January 15, 2010 by ninoaespinas
Sea slug steals genes for greens, makes chlorophyll like a plant
Comment: hmmm…I still doubt the entire thing because it seems 1. Gene flow is easily done by ingesting; 2. the entire photosynthetic machinery evolved in a span of millions of years before the first cyanobacteria were able to perform photosynthesis;3. although, the basic ingredients of photosynthesis such as glutamate and porphyrins are present in animals, still there is a lot of explanation to be done regarding its biosynthetic pathway; 4. I think it’s a highly specialized interaction at the biochemical/cellular level with photosynthesis still maintained by the algal species. Nice to think about! Ask your students about their opinion!
Happy teaching!
Read here
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January 7, 2010 by ninoaespinas
Haven’t posted lately. But if you do have questions regarding BIOTA, academic life (i.e. especially to those who plans to study in Japan) , and other biological in nature, please feel free to contact me.
This is my current address:
Masuda Laboratory (Plant Metabolism Systems), The University of Tokyo, Komaba Campus I, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
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September 30, 2009 by ninoaespinas
for details please contact Dr. Jessamyn Yazon of the Philippine Science High School-Main Campus. Here are her email addresses
yazon77@yahoo.com; jessamyn.yazon@pshs.edu.ph; joyazon.pshs@gmail.com
Thanks!
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June 10, 2009 by ninoaespinas
PLoS Biology published today a breakthrough in plant breeding called–apomixis at the molecular level. This is simply the suppression of sexual shuffling in plants. We all know that plants produce reproductive cells by meiosis and this process involves sexual shuffling, this natural process becomes a problem in hybrids who achieved good vigor and traits because their next generation are usually poor performers than themselves. Mercier and his colleagues started producing a triple mutant Arabidopsis by combining 3 mutations in a plant. The mutations are produced by crossing plants without the second round of meiosis (OSD1 or the omission of second division) plus two other mutations involving meiosis. The result is a plant that doesn’t have meiosis at all and what’s more exciting is that it can produce reproductive cells via MITOSIS. Obviously, the reproductive cells are diploid and so crossing them with a haploid or another diploid reproductive cell either produces triploid or tetraploid zygotes. But, it seems that these triploid and tetraploid offsprings are viable and have the same hybrid vigor as their parents. Interesting huh? Although, I wonder what will happen to the 2nd generation of these triploid and tetraploid plants…hmmm.
Happy teaching!
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June 4, 2009 by ninoaespinas
Most of you do know that I am currentlystudying in Japan, this is the main reason why I have’nt posted much stuff about biology teaching. Anyway, starting today, I would like to share with you guys some of the latest breakthroughs and interesting things about my current reseach interest: Photosynthesis Research! Yup, tha’s right! Most of us know that the red and blue light of the spectrum are the types of light usually absorbed by the plants and that the green light bounces back and so producing green coloration of the leaves. A recent paper from the University of Tokyo showed that green light of the spectrum are far efficient in driving photosynthesis at certain environmental conditions. Hope you can share this information with your classes. Here’s the link to the paper: http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/4/684
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