Pandorina(?) in The Atlantic

In The Atlantic, not in the Atlantic. A new article in The Atlantic is making the rounds on social media, “Scientists Brace for a Lost Generation in American Research.” The article speculates on the likely long-term effects of President Trump’s proposed ~20% cut to the NIH budget. Which is fine, because what has the NIH ever done for us? Okay, there was the whole genetic code thing, plus

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African Volvox in Montana

Ninepipe Reservoir

Ninepipe Reservoir near Charlo, MT. Photo by Aeravi.

Last summer, I hosted Drs. Hisayoshi Nozaki, Noriko Ueki, Osami Misumi, and two graduate students from the University of Tokyo, Kayoko Yamamoto and Shota Yamashita, to collect volvocine algae from Montana lakes. To our surprise, we found a species of Volvox (V. capensis) that had previously only ever been found in South Africa! Dr. Nozaki’s team identified the algae collected in Ninepipe Reservoir based on their morphology and DNA sequencing. South Africa and Montana: this is about as disjunct as a distribution can be. Is Volvox capensis a master of long-distance dispersal? Is its distribution actually cosmopolitan, and if so, why hasn’t it ever been found anywhere else?

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The most important time in your life

The New York Times has picked up a recent article in Physical Review Letters by Stephanie Höhn and colleagues (Höhn, S., Honerkamp-Smith, A.R., Haas, P. a., Trong, P.K. and Goldstein, R.E. 2015. Dynamics of a Volvox embryo turning itself inside out. Phys. Rev. Lett., 114: 1–5. doi 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.178101).

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