It’s the 24th December and the advent calendar has come to an end. I hope that you enjoyed it. I will be back in January to blog about plants, cells and science. Wishing you a very merry Christmas and an…
Merry Christmas!
Tag: advent calendar
Growing in a Mini Wonderland
Terrariums are miniature low-maintenance gardens growing in glass containers of all shapes and sizes. Ideal for plant lovers with not much time, space and/or with overflowing creativity. A very easy project and a completely different Christmas decoration is this terrarium…
When You Wish Upon a Star Anise
What spice represents Christmas for you? Ginger (Zingiber officinale) because of its importance in the international gingerbread house construction industry? Cinnamon, the dried bark of the Sri Lanka tree Cinnamomum verum, as an essential ingredient for Christmas candles, cookies and…
A new range of fluorescent proteins extracted from reindeer tissue
DNA 2.0 has just reported on a recent science paper about a new range of fluorescent proteins. The PDF can be downloaded here. Without any doubt this has to be the most groundbreaking publication of 2011 and I urge everyone…
The Amazing Ultrastructure of Snowflakes
They say that no two snowflakes are alike. But all of them share one thing: They are beautiful at any level of magnification. The Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, showcases tons of…
Out with the Tinsel, in With the Evergreens
This video produced by the Eden Project gives some ideas about how to decorate your home for Christmas with plants.
How to clone your Christmas Cactus
Today I am going to explain how you can clone your Christmas cactus. “But Dr O”, you might ask, “don’t we need a fully equipped laboratory and a set of pipettes and a lot of other expensive biotechnology stuff to…
Last Christmas I started to bleed
This song has nothing to do with plants or cells, but it features the science of blood clotting, a ukulele and a toy piano. What more could you ask for!
The Science of Christmas Trees Part 2
There has been quite a high interest in the science of Christmas trees, and therefore I decided to dedicate another post to this season’s VIP (Very Important Plant). To start with some proper Botany, take a look at this very…
Mitosis in a Winter Wonderland
Wouldn’t it be cool if Golgi bodies produced snowballs?
Rumour has it that there was a hint of snow in Oxford yesterday. I didn’t see it because I was trapping in a laser lab without windows at the Central Laser Facility (no, that’s not a grammatical error, it’s a…
I’ll Have The Moss Terrine and Some Lemming Mc Nuggets
On my search for new topics for the Advent Calendar I was researching what reindeer like to eat. I imagined it would be plants adapted to the cold Northern climate where they live – but I was only partially right.…