Tag: education
How to Breed Fruit Trees
Have you ever wondered what goes into breeding your favorite fruit varieties? Breeding apples, plums, oranges and pears is made understandable with this video that explains the basic biology, origins, and techniques involved in breeding fruit trees. This is the latest in my series on how to breed plants. If you are interested to see…
Congratulations to our student champions
Merry Mou won first place in the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship. 700 to 900 students participate with their research projects in a variety of categories, including physics, biology, and computer science. Winners are chosen to go on to state and national competitions. Merry Mou won 1st place in Botany in the 2010…
Seralini seeks to dilute biology education
Taking a page from the modern creationist movements that seek to weaken high school education in evolutionary biology, a French group is looking to do the same to biology classes – but now it’s genetic engineering that is the target. Nature News reports in Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools, that CRIIGEN, led by…
GMO Discussion at IHC2010
Written by Kevin Folta The International Horticulture Congress (IHC2010) recently convened in Lisbon, Portugal. Presentations illustrated repeatedly how adjustment of gene expression, via transgenics or breeding, could lead to enhanced quality of fruits and vegetables. During a workshop on August 25 I had the opportunity to listen to several experts in the field of biotechnology…
Who wants to be a genetic engineer?
The Univeristy of Nebraska Lincoln has a wonderful site called Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary. It is an educational site with beginner and advanced articles in English and Spanish. Topics include herbicides, plant breeding, and genetic engineering. They include power point type videos on a variety of topics. My favorite is: Who wants to be…
Even scientists make mistakes
I went to a seminar titled “Harvesting ecosystem services from cellulosic biofuel landscapes” at Iowa State yesterday. The speaker was Michigan State Professor of Entomology Douglas Landis. His research is very practical, focusing on which types of plants should be used in biomass production for biofuels to encourage the highest biodiversity of insects. This is important…
Transition to Organic
The Rodale Institute, major proponent of organic agriculture, is offering a free online at-your-own-pace course that focuses on the transition from conventional to organic farming. They also have a calculator that farmers can use to find how much more (or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific…