010) Rapid spread of invasive genes into a threatened native species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(8), 3606-3610. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0911802107  

  • February 5, 2010
  • 03:29 PM
  • 676 views

How to measure the progress of science (Rosvall and Bergstrom, PLoS 2010)

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings


No one can deny that the field of science is undergoing explosive growth.  The “technological age” has treated it kindly, giving it both access to new equipment and techniques, as well as creating a larger scientific community with more connections between labs around the world.  We are bombarded with information in general: hundreds of papers [...]... Read more »

Rosvall, M., & Bergstrom, C. (2010) Mapping Change in Large Networks. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008694  

  • June 25, 2010
  • 11:28 AM
  • 650 views

How did they get there? The colonization of a hydrothermal vent after volcanic eruption

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

To some people, a volcanic eruption means “Ahh!  Run!  Hot Lava!”  But to others, it means “SCIENCE!”  To those studying hydrothermal vent communities, that is (and a wide berth of geologists). Hydrothermal vents are cracks in the seafloor formed when tectonic plates spread apart, which spew out hot, mineral-rich water from the interior of the [...]... Read more »

Mullineaux, L., Adams, D., Mills, S., & Beaulieu, S. (2010) Larvae from afar colonize deep-sea hydrothermal vents after a catastrophic eruption. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(17), 7829-7834. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913187107  

  • April 7, 2010
  • 05:36 PM
  • 640 views

Animals without oxygen and their implications for the evolution of life

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

It’s been a slow few weeks around here at Culturing Science.  It’s due to a little bit of writer’s block, but mainly it’s just the beautiful weather keeping me outdoors and away from the computer.  Hopefully you’ve been outside so much that you haven’t noticed.
But today my dream article was published: microorganisms, extreme environments, evolution, [...]... Read more »

Danovaro, R., Dell'Anno, A., Pusceddu, A., Gambi, C., Heiner, I., & Kristensen, R. (2010) The first metazoa living in permanently anoxic conditions. BMC Biology, 8(1), 30. DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-8-30  

  • May 25, 2010
  • 10:13 AM
  • 623 views

Molecular biology and globsters: dashing cryptozoologists’ dreams

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

On July 29th 2008, the day I turned 21 years, I received the best thing I could ask for: a birthday gift from Poseidon. I was living in Newport, OR at the time.  After a long morning of observing nesting seabirds through a telescope, I returned home for what I presumed to be a long [...]... Read more »

  • June 22, 2010
  • 04:05 PM
  • 617 views

Inevitability and Oil, Pt. 1: the inherent risk for accidents in complex technology

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

When I read updates on blogs or the news about the BP oil spill, my expression is generally very serious: furrowed brow, pursed lips which I’m probably chewing in alternation with gnawing a nail.  But last week I laughed out loud, a true LOL, a brash guffaw.  (“What?!” my labmates inquired.) I had read this [...]... Read more »

  • January 12, 2010
  • 12:26 AM
  • 600 views

Why research articles should be publicly accessible (Shulenburger 2009, PLoS Biology)

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

I cannot even count the number of times when I have been denied access to a journal article I needed.  Oftentimes, it was while I was working on a paper in college and couldn’t read the paper that all the other scholars cited, or the paper that supported an argument I was trying to make.  [...]... Read more »

  • December 15, 2009
  • 08:55 AM
  • 581 views

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is regulated by the protein RanBPM (Atabakhsh et al. 2009, Molecular Cancer Research)

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

I have been fearful of molecular biology for most of my life.  This is partially because I so clearly defined myself as an ecologist that I partitioned molecules into “little biology” and out of my range.  But mostly it was a fear of what I considered unnatural.  Scientists who play around with chemicals and [...]... Read more »

  • February 8, 2011
  • 10:20 PM
  • 541 views

The many relationships of leaf-cutter ants

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

Trying to capture the movement of a colony of leaf-cutter ants in a single photo is nearly impossible in my (amateur) experience.  The queues of ants follow a worn-down trail in the ground that they themselves made with the impact of their little ant feet.  There are ants moving in both directions, between the food [...]... Read more »

  • July 28, 2010
  • 09:12 AM
  • 531 views

Forest canopy height: why do we care?

