So Here's the Interesting Part...

Mistletoe-a parasite?! The beautiful holiday spirit of romantic kisses-a parasite?! I couldn't believe it when my wife Julie pointed out an ugly tangle in a treetop. I'd assumed it was a crow's nest. Somehow, my mental model (completely based on a total lack of real information), was of a robust, yet beautiful climbing ivy full of European romance and charm. Of course, Julie is right. So I thought I'd like to know more about it and plant parasitism, in general. What we think of as mistletoe from myth and fable, is European Mistletoe or Viscum album . In fact the "Golden Bough" of Greek Myth was probably Viscum. It is a member of the Santalales order and specifically the family Loranthaceae . Originally, all mistletoes were contained in the family Loranthaceae , but they have now been expanded into three additional families in the same order ( Misodendraceae, Eremolepidaceae, Santalaceae ). The largest family of mistletoe, Loranthaceae ¸ contains over 900 spec

Most people know, at least in broad brush strokes, HOW? autumn leaves turn out to be so colorful. I was wondering WHY? and Why so many colors? Just to clear up the HOW? part... At the most general level, when the weather turns colder, deciduous (leafy) trees stop making green pigment and the remaining underlying colors are revealed. More specifically, as the in the late summer, the veins in leafy trees start to constrict and the production of the compound responsible for photosynthesis, chlorophyll, is down regulated through the reduction of a single protein FtsH6. As the chlorophyll synthesis is reduced, the remaining chlorophyll is converted to a colorless set of compounds called NCCs (nonfluorescent chlorophyll catabolites) As the chlorophyll ebbs, three specific pigments are revealed: Carotonids are the yellow and orange colors in leaves. They are present all year long and concentrated in structures called plastids. Note that this is a class of compounds and lots of the yellow co

The other day, I had a "vigorous" discussion with a hard core physical scientist friend of mine about my general assertion that we "create our own reality". He suggested that there was something fundamentally inconsistent about this view and my role as a research scientist. It got me thinking about what I really meant. What about the physical world? I accept (and generally rely upon) the fact that gravity exists independent of me. The chemical structure of a the minerals in the pebble sitting on the ground in front of me is known (not by me, but someone probably knows). A complex process like evolution occurs over times scales that make my lifetime, and therefore my perceptions and experiences, insignficant. All of these observations are "facts" that a large number of people (if not everyone) agree upon. Starting with a minimal set of real things, most people would agree that if something can be measured, its real. (Note that this doesn't imply the rev