For the Plant Freaks - Courses and Profs

Hyun-joo asked what courses I've enjoyed - so here we go! I'm addling a little information on professors as well.

PMB C107 & C 107L: Plant Morphology. This is my favorite course in the major. It teaches you the ins and outs of vascular plants. Be prepared to do a lot of quick drawing in the labs. You're trained to have a critical eye when viewing plant structures. You also learn the general layout of plant lineages. In the lab, we get to look at microscope slides of plant anatomy, living plant samples, and even fossils! Be warned - those upper-division students that came in without a decent understanding of plant descriptive terminology are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material covered in this course. In the Genetics & Plant Biology major, the majority of students have a good background in plant biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics. Take at least one non-biochemistry or non-molecular biology plant course before this one. Meeting with study groups and bringing your questions to the graduate student instructor during office hours are essential to success, no matter your background.

The professor, Dr. Chelsea Specht:

She is perky, incredibly knowledgeable and ready to share what she knows, so don't miss out on a class from her. Sometimes she speaks very fast in lecture! Never miss a lecture, always read background material before coming to class. Otherwise, you risk getting lost in the fast pace.

It's probably a good idea to take some of these before PMB C107:

IB168: Plant Systematics. This course gives you a general understanding of plant families, and just gets you comfortable looking at plants. For the lab, you'll need to learn the main characters of most plant families. For the quizzes, you'll need to look at a plant and know its family. Bring your camera, sketchbook, and colored pencils to lab. Don't think you know how to draw? If you choose to sketch the plants in this course (rather than just taking photos), you'll get the hang of it by the end of the semester, and you'll be better prepared for PMB C107L. You'll enjoy the small class size, individual attention in lab, and the enthusiastic students. Get to know people and form study groups before exams - it helps to exchange notes.

The professor, Dr. Bruce Baldwin:

He's the Curator of the Jepson Herbarium. You want to get to know this man. Find any excuse you can to take a course by him. He is soft-spoken, and incredibly kind. He likes to bring up silly facts and stories about the plants, to make his students laugh. Don't miss a lecture, it all shows up on his multiple-choice exams.

IB 102 & IB 102L: Introduction to California Plant Life. Who wants to leave California without knowing its flora? Here's an excellent course where you'll run into plant-minded people with interests in forestry, ethnobotany, range science, and so forth. These are folks that you won't run into in your other major courses, but you'll have a lot of fun with them on the field trips and in the labs. You're introduced to the plants of California by their habitat, as well as by family. Watch out! There's a lot of plants to know for this course. It focuses on sight-identification of plants by family, genus, and species. You'll learn a little morphology in this course, since you'll need it to navigate the Jepson Manual, the key to California plants.

The professor, Dr. Dean Kelch:

Dean knows his field well. A great speaker, and definitely a big part of what makes this course fun. Watch out when he writes on the board - he doesn't have the best hand-writing. The key to enjoying his course - ask questions!

PMB C102 & C102L: Diversity of Plants and Fungi. I have not taken it, but several of my friends have enjoyed this elective. Here's the course description: "An integrated treatment of the biology and evolution of the major groups in the plant, algal, and fungal kingdoms." My friends say the instructors have a great sense of humor, and make these plants come alive. It's the only introduction you'll get to marine "plants." I haven't had a semester where I could take the course, but a friend gave me their textbook: Diversity of Plants and Fungi by Rudolf Schmid. It's an excellent resource for getting your mind around an upper-division understanding of plants.

Other Great Major Courses:
(These happen to be required.)

PMB 135 & PMB 135L: Physiology and Biochemistry of Plants. Here's a course that threw me for a loop. Make sure that you take all of Organic Chemistry before embarking on this adventure. I didn't, and boy was it a rush. Other students seemed to have an easier time of it than I did. Here's where you learn C3, C4 and CAM photosynthesis in detail, including the nitty-gritty of how chloroplasts capture energy. Also covers nutrient deficiencies, a bit on soil and water potential, just how turgor pressure works, and, well... all of the math and chemistry that you'll need to understand when it comes to plants. Watch out for the chalk dust - there's a lot of learning, and neither professor uses power point. This course also has frequent quizzes. Don't miss lectures, they're the most important part.

The Professors,

Dr. Anastasios Melis:

When speaking with other students in Genetics & Plant Biology, his name is the most common when you ask about a favorite professor. A Greek accent, incredible smile, and detailed organization are the most notable aspects of this professor. He outlines his lectures well, and brings even the most challenging concepts to a level that we all can understand. He doesn't like textbooks, so take good notes in class - it's all you have to work off of!

Dr. Norman Terry:

You can see a more current image of him if you watch the first 30 seconds of my "day in the life" video from last semester. Dreamy English accent aside, Dr. Terry is older but he's quick. Organized, and thankfully he works with the course website to give us all of the important notes from his lectures. Sit back and take it all in when he teaches. There's some difficult concepts to master, but he makes it all clear- what you need to know and what you don't.

PMB 150 & 150L: Cellular and Developmental Plant Biology. Interested in cell signaling, or genes that control specific functions? Those are two main topics that this course covers. A couple of my friends tell me that this course is much easier if you have already taken PMB 160 and 160L. Be prepared to write a scientific paper, and be sure to come to class for frequent quizzes. Neither professor believes much in textbooks. Be sure to take good notes, and go through their lectures online before attending each course. They won't stop to explain terminology if you've had a chance to look it up.

The Professors,

Dr. Sheng Luan:

His lecture slides are filled with the information he wants you to know, while his gentle voice fills your ears with analogies and stories to help you remember the challenging concepts. His office hours are worthwhile, and his eyes light up when answering questions. You'll find he offers great advice on graduate schools and other pertinent life topics, as well as the course subject material.

