Category Archives: BEACON Researchers at Work

Studying the Evolutionary Dynamics of Emergent Phenotypes

Posted on February 2, 2017 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU faculty Mark Reimers and Arend Hintze Let us marvel about the complexity of life for a moment. We have DNA transcribed into mRNA, just to get that translated into proteins, which metabolize, catabolize, or process … Continue reading →

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Rock the Chalk: Reevaluation of dropping PowerPoint for a large lecture classroom

Posted on January 29, 2017 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU faculty Chris Waters I am the course administrator and sole course instruction for the junior/senior “MMG 431:Microbial Genetics” course at MSU. This is a large lecture course consisting of ~150 students. My goal is for … Continue reading →

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Big things happen in small rodents: grasshopper mice as a model for the evolution of pain resistance

Posted on January 23, 2017 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU grad student Lauren Koenig Life in the desert is full of extremes. Daytime temperatures are scorching, monsoon rains are torrential, and plants are sparse and spiky. Yet many desert animals, such as grasshopper mice (Onychomys torridus) … Continue reading →

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The Poetry of Scientific Experiments

Posted on January 16, 2017 by hageyt

This post is written by UW grad student Sonia Singhal TL;DR: Like poems, “beautiful” scientific experiments have a cohesive, coherent structure where each part reinforces the whole. In this post, I analyze the structures of the poem “Easter Wings” by … Continue reading →

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Mormyrids might be Pokémon: Can we see ‘evolution’ within a single individual?

Posted on December 5, 2016 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU grad student Savvas Constantinou I’m Savvas Constantinou and I am a second year PhD student studying Integrative Biology (IBIO) & Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior (EEBB) in the Natural Science department at Michigan State … Continue reading →

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Love is in the air (or maybe it’s just bacteria)

Posted on November 26, 2016 by hageyt

This post is written by BEACON managing director Danielle Whittaker When we fall in love with someone else, is it because they are our soul mates… or is it because we like the way their microbes smell? We think a lot … Continue reading →

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Better Together: Of Hyenas and Men

Posted on November 20, 2016 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU grad student Zachary M. Laubach “A guy needs somebody―to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I … Continue reading →

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Kombucha: More Than Meets the Eye

Posted on November 13, 2016 by hageyt

This post is written by UT Austin undergrad researchers Katelyn Corley, Matthew Hooper, and Zachary Martinez “What starts here changes the world.” This is the motto that we as students at the University of Texas at Austin have come to embrace and strive towards … Continue reading →

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Social networks in spotted hyenas

Posted on November 7, 2016 by hageyt

This post is written by MSU grad student Julie Turner  I’ve always loved animals. This love isn’t exactly unusual in young children, but my fascination and curiosity about animals has not wavered. Among my earliest memories as a toddler was catching turtles … Continue reading →

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