Ian is a plant scientist and science writer relating stories of plant science and scientists on his blog, The Quiet Branches as well as other outlets. You can find him on Twitter @IHStreet.
I’m heading to Plant Biology 2016 in Austin, TX tomorrow and will be writing form there on the ASPB blog and seeking stories of plant science to write about in the coming months. There are also some other writing projects for other blogs and a society magazine I am writing this month, so this space … More Plant Biology, 2016 Austin, TX
So SciLogs is shutting down. Meaning that The Quiet Branches Home will be here for the forseeable future. In a way, it’s good to only have one place I need to post things. So look for more plant science writing here in the future and follow along here- Ian Street, Writer, Editor, all things Quiet … More SciLogs.com US is shutting down…Quiet Branches Will Continue Where it Started.
If you’re a plant scientist in the UK or EU (or a scientist of any kind), please do use the comments section below to talk about what Brexit might mean for you and your career. This post can serve as a repository of accounts about how policies impact STEM and vice-versa. Though the precise nature … More Brexit, Science policy, and Unintended Consequences of Trading Lemons.
161 Years Ago In the centuries old St. Thomas Abbey– in the garden and greenhouse– Gregor Mendel tended, crossed, and tracked some 10,000 pea plants (Pisum sativum) through several generations over 7 years. The greenhouse was warm compared to the monastery where his chambers were. The monastery was constantly damp and cool, originally built as … More 150 Years After Mendel Published His Foray Into Life Science.
This post was also posted on the SciLogs version of The Quiet Branches. Two reports released in the last month talk about the state of plants. One was the more narrowly focused National Academies report on GE crops,Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects (@NASciences_Ag, #GECropStudy; 1,420 hits on Google in the past month, 92 on … More Plants Matter. Two Reports Highlight Their State– and Ours.
One of my favorite podcasts is Flash Forward, created (& hosted) by Rose Eveleth. She explores a potential future and then comes back to the present to discuss how plausible it is and the implications of a future like that, and just what that future says about our present world. So with that in mind, … More Chez GMO
When I started this blog, I explained wny I called it The Quiet Branches. It was in part about how many people are blind to plants, how they’re just a medium we walk through without fully understanding just how deeply they show up in our lives every day. The blog is meant to inspire a … More Welcome to The Loud Branches
Last week, I wrote about the marine plant, Zostera marina (Also covered on The Global Plant Council Blog by Sarah Jose), a rare plant that has adapted to living completely under the sea. This plant would have to re-evolve some traits to make the transition back to land (e.g. pores on the leaves to enable gas … More Habitat Loss, Climate Change, and the Story of Three plants.
In what are now the Northern coastal oceans started getting greener ~65 million years ago, around the time when most dinosaurs went extinct. A distant relative of grasses was put on the evolutionary path to colonize the oceans. This new colonizer may have been the result of something plants routinely do to form new species: … More A Flowering Plant Under the Sea.
Just what does science know? Does science even matter? Where does wonder and curiosity fit into a world where science now often seems to play the role of wet blanket? And just what are the best practices for communicating science to fellow scientists and other audiences alike? Those are a few of the questions I … More Engagement, Wonder, and no easy answers at the AAAS meeting.
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