Dr. Renee Sung:
Another professor whose lecture slides accurately depict what she expects us to know for quizzes and exams. She's great at gearing the information she presents to the students she has in her class. If you don't have the proper background to understand a concept she presents, be sure to visit her during office hours to ask for clarification. She also responds quickly to e-mails. A straightforward lecturer, though some may have a difficult time with her Taiwanese accent.

Geeks Hit the Military

All of us have friends or family who have spent some time in Iraq, or maybe are there right now. Some of them might even be geeks. Well, here's an awesome event that any military geek wouldn't want to miss.

The website: http://www.gamegrene.com/node/790

Ziggurat Con - The World's First War Zone Game Convention?
Category: News
By aeon | Thu, 2007-04-05 02:12

Which Con are you going to this year? GenCon? Origins? Dundracon? How about Ziggurat Con? The latter is brand new this year, and is being held at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase on June 9. In Iraq.

When President Bush ordered troops to Iraq, he probably never imagined that he would be ultimately be responsible for what very well could be the very first D&D convention/game day ever held in a war zone. Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, is open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq.

"Here in Iraq, we do many things on the different Forward Operating Bases to help keep our spirits up," said SPC David Amberson, the Con's organizer. "Here at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, we have lots of sports activities -- baseball, football, dodgeball, kickball -- and we work with many marathons across the US like the Boston Marathon. This is a great way to improve morale among the troops, but what about those who prefer Role-Playing Games?"

The Con's historical landmark "mascot" -- the Ziggurat that gives the Con its name -- can be found on the post, and hails from the ancient city of Ur. Nearby is the house where it is believed that Abraham (a large figure in the Bible, the Koran and the Torah) was born. Cool digs for a Con -- if not for the fact that there's a war going on. Amberson, however, emphasized the need for soldiers to relax and kick back with enjoyable activities from time to time.

"There is a deeper sense of camaraderie in a war zone than you see back home," said Amberson, who is a supply soldier with Alpha Company, 86th Signal Battalion. "You eat with these people, work with them on a daily basis, and can even share a tent with the same people. When work is over for the day, we can sit back, relax, drink our favorite sodas, eat our favorite snacks, and play a bit of D&D. This helps us relax in a very stressful environment. We found a place where we can go somewhere far away from the IED's, mortar attacks, and gunfire, without ever leaving the safety of our camp. The next step was only logical."

Miss Joy Brown, an employee with KBR who works with MWR (the army’s Morale Welfare & Recreation Department) has graciously allowed service members to use part of the Community Activity Center to hold the Game Day. The Ping Pong room will be set up for RPGs (Role-Playing Games, not to be confused with the rocket propelled grenades which share the same acronym), and the DVD Movie room will be playing Anime Movies all day in support of the event.

"Miss Brown has expressed her support of the soldiers who are planning this event, and who keep her in the loop," said Amberson. "In many events, MWR does the running around, trying to get supplies and support; however, in this case, it is the service members themselves who are contacting the publishers and manufacturers. This makes it a real event for the service members, by the service members."

The largest problem with running a Con in Iraq, of course, is that there are no local stores or game publishers, and few game books on the post. Even dice are in short supply, with many soldiers breaking the unwritten taboo held by many gamers and (gasp!) sharing dice. Thankfully, many game publishers have also lent their support, and have agreed to supply game products to help the Con along. aethereal FORGE, Sovereign Press, Final Redoubt Press, Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Steve Jackson Games are among those that have thrown in their support for the convention. But Amberson indicated that the soldiers could definitely use more.

"This convention is currently in drastic need of prizes and giveaways for the troops," he said. "Everything donated will go directly to the troops, or to MWR to use as loaner books for the soldiers."

For more information, contact SPC David Amberson at the following address: david.amberson (at) iraq.centcom.mil

Donations can also be sent to SPC Amberson directly at the following address:

SPC David Amberson
A Co 86th Sig Bn
APO, AE 09331

"We thank you all back home for supporting us, and we promise that we will try to come back home safe and sound," said Amberson.

Con organizers pictured above:

Standing: SPC Jerrel Barber, Mr. Jeff (JB) Brown, SPC Christopher Watkins, PFC Samuel Dennison, SGT Gary Decker, SPC Kathleen Hirsche
Seated: SPC David Dennison, SPC Konrad Schlarbaum, DPC David Amberson
Others not pictured: SPC Matthew Joslyn, PFC John Gilbert, Mr. Raymond Knapp, CPT Andrew Heymann, Miss Joy Brown

Good News! Research Abroad!

Today I got this e-mail:

Dear Moorea Applicant:
If you received this message, you are one of the 22 students selected
for the Fall 2007 course. Congratulations, this was a very
competitive process. We will hold an organizational meeting within
the next two weeks and I will let you know the day and time.

So... I applied to this program. We go here for a semester.

It's study abroad on steroids. More pretty photos:

You go to an island in French Polynesia. You learn stuff. You plan a research project. You carry it out. You have a full labs to your disposal. You get to know the 21 other students that are there with you. You practice French. You make a poster and present a paper back at Berkeley campus when you return. It's awesome. And somehow they decided to let me go!

