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 amazing year 2012! Anne Wallpaper 1600×1200. Wallpaper 2560×1600.
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 ornament, made with real “alley plants”. Here is another tutorial, using small bottle brush trees and moss. Try adding little plastic figurines such as angels, reindeer, owls, copious amounts of glitter or snow or use glow-in-the-dark polymer clay to create your own decorations. If you love these ornaments but do not feel very crafty – or if you are...
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 tea? (Cranberry Cinnamon Christmas Tree Rolls) For me it is Star Anise, the dried fruit of the Chinese evergreen tree Illicium verum, mainly based on its appearance (yes, I am a superficial spice appreciator). It’s just so pretty! Using cinnamon sticks and star anise you can make very nice holiday decorations, as shown in this tutorial. I am also...
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 to read it and discuss it in their lab’s last journal club of this year! Nine improved monomeric fluorescent proteins from Rangifer tarandus. Santa Claes, Felix Navidad, Nisse Ness E. , Jeremy Elf Tootoo, Dasher Sridhar, Tinsel Tian and Laura Menorah Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, NorthPole (2011) 12:25-31 Abstract Fluorescent proteins are genetically encoded, easily imaged reporters that have...
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 stunning EM images of snowflakes and snow crystals on their website. I have selected a few of my favourites, but their gallery is worth a visit or two.
This video produced by the Eden Project gives some ideas about how to decorate your home for Christmas with plants.
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 do this?” “Not in this case”, I would answer, “because we are cloning a plant and plants are so amazing that in fact they clone themselves all the time in nature – without using expensive equipment at all!” They are able do this by sending runners, small shoot-like structures, along the soil. The runner eventually roots and becomes a...
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!
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 nice schematic diagram by the BCTGA (British Christmas Tree Growers Association), available for download here. It contains tons of information including scientific names, needle and cone shapes and geographic distribution. Did you know that pine cones are actually very flexible and can open and close depending on the air humidity of their environment? The reason for this is that...
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 geeky word play – I was trapping Golgi bodies with optical tweezers). Anyway, since winter has now very officially arrived, I have made a little something for all you plant organelle fans out there: a wintery wallpaper which you can download and which will hopefully make you smile every time you turn on your computer. It’s the vacuole, a...
…and then fill it up with essential gingerbread lab equipment – such as these Petri dishes with icing sugar bacterial colonies growing on them or DNA agarose gels. And of course you’d need a researcher to conduct these all important sugar overload experiments. Pure genius, Ms Humble, that is all I can say. If you love baking, have a look at the other blog posts, the pictures are mouth-watering! Find all recipes here: http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2009/12/science-cookies-gel-electrophoresis.html http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2009/11/biology-cookies-petri-dish.html http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2009/11/gingerbread-scientists-amuse-me.html
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