2017

Annie Opel threads a nursery tree with lines of coral pieces. Photo by Kemit-Amon Lewis

Coral Restoration Can Help Restore Fish Communities

December 27, 2017

Part of IB undergraduate, Annie Opel's (Cavanaugh Lab) thesis research was spent diving in and around the coral reefs off St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands for hours a day. Opel's research, published in the December issue of Marine Biology with Opel as first author, shows efforts to restore coral reefs have a positive impact on local fish populations, both in the short...

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Tall Trees by Andrew Malone

How Tall Trees Move Sugars

December 18, 2017

Missy Holbrook, Jessica Savage (former Holbrook Lab postdoc), Juan Losada (Arnold Arboretum Fellow), and Jessica Gersony (PhD student) collaborated with Michael Knoblauch, Washington State University, and Kaare Jensen (former Holbrook lab postdoc), Technical University of Denmark, to answer the long-lasting question of how trees maintain efficient sugar transport as they grow taller. The study, published in Nature Plants, showed...

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THE NEWLY DISCOVERED ANTBIRD, MYRMODERUS EOWILSONI. PHOTO BY ANDREW SPENCER.

New Bird Species Named for E.O. Wilson

December 12, 2017

A new species of antbird, discovered in 2016 in Northern Peru, has been named for E.O. Wilson in recognition of his lifetime contribution to scientific discovery and conservation. The new antbird species, Myrmoderus eowilsoni, is described in the scientific journal The Auk, Volume 35 this week.

Image: THE NEWLY DISCOVERED ANTBIRD, MYRMODERUS EOWILSONI. PHOTO BY ANDREW SPENCER.
Gonzalo Giribet

Gonzalo Giribet Receives Honorary Doctorate from University of Copenhagen

November 14, 2017
Congratulations to Gonzalo Giribet who will receive an honorary doctorate from University of Copenhagen on November 17, 2017 at the Annual Commemoration. On Monday following the ceremony, Prof. Giribet will give an honorary lecture titled, "CHALLENGES AND PROGRESS IN UNDERSTANDING THE ANIMAL TREE OF LIFE THROUGH THE PRISM OF PHYLOGENOMICS". 
MaxPlanck_L.Mahadevan_PNAS2017

L. Mahadevan Develops Mathematical Techniques for Designing Shape-Shifting Shells

October 16, 2017

Nature uses a set of simple growth rules to make complex shapes in nature and human faces. Building on previous research to explain naturally morphing structures, L. Mahadevan sought to unlock those rules and reverse engineer nature's ability to grow an infinitely diverse array of shapes. The study, in the current issue of Proceedings of...

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L. Mahadevan

How to Grow A Spine

September 26, 2017

Prof. L. Mahadevan and Prof. Olivier Pourquié, Harvard Medical School, used mouse cells to create a segmentation clock for the first time in a petri dish. A segmentation clock creates repetive arrangement in developing embryos and with each tick of the clock a vertebra starts to form. The study in the September issue of Cell leads to discoveries of where the clock is located, what makes it tick...

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Peter Girguis Teams with NASA To Develop Deep-Ocean Observatory

Peter Girguis Teams with NASA To Develop Deep-Ocean Observatory

September 21, 2017
NASA tasked Peter Girguis and colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to develop the ultimate deep-ocean observatory, ABISS (Autonomous Biogeochemical Instrument for In Situ Studies). ABISS launched in August 2017 and will be controlled wirelessly for the next two years from the ship E/V Nautilus. Girguis and his colleagues' findings will help NASA in their quest to explore Jupiter's moon, Europa, which may have the necessary ingredients for life.... Read more about Peter Girguis Teams with NASA To Develop Deep-Ocean Observatory