A Carolina lab was the first to identify a key process in animals that, when mutated, causes cells to multiply out of control.

Genes make up the blueprints and outline the process of building every living organism.

To ensure that the right genes are activated in the right cells, and in the right amounts at the right time, genes are constantly being regulated by small molecular machines made of proteins. When gene regulation fails, or specific genes are altered through mutation, the body is more predisposed to diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune disorders.

Now, for the first time in animals, the lab of Daniel McKay, associate professor of biology in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences and of genetics at the UNC School of Medicine, has identified a crucial focal point in the regulatory processes that govern cell identity. READ MORE

When Beth Grabowski and Bob Goldstein team up, science becomes an art and art becomes a science.

The Carolina professors co-teach Art & Science: Merging Printmaking and Biology, an interdepartmental course in the College of Arts and Sciences. According to its syllabus, the class “brings art majors and science majors together to make artwork that arises out of scientific inquiry.”

Goldstein, the James Peacock III Distinguished Professor in the biology department, handles the science. Grabowski, the Kappa Kappa Gamma Distinguished Professor of Art, lends artistic expertise.

[READ MORE]

Andrew Willoughby, a Nimchuk lab alum and May 2024 PhD graduate, was selected as one of the 18 scientists for JGI’s 2025 Community Science Program Annual Call. He will be working to sequence Gesneriaceae genomes to help understand plant regeneration. The CSP Annual Call is focused on large-scale genomic science projects relevant to the DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research missions in sustainable biofuel and bioproducts production, global carbon and nutrient cycling, and biogeochemistry. Congratulations Andrew!

Brian Lerch’s paper titled “Male-mediated early maturation unlikely to evolve via adaptive evolution” has been selected as one of the Best Publications in Animal Behaviour. The publication combines theory with a long-term field study to argue that early sexual maturation in female mammals upon exposure to a novel male is likely a byproduct of the multifaceted role of estrogens, rather than an adaptation. Well-done Brian!

Read the article HERE!

On the evening of Oct. 2, community members gathered around the historic Davie Poplar on McCorkle place, eagerly awaiting thousands of Chimney Swifts, a type of small bird, to fill the sky. During the event, fittingly called “Swift Night Out,” people observed a phenomenon of many birds swarming around the tree.

A crowd gathers to watch the Chimney Swifts’ flight on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. Birdwatchers and passersby alike look on in awe.

Held by UNC’s Avian Society, the event included speakers and attendees hoping to share their love for Chimney Swifts with fellow bird enthusiasts. Member Sydney McLean said the roosting of the Swifts helped kickstart their love of birds, also saying the event is significant because Swifts typically aren’t found roosting in trees.

“Watching birds is very mindful, as well, super peaceful,” McLean said. “I mean, once you start [bird-watching] it’s kind of like Pokemon Go for adults.”

Retired UNC biology professor Haven Wiley said that the Chimney Swifts have been sighted all over the eastern region of the United States for centuries, typically congregating during September and October…
“When they get inside the chimney or Davie Poplar, they have to stop and flip over because they grab the side of the chimney or the side of the cavity, where there are already hundreds or even thousands of other Swifts,” Wiley said. “They’ve got to find a place there and grab on the side of it, facing head up. So they have to come in and do a flip, find a place, and grab it all in literally a split second.”

UNC Associate Professor Keith Sockman said the Chimney Swifts create a unique shape when they roost, in comparison to other bird species. [READ MORE]

FROM THE WELL: Carolina professor Bob Goldstein has led DIY microscope workshops across the state for nearly a decade.

Every so often, an exuberant second grader will burst into Christine Sawyer’s classroom with an object they found outside – a colorful leaf, a feather or sometimes even bugs.

“Can we look at it under the microscope?” they usually ask.

Sawyer, a 15-year teacher at Bradley Creek Elementary School in Wilmington, relishes those moments. They’re opportunities to teach outside of a lesson plan and explore a child’s curiosity.

And, if not for the homemade microscope Sawyer built for her classroom, those moments wouldn’t be possible.

Sawyer is one of countless North Carolina educators who have benefited from Carolina biology professor Bob Goldstein’s state-wide DIY microscope workshops. For nearly a decade, Goldstein has visited schools across the state to host the workshops, specifically targeting schools in low-income areas, where students might not have access to microscopes. Recently, Goldstein’s workshop produced its 1000th microscope for North Carolina schools.

Built with plexiglass, adjustable wing nuts and utilizing the cameras of smart phones and tablets, these microscopes cost less than $20 to build and take less than 20 minutes to make, yet their impact in classrooms like Sawyer’s is enormous.

“It really does bring science to life for the students,” Sawyer said. “It’s one of those beautiful things that we want to happen in the classroom. It’s that authentic learning through inquiry and being able to see something in front of you.

“Your teacher can tell you all day long that moths and butterflies wings have scales, but that doesn’t connect at all to you until you can see it.”

In late August, Goldstein hosted a workshop at Wildwood Forest Elementary in Raleigh, and the room full of educators cheered as fifth-grade teacher Samantha Carter-Palmer put the finishing touches on microscope number 1000.

