The Benfey Lab has presented an important new finding in a recent issue of NatureRGF1 controls root meristem size through ROS signalling.  Postdoc Masashi Yamada, with the assistance of Xinwei Han and the overall guidance of Prof.

As the root grows

The Joint Genome Institute in the Department of Energy featured a news article on a recent paper by Daniele Armaleo et al. in BMC Genomics. "The lichen symbiosis re-viewed through the genomes of Cladonia grayi and its algal partner Asterochloris glomerata" analyzed the genomes and transcriptomes of the fungus and the alga both separately and together.  The study could illuminate future research on bioengineering symbionts for energy production, and on modeling global carbon and nitrogen cycling.

The latest episode of the Star Wars saga, Disney+’s The Mandalorian, has introduced a brand-new character with no backstory:  Baby Yoda.  Naturally, the internet is abuzz.  Is he, she, it (?) Yoda’s offspring?  Baby Yoda is 50 years old, but what does that mean for its species?  Baby Yoda uses The Force so its ability seems inborn.  Does the power grow as it ages?  How much does it have to train it?  Popular Mechanics asked Biology’s Eric Spana and Mohamed Noor for their views.

Biology major Joy Duer was definitely intrigued when she heard that she could win a ride in an F-15 fighter if she helped personnel ant Seymour Johnson Air Force Base solve a communication problem.  The task was part of the Hacking 4 Defense class and required Duer and her teammates, Mary Gooneratne and Linda Zhang, to invent a fallback system if normal communication networks were knocked out in battle.  The team's idea, employing lasers and drones, emerged only after multiple interviews with Air Force personnel and lots of teamwork.  Teamwork and the value of "radi

We join the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology in congratulating Associate Professor Jenny Tung on winning a MacArthur Fellowship.  According to the MacArthur Foundation, fellowships are awarded based on three criteria:  exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.  "The fellowship is not a lifetime achievement award, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential."  Jenny is recognize

BioMajor Thomas Barlow is making a name for himself as a nature photographer; the Duke Research Blog recently featured some of his work.

Lichen photographed by Thomas Barlow

The American Society of Primatologists has given its 2019 Distinguished Primatologist Award to Prof.

Daniele Armaleo and collaborators from nine countries have published the first parallel genomic analysis of the two main symbiotic partners in a lichen, the fungus and alga comprising Cladonia grayi. The article appears in BMC Genomics, Vol. 20 (see link). Their search for symbiosis-related genes opens to molecular analysis targets whose potential significance was previously unsuspected.

Nature has published a ground-breaking paper by the Pei Lab on how plants perceive salt in the August 13 issue, “Plant cell-surface GIPC sphingolipids sense salt to trigger Ca2+ influx.”  A News and Views article highlights the importance of this research: Excess salinity affects about 7% of all land, and 30% of irrigated crops.  First author Zhonghao Jiang and the Pei team have demonstrated the mechanism whereby a plant recognizes and adapts to increased environmental sodium chloride.  This knowled

An August 8 article in the New York Times cast a spotlight on Sheila Patek’s research.  At center stage was the larva of the gall midge, a tiny maggot about the size of a grain of rice.  While perhaps not as accomplished as Simone Biles, the larvae are able to jump more than 30 times their own body length.  Curling into a circle, they use special fibers on head and tail to create a latch against which they build up force.  When the latch lets go, off they fly.