How do plants sense their surroundings?
When laying the most essential foundation of biological sciences to a bunch of first graders, educators often start with a lima bean. Between two layers of a wet paper towel, […]
Author Archives: athenssciencecafe
Does Your Multitasking Spark Joy?
As a graduate student, I’m fortunate enough to dictate my own work hours. However, with this freedom comes expectations of productivity; I must juggle writing manuscripts, mentoring students, applying for grants […]
Preventing the Next Epidemic: Scientists Take a Closer Look at Rift Valley Fever
In 2015, Zika virus resulted in a global public health emergency. The epidemic caused severe brain defects in thousands of Brazilian newborns after the virus was transmitted to pregnant mothers […]
Lost in Translation
The year is 2019; the place, your local grocery store. You, the unwary consumer, wander the aisles on your weekly shopping excursion. Reaching for the milk, you hesitate; “non-GMO” is […]
Flight of the Living Dead: Is the Zombification of Flies Facilitated by an Interkingdom Host Switch?
In July of 2018, the Eisen lab at UC Berkeley published what Michael Eisen described as one of the wackiest discoveries of his career. They discovered a virus that swapped […]
Sunflowers to the Rescue!
On April 26, 1986, in the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, a group of engineers working on the No. 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accidentally caused one of […]
Blinded by the Blue Light
”Don’t stare at your phone/computer too much, you will hurt your eyes” – we’ve probably all heard this at some point in our lives. Is this true? Does staring at […]
Men control the reproductive rights of plants too
When confronted with the imprecise notion of “sustainability” in agriculture, most people’s thoughts drift to ideas of ecologically-mindful land management practices. I’ll dub these concepts “the classics”: rotate your crops, […]
The Cartography of the Genome
What is a map? What does it REALLY represent? You might answer a map generally represents the relationships of locations. However, maps have evolved substantially in modern times. For example, […]
The Secret World of Plant Chemistry: Plant Communication
Part II of the series exploring plant chemistry through different lenses. Plants are the perfect embodiments of natural selection – they can’t just get up and move; so whatever adversity […]
