Todd Vision coauthored a letter that appeared last week in the online biomedical magazine STAT, written together with a number of other leaders in open and reproducible science, in opposition to the EPA’s proposed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule. They argue that the proposed rule “won’t do what it alleges to do: increase transparency or improve the health and safety of people or the environment.” Read more >>

A team led by Peifer lab postdoc Teresa Bonello has a new paper in Development entitled:  “Scribble and Discs-large direct initial assembly and positioning of adherens junctions during the establishment of apical-basal polarity”.  The team included former Peifer lab postdoc Wangsun Choi. The paper examines the mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity in epithelial tissues and was also honored with the cover of the issue. Dr. Bonello is now a senior scientist in the Thompson lab at EMBL Australia. Read more >>

The “My Life as a Plant” coloring book that teaches pre-readers complex topics in plant biology was created in 2013 by UNC Biology and Arts majors. This book has been translated into 24 languages including recently the African language Bemba and Latin. These educational books are used all around the world by children and by college students learning second languages. Read more >>

Congratulations to Karin Pfennig, who is among the 443 scientists selected this year as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Karin was honored for her research on the role of behavior in adaptation and biodiversity, particularly on the importance of understanding the role of hybridization under changing climatic regimes. Karin will receive an official certificate and a blue and gold rosette pin at a ceremony on Feb. 15 during the 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. READ MORE >>

David and Karin Pfennig’s research on spadefoot toads was recently featured in an excellent video made for the National Science Foundation. The Pfennigs and their research teams study spadefoot toads to better understand the role plasticity plays in adaptive evolution. Watch the video >>

Congratulations to Jeff (Jiyue) Wang (right), a postdoctoral associate in Gregory Copenhaver’s (left) lab, for publishing a new paper in Plant Physiology that extends their earlier work on meiotic small RNAs from the model plant Arabidopsis into the crop species soybean and cucumber. This line of research in the Copenhaver lab, lead by Jeff, is revealing exciting and novel roles for small RNAs during plant reproduction. Read more about the work here >>

Congratulations to Ann G. Matthysse and her lab undergraduates Stephanie Mathews, Camille Martin, Haylea Hannah, Eleanor Rodriguez-Rassi, and Hillary Samagaio for their paper that was published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The paper is titled “Glycoside Hydrolase Genes are Required for Virulence of Agrobacterium tumefaciens on Bryophyllum deigremontiana and Tomaro.”  Read more >>

Congratulations to Frank Conlon (left) and his former student Lauren Waldren-Wasson (right) for their publication with William Pu (Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard University) in Nature Communications: “A reference map of murine cardiac transcription factor chromatin occupancy identifies dynamic and conserved enhancers”. Read more >>

Congratulations to Zhenyu Hao (a postdoc in Darrel Stafford’s Lab), whose paper titled “Vitamin K-dependent carboxylation of coagulation factors: insights from a cell-based functional study” was recently published in Haematologica. In this paper, he studied how vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors are properly modified in a cellular environment and how the naturally occurring mutations in coagulation factors affect this process. Read more >>

Congratulations to Dr. Gregory P. Copenhaver, who has been elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. Founded in 1788, the society is the oldest biological society in the world, and it was at a meeting of the society in 1858 that Darwin first formally presented his theory of evolution by natural selection. Today, the society is engaged in promoting scientific communication and outreach. You can read more about the society here >>