Sixfold
Brent M. Foster | Ode to Darwin
But surely you see that breathing is more subtle than living.
Brent Foster
Science Writer
United States
United States
But surely you see that breathing is more subtle than living.
Maybe the path of a scientific career isn't linear. Maybe it's more like Waddington's epigenetic landscape.
Not every microscope is created equal. The trick is finding the right one, and sometimes that means starting from scratch.
Two weeks after my lab locked down in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, my application for one Ph.D. program was rejected, and I was waiting to hear back from another. The days ticked slowly by.
Day at the Whitney Lab, created by faculty and volunteers at University of Florida's Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, is designed to help children experience what it's like being a scientist.
"It's like growing a clone of yourself out of your arm," Bailey Steinworth said, gesturing to her own arm to illustrate one of the ways Cassiopea xamachana - the upside-down jellyfish - reproduces. It's a sunny day, and we're sitting at picnic tables outside the University of Florida's Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience.
She might not see it the next day. At first glance, the slag in the saltwater aquarium is just a rock covered with purple jasmine polyps and green star polyps. Orange tendrils of finger corals wave with a silent current, an undulating calm that almost seems to slow the heart rate.
Finding a scientific niche may be a bit like trying to spot a camouflaged dwarf cuttlefish in a saltwater tank. At first, all you can see are rocks and bobbing tendrils of orange finger corals. But if you wait patiently, you might suddenly see the rock morph...
Any book that begins with scientists giving mouth-to-mouth to a tranquilized panther promises to be weird and severely entertaining. If you ask me, Craig Pittman's book-Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther-delivers on that promise.
Many patients undergoing cancer treatments have a problem that keeps their immune systems up at night: finding the cancer cell that got away. It's a diabolical needle in the haystack.
Imagine you're a child scooping up a jellyfish and swallowing it without feeling its sting. If that's not amazing enough, as the animal moves through the rugae lining your stomach, you absorb its nematocysts-the hallmark stinging cells of cnidarians-and store them, waiting for the moment...
Elias Lunsford stood at the podium in front of a room full of scientists at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, ready to share the recent findings from his research at UF's Whitney Laboratory.
I heard a story once of a toddler who leaned over too far in her chair in the kitchen and toppled off. The chair landed on her little toe, slicing it cleanly from her foot. When her parents rushed her to the hospital, the doctor reassured them that, at this child's age, her little toe could regrow back normally.
When it comes to scientific experiments, a lapse in attention can ruin days of hard work. But sometimes these mistakes can lead to incredible, albeit quirky, discoveries.
The location of Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience is perfect for studying local biodiversity and advancing biomedical research. Unfortunately, space is limited - if you stopped by for a visit and walked through the different labs, you'd see aquariums filled with zebra fish, tucked away in closet rooms; or glass bowls of sea anemones or worms stacked on the lab benches; or banks of dissection microscopes hugging the walls.
This summer, the United States will host one of nature's wildest concerts filled with sex, drugs, and rock'n roll. The stars of the show? Billions of cicadas that have been hiding underground for up to 17 years.
If you were to sift through the dirt in your backyard, you probably wouldn't find much more than a few worms or maybe an interesting rock. But what you may not know is that there are millions of microbes in your fistful of dirt - fungal spores or bacteria you can't even see - that might help researchers develop new drugs to fight disease.
Ctenophores, or comb jellies, might not look like much. Picture a translucent gelatinous orb about the size of a golf ball, strung with a kaleidoscope of wriggling colors refracting light. Now imagine being cut in half and then having both halves grow back, good as new.
I am afraid of roosters, thanks to one particularly terrifying experience when I was six. I was in the coop, preparing to pour water for our chickens, when the arcana rooster started to flap his wings at me. He didn’t appreciate me meddling with his harem of hens. He crowed and I cowered against the wall as he flew at me in a rooster’s rage. I screamed as he ripped my shirt and skin. I cried as I bled, pinned against the wall by a bird three times smaller than me. From then on, I carried a...