SEXY KILLERS : FILM AND ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Sexy science

Every year, new graduates and project students make an appearance in the lab. Acquiring the skills necessary to become a researcher can be a long and painful process, and many of the hints that would help relieve the pain are not written in books. For instance, you can’t be a researcher without being able to ask questions, but this doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Once you get the knack, how...

Genetics just got SEXY

A semi-synthetic organism with an extended genetic alphabet heralds a new era in synthetic biology.

Natural born killers.

This year, 30 million acres of the corn, cotton, and potatoes planted in the United States will have been genetically engineered to produce an endotoxin normally found in the microbe Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a self-contained pesticide that will be toxic only to target insects. Transgenic pest-resistant crops are a cost-effective alternative to chemical pesticides, and may offer a way to hel...

Pleiotropy, ‘‘sexy’’ traits, and speciation

The evolution of mating signals and preferences assists speciation by facilitating assortative mating within diverging lineages, thereby closing down conduits of gene flow between lineages. However, sexual communication traits are frequently subject to stabilizing selection, suggesting that new variants will be selected against, thereby discouraging their divergent evolution. Pleiotropic mutati...

Hidden Killers: Molds and Mycotoxins