Photos are taken from these websites:
http://p.vtourist.com/2062063-Moorea-Moorea.jpg
http://www.polinesia.com/foto/moorea.jpg
http://www.wayfaring.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/moorea.jpg

Green, Life-giving and Forever Young

What a great article from the New York Times! I just had to post it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/science/17angi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By Natalie Angier
Published April 17, 2007

Show somebody a painting of a verdant, botanically explicit forest with three elk grazing in the middle and ask what the picture is about, and the average viewer will answer, “Three elk grazing.” Add a blue jay to the scene and the response becomes, “Three elk grazing under the watchful eye of a blue jay.”
What you’re unlikely to hear is anything akin to, “It’s a classic temperate mix of maple, birch and beech trees, and here’s a spectacular basswood and, whoa, an American elm that shows no sign of fungal infestation and, oh yeah, three elk and a blue jay.”
According to Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, many of us suffer from an insidious condition called “plant blindness.” We barely notice plants, can rarely identify them and find them incomparably inert. Do you think that you will ever see a coma as vegetative as a tree? “Animals are much more vivid to the average person than plants are,” Dr. Raven said, “and some people aren’t even sure that plants are alive.”
But the antidote to plant apathy is at hand. As an unusually cool, sodden April edges toward May and spring’s cheeky blooms can be bridled no longer, botanists urge everyone to venture outside and check out the world through nature’s rose-colored glasses — and the daffodil, cherry blossom, dogwood and lupine ones, too. If this view doesn’t move you, you’re pushing up daisies.
As it happens, plants are not only alive in their own right. They are also the basis of virtually all life on earth, including ours. The core feature of planthood is autotrophy, that is, the happy ability to make one’s own food. Plants essentially eat the sun, transforming solar energy into sugars and starch through the stepwise enzymatic stitchery of photosynthesis. Animals, by contrast, are heterotrophs, defined by their need to devour other organisms — the hard-won fruit and fiber of the suneaters, or the once-removed flesh of herbivores.
Moreover, because plants release oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis, plants also give us aerobes leave to breathe. Our atmosphere is currently about 20 percent oxygen, all of it the bounty of the planet’s green-skinned autotrophs. “The most important chemical reaction on earth is photosynthesis,” said Robert DeFeo, chief horticulturist for the National Park Service. “We are all parasites upon it.”
Essential though plants may be to our survival, Dr. Raven emphasizes that they are a radically different form of organism than are animals. Plants and animals have evolved along separate paths for hundreds of millions of years, ever since single cells began pooling their talents into multicelled beings. “Plants have evolved their multicellularity completely separately from animals, and any direct comparisons between the groups are wrong,” Dr. Raven said. “It’s as if plants evolved on Mars, and animals here.”
In addition to their caloric self-sufficiency, plants can be envied for their eternal youthfulness. A plant elongates itself through constant cell growth in two zones of its body, at the very tips of the roots, which grow down into soil or other surface to which the plant clings, and the outer tips of the shoots, from which new leaves, flowers and fruits sprout. Whereas an animal, upon reaching maturity, has almost no young cells left in its body, Dr. Raven said, “in plants the ends of the roots and shoots are always juvenile, always growing, always babies.”
A plant is also always drinking, slurping water and nutrients the only way it can, through its roots. Everything needs water to survive, but another radical difference between the faunal and floral crafts is that while we can drink water and keep it circulating through the body via the bloodstream, water moves through a plant’s body in a continuous stream, entering through the roots, crawling up the stem and evaporating out through little openings, or stomata, in the leaves. In fact, the upward tug of evaporation is what pulls more water up from the soil, as the clingy water droplets follow each other skyward through the hollow capillaries of the plant’s stem and leaves, shinnying as high as 300 or 400 feet above ground in the case of the giant redwoods.
No, there’s no rest for the weary, especially if you’re immobile. Beyond feeding style, perhaps the biggest discrepancy between animals and plants is that animals can move, but plants are of necessity stuck in place. Unable to defend themselves by running away, plants have instead become crackerjack chemists, evolving a vast armamentarium of insect repellents, fungicides, microbicides, ultraviolet blockers and other defensive compounds that human chemists have just begun to tally.
Rootedness also complicates a plant’s love life, which brings us back to the blooming bounty of spring. Plants, like everybody else, want to spread their seed around and diversify their genetic stock through sexual reproduction, but it’s hard to meet fresh faces when you don’t have legs. A number of plant species like pine trees, oaks, cottonwoods and grasses rely on wind to blow their pollen around, with the hope that some of the male sperm contained therein will land on receptive female parts of their far-flung kind. Or if not the same kind, at least something in the same general group: the boundaries between plant species are far more porous than they are in animals, and different species and even genera of plants cross-hybridize with each other surprisingly often.
Nevertheless, wind sex is highly iffy and inefficient, and many species of modern plants, the angiosperms, instead manipulate members of the animal kingdom to serve as yentas in a more discriminating style. The plants offer up brilliant blossoms to entice a specific pollinating insect or bird, which gets drunk on the blossom’s nectar and wants more and so seeks out other blossoms of similar shape, color or scent. And as the bee or hummingbird flits from one favored flower to the next, it incidentally delivers pollen pockets to just the right spots. “We say, isn’t that beautiful, but the precise forms and shapes of flowers are adaptations to attract individual pollinators,” Dr. Raven said. When we eat, we are parasites on the foundational labor of plants; and when we “say it with flowers,” we are plagiarists, too.

American Public Gardens

http://www.aabga.org/

Ever wonder what links all of the great public gardens across the United States? You think - surely they're related somehow. Well, now you get to learn. APGA - the American Public Gardens Association is what brings them all together.

You're sitting in Berkeley, trying to plan your trip to Santa Barbara. You've just taken a lot of plant courses, so you think it'd be fun to impress your friends and family by taking them to a garden where you can point out what's what. Well, here we go, you can find gardens anywhere you'd like to go with their search page:
http://www.aabga.org/Custom/GardenSearch.aspx

It even works if you know a garden's name but can't remember where to find it. For instance "I want to visit the Huntington Botanical Garden! I keep hearing about how great it is. But is it even in California?" Well, yes, indeed it is. In fact, it's in San Marino, CA. That search page brought you right to its address and main phone number. How handy!

Maybe you're looking for research materials. You'd like a little something from its natural habitat in Idaho. You're not sure who to contact or where to go for your specimen. Don't worry! Just turn to the advanced search and you'll find everything that you need to get started.

Such a great resource!

What's the Difference between these 4 trees?

