THE BEAR, THE TREE, AND THE MICROBE

A transcontinental, transgenic photoblog, dedicated to a summer of science and--more importantly--the people behind it.

[itsokaytobesmart]

WTF NASA?

If someone asks you “What has NASA ever done to make our lives any better?” … show them this site. Benefit after benefit from space research to Earth!

(via HuffPost Science)

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[kickstarter]

They made it! Six girls from Kentucky brought back high resolution footage from 118,000 feet in the air, using only a camera and a homemade satellite. How cool is that? They posted some early images on their project page — check ‘em out here.

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

So some sixth graders just took pictures of the curvature of the earth. What have you done today?

(Hell, what have we done today?)

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

iGEM 2012 Bay Area Meetup: Pizzas, Project Brainstorming, and Pick-up Soccer

This past Friday, the Stanford-Brown team traveled up to the University of California, San Francisco campus to get together with other iGEM teams from the Bay Area, including UCSF, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley. Although initially irked about having to leave the lab early (God forbid!), we ended up getting a lot more than a breath of fresh air.

Slaving away at our own projects for the last few months means that we've learned a heck of a lot about exobiology and extremophiles, but we've also forgotten how many other amazing synthetic biology projects are out there! Biobarcodes, symbiosis, and biodegradation? It's hard not to be excited.

We also had a chance to hear from UC Berkeley's current faculty mentor (and former iGEM judge!), who was tremendously insightful. He did a great job of getting us to think about the 20 minute presentation--both the end product and representation of the 3 months of research we are in the midst of right now. We need to deliver a final presentation worthy of our summer's work--something that effectively conveys not only what we did, but also why we did it. 

Lastly, the meeting turned out to be a welcome break from another week of routinely stressful lab work. We reveled in sharing pizza, soccer, and mutual lab work frustrations with iGEM'ers from all the different teams. It's true that iGEM is an "international genetically engineered machines competition'', but at its heart synthetic biology--in fact, all of science - is a community and a collaboration. Reawakening to that fact, was a great way to end our week.

Love and Pipettes,

Debha Amatya Stanford-Brown iGEM

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

Bio-pun of the day. Because scientists can have pretentious humor too.

Via reddit.

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

In 1983, scientists created the first genetically modified plant. Fast forward a mere 29 years later and approximately 80% of all packaged food in the U.S. contains genetically engineered (GE) ingredients. But there’s no way for you to tell--producers aren’t required to use any labeling that indicates the use of GE crops.

That may soon change in California, where Proposition 37 (AKA the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act) will be placed on voter ballots in the upcoming November election. If passed, the proposition will require most foods containing GE ingredients (with the exception of alcoholic beverages, dairy, meat, and poultry) to come with special labeling.

(As a side note, technically the first genetically modified plant was when early humans selectively bred strains of cereal.)

For more on Prop. 37, see the Wall Street Journal or the Mercury News. 

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

Dreamed of going to space? Still miffed at being rejected for American Idol? The Mars One Project might be what you're looking for: It's looking to put a human settlement on Mars by 2023.

If it sounds a bit ... scifi, that's because it is. Not only does it want permanent human settlement (read: a one-way journey), it wants to fund the whole thing via reality television. That's right, humankind's first Martian steps might go down on Big Brother. 

Think The Truman Show, but on Mars. 

I mean ... I'd watch it. 

Via. Image via. 

[stanfordbrownigem2012]

[stanfordbrownigem2012]