Goldstein, the James L. Peacock III Distinguished Professor in the biology department and adjunct professor in the art and art history department, never imagined his workshops would reach that milestone.

The project started inadvertently 10 years ago when Goldstein was looking for a fun, educational activity to do with his young children. Goldstein came across a smartphone microscope design by Kenji Yoshino, then constructed one to use with his kids.

Goldstein was shocked at how well the DIY microscope worked.

“I took a piece of paper and just ripped it and stuck it underneath because I just needed something to look at, and I couldn’t believe what I could see,” Goldstein said.

“I pushed my kids out of the way at first,” he continued, laughing.

Since then, the Carolina professor has led about five to 10 workshops per year, usually with 12 to 20 teachers.

Goldstein spends a few hours before each workshop drilling wood and plexiglass, cutting plexiglass and glueing in lenses to make a kit for each teacher to assemble. Goldstein receives funding from the National Science Foundation for the materials, but he covers his own travel costs – and he’ll travel to any elementary school in the state where at least 75% of the students receive free or reduced-cost lunch.

He also hosts a bigger workshop for about 40 teachers in the annual North Carolina Technology in Education Society convention in Raleigh.

The NCTIES convention is where Sawyer first connected with Goldstein, before inviting him to Bradley Creek in Wilmington for a workshop in 2021. The 15 microscopes Sawyer and her colleagues built in that workshop live in the school library, for teachers and students to check out. And like many of the schools Goldstein visits, they’re the only microscopes at Bradley Creek.

Though not as powerful as conventional microscopes, the DIY microscopes are powerful enough to show cells on flower petals or scales on butterfly wings. Better yet, because the microscopes utilize cell phone and tablet screens, multiple children can view specimens at the same time, creating a more social experience.

“That collaboration and conversation among students – that discourse that comes from this – you can’t beat that, right?” Sawyer said. “I mean, that’s what we want. That’s what we aim for every day in the classroom, whenever possible. And this microscope allows that to happen.”

If you plunge into the warm, blue waters of the Caribbean today, what you’ll see in most regions is actually quite bleak. Where there were once vibrant coral reefs teeming with sharks, groupers, and lobsters, there are now piles of rubble, carpets of green seaweed, and only the meager remains of a once colorful sea of coral.

Over the last 50 years, more than half of all hard corals — colonies of tiny animals called polyps that grow skeletons and build coral reefs — have disappeared in the Caribbean. The picture is even grimmer nearby in the Florida Keys, where coral has declined by 90 percent. As corals die, seaweed often takes over, which can make it hard for the reef to recover…

The small island of Bonaire, however, tells a different story.

East of Curaçao in the south Caribbean, Bonaire is a volcanic island just half the size of Chicago. And within its waters is a bustling marine metropolis. A large reef circles the island with towering, centuries-old corals, where countless creatures reside, from seahorses and sea turtles to hammerhead sharks and rays.

“Bonaire is what a well-functioning, healthy reef should be,” said Sophie McCoy, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, who researches mats of algae-like bacteria that colonize these ecosystems. “We’ve been studying Bonaire in my lab as an example of how a reef should be functioning.”

…But there’s another potentially critical reason why coral in Bonaire is so abundant: half a century of fishing restrictions. The island banned spearfishing in 1971 and soon after established one of the world’s first marine parks. The park, or marine protected area (MPA), encircles the entire island and prohibits certain kinds of fishing, anchoring, and other activities that can damage coral. Unlike most MPAs in the Caribbean, which fail to limit commercial activities, this park has successfully restrained fishing…

The virtue of MPAs as a coral conservation strategy is surprisingly controversial. What’s clear is that even the strongest protections, whether they prevent fishing, pollution, or any other local impacts, won’t do much for reefs during an extreme heat wave or storm. Such threats don’t care about park boundaries. That’s why some scientists have railed against MPAs as a coral-saving strategy.

“They can’t keep temperatures out,” John Bruno, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, told me. “They can’t keep climate out.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

If you’ve ever taken a trip to a higher elevation, you know that the air gets thinner as you go up. If you’re not acclimated to the altitude, it can feel harder to breathe. That thinner air also makes it more difficult for birds and airplanes to fly, because it’s harder to produce the lift forces in thinner air. But it turns out that turkey vultures have a way of dealing with that problem.

Researchers observed turkey vultures in flight at different altitudes and found that rather than flapping harder or more rapidly to deal with decreased lift, the turkey vulture exploits the lower drag in thinner air to fly faster, using increased speed to help balance the lift equation. Dr. Jonathan Rader, a postdoctoral research associate in biology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and an author of a report on this research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, joins SciFri’s Charles Bergquist to explain how flying things work to adapt to different flight conditions.

LISTEN

“…That individual fish have a harder time swimming against eddies “is not exactly shocking,” said Ty Hedrick, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who was not involved in the work. “After all, getting knocked around by turbulence in the water is probably going to require some extra energy.”

What was surprising, he said, was that the turbulence didn’t affect the fish in a school at all, a result that suggested the formation was somehow changing the water’s flow. But, at least for now, this finding holds only for giant danio swimming in strictly controlled lab conditions. “This is great,” Dr. Hedrick said, adding, “It’s a start, not a finish.”

READ FULL ARTICLE