Since I've had a bit of a frustration working out the details separating these trees in my mind, I figure it'd be fun to write a blog about their differences and similarities!

Just what's the difference between Elm, Alder, Hazel, and Birch?

Photos*: (References at the end of the entry!)


Overall Habit of each tree:

Elm: Ulmus


Alder: Alnus


Hazel: Corylus


Birch: Betula



Leaves:

Elm: Ulmus


Alder: Alnus


Hazel: Corylus


Birch: Betula



Male & Female Parts:

Elm: Ulmus


Alder: Alnus


Hazel: Corylus



Birch: Betula



* None of these images are my own. Images were taken from these websites, in order:

http://www.first-nature.com/trees/images/ulmus_glabra3.jpg
http://www.winona.edu/publications/treebook/images/Alder-1820.jpg
http://www.kurowski.pl/foto/corylus_avellana_aurea.jpg
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/trees-new/images/betula/betula_nigra-duraheat3.jpg
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/images/130/Trees_and_Shrubs/10_common_Genera/Ulmus/Ulmus_americana_dt_MC_.low.jpg
http://www.british-trees.com/guide/images/alder_leaf_scan.jpg
http://www.discoverlife.org/IM/I_JP/0010/320/Corylus_americana_leaves_upper,I_JP1036.jpg
http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/images/betulaceae/betula-pubescens-1.jpg
http://cloudbridge.org/trees/ulmus-mexicana-leaves-1.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Tagalder8139.jpg
http://www.nps.gov/plants/pubs/chesapeake/img/Shrubs/Corylus-americana-2-inset-U.jpg
http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/images/corylaceae/corylus-avellana-2.jpg
http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus2/picts/betula_nana_fruit.jpg
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/tfplab/betula.jpg

Fertilizer Goin' Wild!

With fog, comes fertilizer? What a great artilce, from California Magazine's current edition.

California Magazine

Praxis
Feeding the forest
by Erik Vance
Researchers find fog brings more than just moisture—it brings fertilizer, too.

feeding the forest
Cay-Uwe Kulzer

It's morning in big basin State Park, Santa Cruz County, about an hour after sunrise. Ten miles away, on the Pacific Coast Highway, drivers alternate high beams and low beams, trying to see more than 20 feet ahead of them in the thick fog. Deep in the redwood forest, it's dark, silent and damp. One quiet hiker listens to the drip of water on leaves.

Today that hiker is Professor Todd Dawson, visiting one of his research plots in the park. Dawson is a botanist with the Integrative Biology Department and he is looking for redwood fertilizer—but as he walks through the forest he's not looking down at the ground, he's looking up.

In the plant world, nitrogen is a rare and precious commodity. The air we breathe is mostly nitrogen, but very few living things can use it. California strawberry growers spend millions to inject nitrogen into coastal soils through artificial fertilizers. Yet giant redwood forests nearby seem to grow on just the bare minimum.
Biologists say it is better to pee on a plant than on bare dirt or rock when you are in the woods. The nitrogen in the urine's ammonia will be quickly absorbed.

"'Where does that nitrogen come from?' then becomes the question," Dawson says. "In this case, we find that a significant amount of it is definitely coming through fog. And that's a new twist in the story."

Dawson and his students discovered that Pacific fog is dripping with usable nitrogen. California fog forms over cold ocean water and is blown onto land. Tiny bacteria on the surface of the ocean capture nitrogen the same way microbes do on a peanut plant, which farmers use to recharge the soil. The bacteria pull out the nitrogen, inject it into the water that becomes fog, and the trees absorb it through their leaves.

"What it means is that the ocean is feeding the forest, so to speak," he says.

A few years ago, Dawson helped show that fog is a crucial source of water to redwood forests. Now, early results show that a third of the nitrogen passing through the coastal system comes from the fog. And it's not just nitrogen. He has found other important nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus in fog as well.

The discovery has wide implications for fog ecosystems around the world, such as the cloud forests of Central America. In ultra-arid places such as Chile's Atacama Desert (where it rains perhaps once in 50 years), most of the nutrients may come from fog.

Dawson says now that he's measured the nitrogen, he wants to know how the forests will be affected when stripped of their fog by global warming.

"What happens if our land use or our climate ends up changing?" he asks. "How will that influence the water and the nitrogen inputs? And then in turn how will that affect the forest?"

Jumping Genes

Here's agreat article from the November 2006 California Magazine. I love transposons - this article brings a crazy spin on the concept.

California Magazine

Praxis
Interspecies love
by Nathanael Johnson

You get your genes from your parents — that principle is the foundation of current evolutionary theory. But what if genes could jump from organism to organism in passing, like a contagious disease? More and more evidence suggests that this sort of thing happens regularly. Most recently, a team of Berkeley scientists has shown that totally different species of plants have exchanged DNA.

When genes jump out of one organism’s genome into another’s, it’s called horizontal transfer — as opposed to vertical gene transfer from parent to child. Mostly this happens among bacteria, but the Berkeley team, led by microbiologist Damon Lisch, has shown that genes moved between millet and rice plants — millions of years after the families of those two species could no longer breed. It’s the first well-documented case of this sort of interspecies hanky-panky: specifically, the movement of outside DNA into the nucleus of a plant’s reproductive cells. How do the genes move? That question makes Lisch’s eyes light up. "We’re talking about a section of DNA here, but it acts more like a parasite," he says. "It would seem like science fiction if it [weren’t] reality."

Gene illustration
Illustration by Carin Cane

Scientists have been tracking these jumping genes — or transposable elements — since the 1950s. They already knew transposons moved around on a single genome, creating variations such as striped kernels in corn. These jumping genes also have been tracked in bacteria. But scientists didn’t realize these genes could leap from one species to another until now.

Humans share 99.4 percent of their DNA with chimpanzees, 85 percent with dogs, and 70 percent with slugs.

