News
Yoder publishes on biodiversity in Madagascar
October 15, 2014
Anne Yoder and former postdoc Jason Borwn (CCNY) have published "A necessarily complex model to explain the biogeography of reptiles and...
The Camel Gets its Plaque
September 24, 2014
On Monday the 22nd of September the Biology Department dedicated a plaque in honor of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen at the statue of Knut and the...
Sherwood Lab Featured in ScienceNews
September 22, 2014
ScienceNews recently featured research from David Sherwood's Lab on invadopodia, foot-like cell protrusions characteristic of metastatic...
Katia Koelle One of Popular Science's "Brilliant Ten"
September 22, 2014
Popular Science has selected Katia Koelle as one of their "Brilliant Ten," which features ten of the "brightest young minds reshaping...
In Plain English: John Mercer
August 11, 2015
Before going to college John Mercer joined the Navy. See the world! Experience life! After much training John became a reactor operator...
In Plain English: Paul Magwene
August 11, 2015
Deep in the darkest recesses of a cell something determines its fate: How will it react to food or famine? Should it grow and divide? ...
In Plain English: Chantal Reid
June 29, 2015
Chantal Reid is excited about teaching “How Plants Feed and Fuel the World.” She and Jim Siedow have taught it before, but this time is...
In Plain English: Zhen-Ming Pei
June 29, 2015
Zhen-Ming Pei wants to understand how plants sense basic aspects of their environment: salt, temperature and most of all, water. They do...
In Plain English: John Willis
August 11, 2015
John Willis loves figuring things out--specifically, how the wildflower Mimulus adapts to different environments. Colonies adapt to...
In Plain English: Alec Motten
August 11, 2015
Alec Motten is excited about bioluminescence—live creatures that glow in the dark. The lab for Organismal Diversity gives him an excuse to...
In Plain English: Vikas Bhandawat
August 07, 2015
Vikas Bhandawat chose to study the sense of smell in fruit flies because it is so much simpler than sight. Less than 10,000 neurons! But...
In Plain English: Sam Johnson
August 11, 2015
The great scientist Sir Isaac Newton formulated his theory of light, indispensable to using microscopes and telescopes, at Cambridge...
In Plain English: Nina Tang Sherwood
August 11, 2015
Fruit flies live long enough to have degenerative diseases? Yes, and Nina Sherwood studies one that impairs the ability to walk. A...
In Plain English: Terry Corliss
August 11, 2015
Terry Corliss started collecting insects at age 5 and progressed to fish, reptiles and eventually microbes. Now she leads a hard-working...
In Plain English: Meng Chen
August 11, 2015
Meng Chen got his job by accident; that is, he accidentally discovered a mutant while he was a post-doc, and now his lab is defining a new...
In Plain English: Michael Barnes
August 11, 2015
Down behind the French building, far from the mailroom and offices, the labs on upper floors and the subterranean teaching space, there is...
In Plain English: Rytas Vilgalys
June 23, 2015
“It’s a good time to be a mycologist,” says Rytas Vilgalys. Rytas began by learning the edible and inedible mushrooms at his Muka’s (...
In Plain English: Fred Nijhout
August 11, 2015
Animals come in all sizes, but how does an animal know when it’s grown to the right size? That’s been puzzling Fred Nijhout for a long...
In Plain English: Katia Koelle
August 07, 2015
Like many people today, Katia Koelle is fascinated by ancestry. But she's not tracing her family tree; instead, she uses sophisticated...
In Plain English: Eric Spana
June 29, 2015
Eric Spana just finished running “Nerd Camp”—that is, pSearch, a pre-orientation program introducing freshmen to research. All day for 2...
Lead Author Learned to Love Research at Duke
August 14, 2014
When Bob Cieri first arrived at Duke, he envisioned becoming an ecologist who worked in the field, not someone who’d flourish in a lab. All...
Traveling Across America on a Tandem Bike
August 12, 2014
Nearly three months of pedaling took Duke biology professor Kathleen Smith and her husband over the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia,...
Cassidy Pomeroy-Carter: Studying Creatures Great and Small
September 05, 2014
From whales to lemurs, senior Cassidy Pomeroy-Carter is using animal research experiences at Duke to prepare her for a future in...
Willard to Lead New Research Program for Undergrads
September 10, 2014
The Trinity Science & Research Scholars Program is launching this fall to provide opportunities for Trinity College freshmen and...
Longing for Nepal
September 15, 2014
Name: Jill Chaskes FosterPosition: Staff assistant, Department of BiologyYears at Duke:...