Alison Campbell • Nov 24, 2010 •
When I set essays for my first-year students to write during the semester, I try to give them a scientific paper on each topic to start them off. This means that I need to do some extra bedtime reading as... Read More
Alison Campbell • Aug 31, 2010 •
A while ago now I discussed how some plants are able to warn others when they're under attack by grazing animals. Now it seems that these responses and interactions are even more subtle - a new paper describes how signalling... Read More
Alison Campbell • Aug 26, 2010 •
Your immune system is a wonderful, complex, multipartite mechanism that usually allows you to fight off the attentions of the various pathogenic organisms (bacterial, fungal, and viral) that you'll meet during your life. I say 'usually' because it's not always... Read More
Alison Campbell • Aug 17, 2010 •
This is a new story & potentially a very exciting one (& I must thank Grant for drawing this story to my attention!). A Nature News item (Petherick, 2010) describes the discovery of green algae apparently living within the cells... Read More
Alison Campbell • Jul 29, 2010 •
In one of our first-year biology labs the students spend a bit of time looking down the microscope at various algae & protozoa. Some of their samples come from a container of interestingly weedy water from my fishpond. Not only is... Read More
Alison Campbell • May 20, 2010 •
The tutor running our first-year labs does a wonderful job of seeking out quirky little video clips that she can use to illustrate a particular point & pique her students' interest. But I think I might have beaten her to this... Read More
Alison Campbell • May 05, 2010 •
Personal & societal attitudes to death shape the way we view the inevitable ending of our lives. And experiencing the deaths of others, particularly those close to us, can affect us greatly. But at a much deeper, cellular level, death... Read More
Alison Campbell • Apr 03, 2010 •
One of our first-year bio labs sees our students using potometers to determine how transpiration is affected by things like light, humidity, & wind movement. Those of my readers who are school students may well have done something similar, but... Read More
Alison Campbell • Dec 22, 2009 •
Plant roots don't just grow down under the soil surface. A few posts back I wrote about the aerial roots of strangler figs: beginning as thin hair-like structures, they thicken into strong cables & eventually their interlaced networks engult the... Read More
Alison Campbell • Dec 13, 2009 •
One of several highlights of our holiday was a guided tour of part of the Daintree National Park. There was so much to see! But we'd probably have walked straight past some wonderful plants & animals if it wasn't for... Read More