Transposons make copies of themselves from one section of the double helix to another, sometimes wreaking havoc on gene function. In other cases, they have conferred useful abilities—such as antibiotic resistance — to their hosts. The implications for evolutionary theory are immense. Instead of each species having to develop adaptations on its own and pass them on through offspring, they can pick up genes—and the traits that go with them—from the organisms around them. That’s how bacteria often develop resistance to multiple antibiotics: They swap their defensive tricks. These findings could revolutionize our understanding of human evolution as well: The mapping of the human genome shows that about half of our genetic code is derived from transposable elements.

Local PIzza

Last night, Tom, Evan, and I walked down to a very popular little place in town - Cheeseboard Pizza. Live improvisational jazz music, and folks that care about the food that they make. It's customary for folks to order their pizza, then picnic on the grass in the median. It's on a main road, in downtown, so you can imagine it's pretty entertaining to watch the traffic as you're munching on your pizza. I hadn't ever been to the Cheeseboard, but I've heard so much about it. It's good pizza, and a slice is only $2.25, but I still like Pie in the Sky better. Why? Pie in the Sky offers bigger slices. Cheeseboard is a cooperative, which means their workers aren't exploited, but they're not having anywhere near as much fun as the workers are down the street at Pie in the Sky. At Pie in the Sky, they'll toss pizza in front of you, and let you watch the whole creation from start to finish, including fun conversation and even sometimes singing - unless you want it quick, in which case they have their half-baked pizzas sitting out for you to pick, then they'll throw it in their huge, impressive oven. It'll come out within a minute or two. Pie in the Sky also has MUCH more selection than Cheeseboard. Since Cheeseboard only makes one type of crazy pizza every day, it's not too difficult to offer more variety - but the variety that Pie in the Sky offers is exotic, fun, and undeniably delicious.

Charter Gala

Have you ever heard of the Charter Gala? I hadn't.

Just two weeks ago, I received this e-mail:

Hi there,

On behalf of the CNR Dean's Office, we would like to invite you to
attend the Charter Banquet as a guest of the Dean on March 24th at
Fort Mason in San Francisco. The dinner begins at 6:30 and there will
be about 20 people in the party for CNR -- donors and friends of the
College, as well as Executive Associate Dean Gilless and CNR Major
Gift Officers Alex Evans and Laura Oftedahl. We always invite a
student or two and would love to have you join us.

If you could let me know as soon as possible if you can attend I
would appreciate it.

Thank you!
Aimee

Aimee Kelley
Events & Awards Coordinator
College of Natural Resources

The first thing that popped through my mind? Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, with the lyrics: "The Prince is giving a ball! The prince is giving a ball! His royal highness Christopher Rupbert..." After that brief community theatre flashback, I went Googling for a little more information on the event. I found this site:
http://alumni.berkeley.edu/CAA_Events/Charter_Gala/2007/awards.asp

It's a huge event that the Alumni Association puts on every year to celebrate the anniversary of the school, and to honor alumni that have made a spectacular impact on the world. 900 proud alumni, sponsors of the school, and representatives from each college come together for a spectacle that includes a gourmet banquet, performances by student groups, dancing, and an open bar. The last event that I attended with folks as well-dressed as at the Gala was...well... I was going to say Prom, but that was so many years ago a girl is bound to see another spectacular event every six years or so... about 3 years ago I went to an 80th birthday party of a dear friend that took place at a castle. Anyhew...

The Charter Gala is an impressive event, and I was honored to attend. Gina Lopez came, too. A Senior in Forestry, Gina is a fun girl to hang out with. We sat at separate tables, but that's all right - mainly it seemed that we were present to help keep folks entertained. Trust me, they didn't need much help! It was such a fun event. The Cal Band came to play, slap dancers from a sorority, and an acapella group called Decadence. What a great time!

Morphology

Today my Plant Morphology lab course took a little trip up to the Botanical Garden. We were given a scavenger hunt of sorts, where we were to find examples of specific mophological traits. Who wouldn't love roaming around a beautiful garden with a bunch of your friends, learning something new at the end of a stressful week?



Jose Arevalo, Reihaneh Fakourfar, April Dobbs, Danielle Johnson

Today was also our midterm for Morphology. In preparing for the exam, I realized something this week. CNR offers something that is difficult to find around campus - a community. Our class size for Morphology is small. 20 people. I know all of them. We all know one another. We meet up for study groups, we ask one another questions. When one of us can attend office hours, we pass along the information that we gleen to those in the study groups. It's different in the College of Natural Resources than the other courses I've attended on campus. It's a cooperative feel. The competition that comes along with hundreds of high-pressure students is on the other side of the campus. We're over here, studying microbes, forestry, genetics, and so on... studying what we love, enjoying what we learn, and making friends that walk with us through our journey. We were in classes together last semester, we're together again this semester. We know how to study together, and we're not afraid to help one another understand the difficult concepts. The more we're able to teach one another, the more we're able to enjoy the subject that we're learning. I love this program.

Here are some more photos of us having fun with morphology today.


Reihaneh


Me with a member of the Cycadales.

Greek Theatre

My buddy Melissa visited from Ventura County this summer to see a Flaming Lips show at the Greek Theatre. Before that, I didn't know that it existed. Turns out they host all sorts of great shows. Here's what it looks like:

The Greek Theatre is 104 years old. It opened September 24, 1903 and has been hosting great performances ever since. Here's a link to a little article that gives a glimpse of its history: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/09/11_greek.shtml

A great, new thing about the Greek Theatre- It's Green! My friend raved about the organic food there, but I had no idea that they went to these efforts to offset the emissions from driving to the event!

