Spotlights Blog Posts

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…”

Since the early 1960s, Spider-Man has had some technical upgrades — think the Iron Spider featured in the Tom Holland movies — but scientifically speaking, how does Spider-Man’s biology chalk up to spiders?

As the world population has grown to 7.7 billion people, and is increasing every day, there are several challenges our global society faces. At our current rate of consumption, we will run out of numerous natural resources. Overpopulation is a problem for the world at large, not just because our quality of life could be affected by running out of resources such as fossil fuels, but due to the lack of the very basic necessities needed for survival.

I am so excited to be back tabling at Farmer’s Markets, and what better place to do that than Davis! Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and participated. We met some really awesome community members who had questions and great conversation topics for us. Hopefully we will see you all again, and some new faces, too, in October with the Bohart Museum of Entomology for Halloween Creepy Crawlies! ~ Mary

Reposted with permission from Mary Madera. This was originally posted to the Plantae Student Space Network for the Graduate Perspectives Collection. See original post here.

Reposted with permission from Mary Madera. This was originally posted to the Plantae Student Space Network for the Graduate Perspectives Collection. See original post here.

Reposted with permission from Mary Madera. This was originally posted to the Plantae Student Space Network for the Graduate Perspectives Collection. See original posts here.

Struggling to make the importance of your science known to a broad audience? Annoyed with the way science is often portrayed in the media or misapplied in public policy? You’re not alone, as the community gathered at Science Talk ‘19 made clear.

The singer, arms outstretched, hit the crescendo to the cheers and applause of the audience. No, this wasn’t the latest performance of Hamilton. It was the opening act of Social Media Marketing World, a 3-day conference for social media marketers and influencers.

Reports from China regarding Dr. He Jiankui’s human embryo edits using CRISPR-Cas9 have continued to catch the eye of the popular media months after the initial report. Some articles dig into whether Dr. He’s work was ethical, while others suggest that his intention was to improve their intelligence rather than making them genetically immune to HIV. I spoke with Dr.

The most recent government shutdown lasted an unprecedented 35 days from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019. While this shutdown affected many aspects of the day-to-day lives of those employed in the furloughed agencies, we wanted to know how it impacted those in scientific research.

Want to do something different with your weekend? What about spending a day in a place full of scientists, learning about how things work and doing fun hands-on experiments, for free? That's what the annual North Bay Science Discovery Day is all about! This event has reached over 10,000 science-loving attendees to promote the pursuit of STEM careers every year since 2011.

The annual Molecular & Cellular Biology Training Program retreat, hosted at the beautiful Stanford Sierra Camp on Fallen Leaf Lake, featured an inspiring keynote address, short talks from past and present trainees, and a data blitz for professors to advertise their lab to first-year graduate students.