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

If you’ve been on the internet at all in the past week, you’ve probably seen these lovely images from NASA, visualizing the height of tree canopies around the world.  They’ve been on science sites along with art ones.  In a sense, that alone is useful: using beautiful visuals to make people think about the world [...]... Read more »

  • January 21, 2010
  • 12:16 AM
  • 528 views

Photosynthetic Evolution: how 2 organisms gained or lost the ability to eat sunshine

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

Biologists and taxonomists love to put organisms into categories to help us organize the complicated living world.  I grew up on the 5 kingdom system of classification: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and protists. The first four categories seemed simple enough, but the term “protists” always confused me.  This kingdom seemed to be a dumping ground [...]... Read more »

  • August 19, 2010
  • 12:33 PM
  • 510 views

Marine Snow: dead organisms and poop as manna in the ocean

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

“When I think of the floor of the deep sea…I see always the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer…the most stupendous “snowfall” the earth has ever seen.” -Rachel Carson, The Sea Around … Continue reading →... Read more »

Bochdansky, A., van Aken, H., & Herndl, G. (2010) Role of macroscopic particles in deep-sea oxygen consumption. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(18), 8287-8291. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913744107  

Boyce, D., Lewis, M., & Worm, B. (2010) Global phytoplankton decline over the past century. Nature, 466(7306), 591-596. DOI: 10.1038/nature09268  

Goldthwait, S., Carlson, C., Henderson, G., & Alldredge, A. (2005) Effects of physical fragmentation on remineralization of marine snow. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 59-65. DOI: 10.3354/meps305059  

WOTTON, R., & MALMQVIST, B. (2001) Feces in Aquatic Ecosystems. BioScience, 51(7), 537. DOI: 10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0537:FIAE]2.0.CO;2  

  • May 5, 2011
  • 12:15 AM
  • 504 views

Swarms of tasty cicadas don’t help the birds — what gives?

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

Every thirteen years they come. After over a decade underground, they build burrows to the earth’s surface and emerge in synchrony, clawing and crawling up through the soil, rip their skins down the back and are reborn as adults. And after a month, they will be dead, whether consumed by the animals awaiting their arrival [...]... Read more »

Koenig, W., & Liebhold, A. (2003) Regional impacts of periodical cicadas on oak radial increment. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 33(6), 1084-1089. DOI: 10.1139/X03-037  

Lehmann-Ziebarth, N., Heideman, P., Shapiro, R., Stoddart, S., Hsiao, C., Stephenson, G., Milewski, P., & Ives, A. (2005) EVOLUTION OF PERIODICITY IN PERIODICAL CICADAS. Ecology, 86(12), 3200-3211. DOI: 10.1890/04-1615  

  • September 17, 2010
  • 10:33 AM
  • 462 views

Can seabirds overfish a resource? The case of cormorants in Estonia

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

“Overfishing” is a term associated with resource depletion, extinction, and human greed.  While the definition of overfishing is technically a subjective measure (How much fishing is too much?), it has been widely accepted to mean catching more of an aquatic … Continue reading →... Read more »

Dulvy, N., Sadovy, Y., & Reynolds, J. (2003) Extinction vulnerability in marine populations. Fish and Fisheries, 4(1), 25-64. DOI: 10.1046/j.1467-2979.2003.00105.x  

Vetemaa, M., Eschbaum, R., Albert, A., Saks, L., Verliin, A., Jurgens, K., Kesler, M., Hubel, K., Hannesson, R., & Saat, T. (2010) Changes in fish stocks in an Estonian estuary: overfishing by cormorants?. ICES Journal of Marine Science. DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsq113  

  • September 29, 2010
  • 08:52 AM
  • 449 views

The evolution of the eukaryotes and our human story

by Hannah Waters in Culturing Science – biology as relevant to us earthly beings

“Taxonomy and classification are funny,” my father joked recently, “because the organisms being classified really don’t care what they are. We’re the only ones who care!” Well, at least I thought it was a good joke.  And it speaks to … Continue reading →... Read more »

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