Here's an article from Breakthroughs that talks about the Greek Theatre's efforts to go green!
http://nature.berkeley.edu/breakthroughs/break_briefs.php?title=the%20greek%20goes%20green

the greek goes green

Fans of Radiohead, Emmylou Harris, the Flaming Lips and other bands that rocked UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater last summer had more than great music to celebrate: the Greek became the first major concert venue to make a season-long commitment to minimize its footprint on the planet.

The eco-efforts at the Greek—including an organic food cafe, recycling stations, the use of recycled paper for all printed materials, and the use of biodegradable utensils, plates, and cups for artists’ meals—came about through a partnership between Clif Bar, an environmentally conscious energy bar company based in Berkeley, and concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment.

In addition, Clif Bar purchased renewable energy credits from NativeEnergy, a Native American sustainable energy company, to offset the 88 tons of carbon emitted to power the Greek’s 2006 season.

Even audiences had a chance to get in on the act: by purchasing “Cool Tags” at the venue, music fans could offset the emissions they generated driving to and from the events. Every $2 tag offset 300 miles of car travel—making the concerts that much more harmonious.

Check out the newts!

The Newts are going crazy mating in the Botanical Garden. They're all over the lily pond in the Asian section.
Aren't they cute?

Check them out here: http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/program/temp/newt.shtml

Ultimate Plant Search

Looking for photos of plants in a certain county of California? How about every plant legitimately recorded in California, searchable by family, genus, species, county, resource... etc?

Here's the ultimate search page. http://www.calflora.org/occ/ CalFlora searches an incredible array of herbaria, land surveys, Forest Service records, and other literature. Here's another search that they have with photos and distribution maps for each plant name you type in. http://www.calflora.org/

Tilden Bot Garden

Yesterday my California Plant Life visited the Tilden Park Botanical Garden. While we waited for our group, a couple of my classmates decided to climb an Oak. I started climbing with them for little while, but then they started climbing higher and higher... and I chickened out. They're crazy!

Christopher Hobbs took us on a tour of the garden, pointing out plants that we have covered so far in class, and pertinent uses of many natives.

Here's a great little article that talks about the magic of the garden, from Bay Nature: http://www.baynature.com/v07n01/v07n01_botanic.html

Agriculture & Policy

As a former produce buyer for the USCA (University Students Cooperative Association, made up of 17 student-run houses in Berkeley) I've seen what goes into buying all organic from local farms. When purchasing in bulk, the costs are less than traditional commercial sources - and the produce is far fresher - more flavor! I wish that we could convert entirely to organic methods, but while grocery stores continue to sell non-organic produce, and marking up the organic, we're not going to see much change. Maybe the 2007 Farm Bill will encourage smaller, local farms. Maybe it won't. The following article takes a unique perspective on the condition of the current US farming systems, by showing us how Africa is affected by current US policies.

Here's a quote from the following article: "Negotiations will soon begin on the 2007 Farm Bill, the 5-year legislation that governs US food and farm policy. Terry and others will join the efforts of Oxfam America to mobilize people and lobby key members of congress to significantly reduce the subsidies that encourage overproduction and redirect those resources to programs that will help small businesses and non-commodity organic farmers build rural infrastructure and create conservation programs that encourage farmers to better care for the environment."

from http://commongroundmag.com/2007/03/thoughtforfood0703.html

March 2007 | Thought for Food
Is the US Killing African Farmers?
By Katie Danko

Terry Steinhour and his wife Phyllis farm about 650 acres in Springfield, Illinois, the heart of corn-producing country. The Steinhours’ are well-respected in their central Illinois community, and Terry is active with his church and the Illinois Farm Bureau. During the last six months, Terry has also been involved and vocal about reforming US farm policy. “It should address the needs of family farmers, not industrial-sized farms,” he said.

In July of 2006, Terry’s views on US farm policy began to broaden when he went to West Africa with Oxfam America, an international development agency. Terry traveled with four other farmers to Senegal and Mali and met with African farmers and public officials to discuss the impact American farm policies have on the rest of the world. They all delivered the same message: “Do something about your country’s farm subsidies…they’re killing us!”

“We were all stunned by what we experienced,” he said. In one of the numerous newspaper clippings about his trip in the Lincoln Courier is a striking picture of Terry with local residents of a Malian village eating rice and meat with his bare hands from a communal bowl of food.

“I had only been aware of African society from TV or in the news,” Terry said. “The poverty was so extreme and widespread.” The experience was life changing, especially the new knowledge that farm communities around the world are affected by the decisions of U.S. policymakers.

Another stunning fact is that one fifth of the world’s population — over one billion people — live on less than a dollar a day. A great majority of these people live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Because of unfair trade practices, the world’s poorest families find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty.

It’s shocking that the average European cow receives more in government subsidies every day than half the world’s population earns in wages. Propped up by government subsidies, American and European farmers unload cheap goods on the world market at a cost often far below the price of production, leaving farmers in the developing world, not to mention the majority of American family farmers, unable to sell, much less compete.

In 2005, the US spent close to $24 billion on agricultural subsidies, most directed to large-scale corporate-owned farming operations like Monsanto, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).

Terry Steinhour also receives government subsidies. “I don’t like receiving them,” he says, “but yes, I cash the checks.” For Terry and other Midwestern farmers, subsidies are a matter of survival. “I would much rather receive a fair price for what I produce on my farm and eliminate the need for the check from Uncle Sam,” he explained.

Terry said many Central Illinois corn growers only make a small profit or experience a net loss on their farms. “I can’t think of anyone that doesn’t have off-the-farm income to make it by. There’s got to be some sort of safety net for US farmers but the current system makes farmers overproduce, which pushes prices down. I got lucky this year with the ethanol boom but who knows if it will last.”

Before the price of corn increased due to demand for corn-based ethanol, Terry was making a small profit for every acre of corn he grew. Terry is now afraid prices are artificially high and the demand for corn won’t last very long.

