Escaping the Bench is a blog by previous Science Says leader Jenna E Gallegos. Jenna is currently conducting postdoctoral research at Colorado State University. She posts about effective science communication in addition to science-based commentary on trending topics in the media. Links to posts we love can be found here. For more content, you can follow Jenna on Twitter.
Okay, so what the heck are "omics"?
If there's a molecule, there's an "omics." Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are a few examples, but what ARE they?
Plants have memories (sort of)
Plants can remember events such as weather changes to learn to respond to these events more quickly. How do they do this? They can reorganize their DNA to turn genes "on" or "off," store RNA for rapid responses, and use proteins similar to the ones that cause mad cow disease.
What is a GMO?
The phrase "we've been genetically modifying organisms for centuries" is arguably true, but not every piece of produce at your grocery store is labeled as a GMO. There are many techniques for improving crops, some genetic and some not. So perhaps the focus on defining a GMO should be about the risk of a modified crop instead of how it was created.