“US Farm policy promotes overproduction of the commodity farm, which has effects on the third world and on the American diet, says Michael Pollan, journalist and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “The price of fast food and meat has gone down while the price of fruit and vegetables has gone up. What does that tell us? Current farm policy has little support for local agriculture and local foods.”

On a hot day in the village of Dafara in the West African nation of Mali, an entire community, in a well-prepared presentation, explained to Terry and his travel companions that US farm policy is decreasing their cotton prices. One villager stood up and said, “The only thing we know is to work hard. Is there something you can do with your government so I can get something out of what I do?”

It was hard at first for Terry to relate his plight with that of Seydou Ouedraogo, a cotton farmer from Burkina Faso, who hopes to someday live at the poverty line, instead of far below it. Speaking to him, Terry began to understand the effect subsidized farming has on countries — and people — throughout the world. Like Terry, Seydou provides for his family through his land. Like most farmers in the region, he engages in a mix of subsistence farming for his family and cotton for a cash crop, which he grows on about 10 acres of land. Unlike Terry, Seydou does not receive any subsidies.

Cotton is by far the largest commodity crop in West Africa. After the costs for seed and fertilizer, there is not much left for anything else. Twenty cents per pound of cotton is Seydou’s dream price and last year, he received 17.5 cents per pound. However, projections are much lower this year and Seydou expects to receive only 10 cents per pound. With the US spending up to $4 billion dollars annually to subsidize American cotton farmers to produce more than the market demands, Seydou’s dream price remains a fantasy.

“How do you reach out and help those less fortunate?” Terry asks. “I’m going to continue working with Oxfam to change US farm policy. It’s the only option to help third-world countries.”

Negotiations will soon begin on the 2007 Farm Bill, the five-year legislation that governs US food and farm policy. Terry and others will join the efforts of Oxfam America to mobilize people and lobby key members of Congress to significantly reduce the subsidies that encourage overproduction and redirect those resources to programs that will help small businesses and non-commodity organic farmers, build rural infrastructure and create conservation programs that encourage farmers to better care for the environment.

Terry plans to take his experience on the road. He has pledged to talk to people wherever he can find an audience about the abject plight of the West African farmers and the far-reaching consequences of the US Farm Bill, which many voters may know little about.

“The Farm Bill has been the playground of people in the farm states,” Michael Pollan continued. “But it’s not just a ‘farm bill,’ it’s a food bill.” This legislation encompasses nutrition and food programs across the US and literally determines what Americans eat. Pollan said more people are now interested in changing farm and food policy because of concerns about obesity, diabetes and the situation of poor people, both here and in developing countries. Even the involvement of an international organization such as Oxfam in a food and farm debate is exciting, according to Pollan.

Terry agrees that the 2007 Farm Bill provides great potential for unity. “Groups from different backgrounds including farmers, faith communities and city dwellers are beginning to realize that this touches the lives of many people around the globe and the time has come to promote a better Farm Bill and a better world.”

Katie Danko is the Midwest Field Organizer for Oxfam America and works primarily on Oxfam’s campaign to reform the 2007 Farm Bill. She has a background in grassroots community organizing around a variety of issues including public housing, clean water, clean air and federal farm policy.

One Great Big Plastic Hassle

Hey folks, I was reading this article in the new March edition of Common Ground. Thought plastics would be a great topic of discussion. Anyone in Toxicology able to add more insight on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs)? This is the first I've ever heard of them!
Here's the text of the article:

from http://commongroundmag.com/2007/03/plastichassle.html

One Great Big Plastic Hassle
By Jane Akre

In the seminal 1967 film, The Graduate, baby-faced Dustin Hoffman was told the wave of the future—“Plastics.” The lucrative career tip slipped on the QT to young Benjamin the day of his graduation bore no cautionary message about the veritable Pandora’s Box the petrochemical plastics industry had opened in the post-war era some twenty years before the film’s setting. The overzealous Plastic Man knew the only thing he needed to know: The world would always be hungry for plastic.

That celluloid prediction has proved right on target. Cheap, durable and convenient, plastic has been the country’s chosen miracle-material since World War II. When added to polyvinyl chloride (PVC), the petroleum-based industrial chemicals in plastic—chief among them plasticizers such as phthalates (THAHL-ates)—make our upholstery comfier and our pipes more flexible. To keep up with the world’s affection for all things plasticized, the U.S. produces a billion pounds of phthalates a year.

Today, phthalates are one of the top offenders in a group of 70 suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that we spray in our homes and yards and use in our makeup, nail polish, detergents, flame retardants, plastic bottles, metal food cans and even children’s toys.

When we’re done with these products, we flush them down our sinks or burn them in our incinerators, where their runoff filters into our national waterways. Even if you eschew plasticized products in your personal lives, it’s impossible to avoid contamination; EDCs are in the bodies of every man, woman, child and fetus in the U.S.

A scan of the usual green media suspects turns up a lot of material on this silent phenomenon. Beyond EDCs, public waterways are contaminated with growth hormones and antibiotics from cattle feed, residual hormones from birth control products and other medicines, waste chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These substances can pass intact into the water supply through conventional sewage treatment facilities, dumps and landfills, or wash off into surface water and even percolate into ground water from animal waste fertilizers contaminated with traces of such compounds. And yet the subject remains largely under the public radar.

Pioneer zoologist Theo Colborn began following the chemical trail early on. In her landmark book, Our Stolen Future (Dutton, 1996; Plume 1997 paperback), Colborn reported countless examples of reproductive disorders among wildlife—from sterility in bald eagles to small genitalia in male alligators. After tracing the animals’ disorders to chemical exposure, Colborn suggested that EDCs profoundly affect one of the body’s main communication networks—the endocrine system—by either mimicking natural hormones or blocking their uptake to the body’s receptor sites.

Short-circuiting hormones can disturb everything from human development and behavior to reproduction and immunity. And scientists believe even the tiniest hormone variation at certain critical points in fetal development can have a profound effect on a child’s future health.

Disturbing public health trends are bearing out these grim theories. Maida Galvez, M.D., a New York-based pediatrician, often talks to parents concerned by the accelerated rate of their daughters’ sexual development. “I’ve seen the onset of breast budding as early as the age of six,” Dr. Galvez says, noting that normal breast development begins to occur around ages ten to 11.

To date there has been little research in the area of “precocious puberty,” as it’s called, but Galvez is currently part of a multicenter study of 1,200 adolescent girls to determine if exposure to the hormone disruptor family of phthalates is behind the trend.

A much-publicized 2005 study was the first to show the connection between phthalate exposure and incomplete genital development. Dr. Shanna Swan’s study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives (August, 2005), showed that pregnant women with higher urine concentrations of some phthalates were more likely to give birth to sons with “phthalate syndrome”—incomplete male genital development—a disorder previously seen only in lab rats. Swan’s findings support the hypothesis that prenatal phthalate exposure to levels found in the general U.S. population can adversely affect the reproductive tract in male infants.

Environmental exposure to EDCs is the suspected cause of declining male testosterone levels over the past two decades, as well as the declining male birth rates in industrial areas such as Seveso, Italy, and the Dow Chemical Valley in Sarnia, Ontario.

Last September, Vicki Blazer, a fish pathologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, found that more than 80 percent of male small mouth bass in the Potomac were growing eggs. She’d seen the problem a few years earlier in a pristine area of West Virginia.

Blazer believes the fault may lie with us. “We’re all putting things into the environment. Hopefully people will think twice whether it’s important not to have dandelions in the lawn and dump pharmaceuticals down the toilet,” says Blazer.

The publication of Colborn’s Our Stolen Future concerned Congress enough that it ordered the EPA to create a screening system for endocrine disruptors. The resulting 1996 Food Quality Protection Act was the most ambitious toxicology program ever conceived. Yet so far, the EPA hasn’t conducted a single test.

“Clearly they’ve fallen down on the job,” says Erik Olsen, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The EPA, citing technical difficulties and facing a proposed budget cut, predicts it will be 2009 before it establishes a testing protocol.

Meanwhile, the agency approves about 700 new chemicals a year, relying on the manufacturer’s assurances for safety.

Facing government inaction, consumers have taken the lead in protecting themselves from EDC exposure. When the CDC found in 2000 that exposure to the plasticizer dibutyl phthalate (DBP) was more than 20 times greater for women of childbearing age than for the average person, a consumer group began its detective work.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 72 name-brand beauty products for industrial chemical ingredients. Their report, “Not Too Pretty” (2002), found that nearly three quarters of commercial products contain phthalates, used to keep mascara from running and polished nails from chipping.

The grassroots consumer action resulting from the report was enough to pressure OPI (the major supplier of products to nail salons) as well as manufacturer Sally Hansen into agreeing to reformulate their products in late 2006.

Avalon Organics, supplier to Whole Foods, jumped onboard, becoming one of 450 signatories to the Compact for Safe Cosmetics campaign, an industry pledge to follow the European Union’s lead in removing carcinogens, mutagens (chemicals which mutate the DNA of an organism), and reproductive toxicants (which adversely effect puberty, behavior and reproduction) from products, replacing them with safer alternatives.

Today if you screen the ingredients lists of most body care products for phthalates you’ll find them on nail polish labels, but not in shampoo and other beauty products, where they are often masked as “fragrance.” Stacy Malkan of Health Care Without Harm says that’s changed her buying habits. “Now I won’t buy products with fragrance on the label.” (For more better buying habits, see sidebar).

Overwhelmed? Don’t be says Gina Solomon of the NRDC. “People freak out with 85,000 chemicals out there, but in reality it will probably turn out to be a relative handful that are the real problem we need to deal with.”

In December 2006, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to answer this charge when it banned baby products containing any level of BPA (plastic #7) and certain levels of phthalates. San Francisco officials based the ban on the European Union model that requires about 30 thousand chemicals be tested prior to their approval.

But single-city bans, while bold, are not going to stem the toxic tide. “What we need is chemical policy reform from the ground up,” says Dr. Solomon. As it stands now, most chemicals released in recent decades are given a blanket assumption of safety. “The innocent- until-proven-guilty attitude in the U.S. is backwards,” she counsels.

As scientists continue to tackle testing our chem-saturated environment, EDC damage to human health is likely to rank up with cancer as the environmentally induced medical concern of our time. Meanwhile, you can take action by pressuring your local officials, and—like Benjamin in The Graduate —reject the plastic world in favor of the real deal.

Jane Akre is trying to find sustainable business models for freelance journalism after a 25 year career in the mainstream media which ended with a whistleblower lawsuit against Fox, foxbghsuit.com.

What's Related?

Oftentimes as I'm studying plant families, I wonder what their evolutionary relationship is. The Tree of Life web project compiles the phylogenetic work from biologists around the world. Its user-friendly format makes it easy to see genetic relationships.
http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html

The Tree of Life includes phylogenies of:
Land Plants
Animals
Anthropods
Terrestrial vertebrates
Fungi
Eukaryotes

It also is an incredible resource for kids! Plenty of biology-related activities to keep your child's mind active with scientific goodness:
The Treehouse for Kids

Star Trek Bloopers

I love Star Trek.

What Plants Will Do Well?

Seems like I'm always being asked "Will this do well out here?" Well, there is an ultimate resource out there that will tell you just that. It's the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Growing up, I just assumed that everyone had one of these, and would consult it regularly when planning their garden. Well, now everyone (at least those who read this blog) will wonder no longer. Here's a site that outlines the zones:

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

When you look up information on a plant - when buying it online or just looking in a catalog - they always mention what zone it will do well in.