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Watercolor Fly Testes
I went to back up my computer recently and was digging around in old folders and found this masterpiece I made back in 2018 when I first got my hands on some watercolors. These are fly testes. I think I was doing some sort of personal project where I was water-coloring (with little talent) the reproductive systems of various organisms from across the tree of life because ever since doing tapeworm anatomical drawings I’ve always been fascinated by the wide variety of reproductive systems out there. The rest are all lost, but even though it isn’t great, my students all found this hilarious so I thought I’d put it up.…
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Science in pictures
So excited to see some of the images from my recent paper in Natural Sciences featured among other beautiful research in this Science in Pictures article by Advanced Science News! https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/science-in-pictures-2/
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Language & Taxonomy
Thank you Planet Word for inviting me to speak in the Language & series. It was so much fun to revisit my work in taxonomy and to share the history of the science and language of the field!
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New Research Paper Published 2022!
The origin of the neurons and glia in the olfactory system of vertebrates has been controversial, with different cell types attributed to being of ectodermal placode versus neural crest lineage, depending upon the species. Here, we use replication incompetent avian retroviruses to perform a prospective cell lineage analysis of either presumptive olfactory placode or neural crest cells during early development of the chick embryo. Surprisingly, the results reveal a dual contribution from both the olfactory placode and neural crest cells to sensory neurons in the nose and gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons migrating to the olfactory bulb. We also confirm that olfactory ensheathing glia cells are solely derived from the neural crest.…
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Zebrafinch Courtship Remix
A friend of mine works on zebra finches. Specifically, she works on the neurological circuits they produce in order to learn, create, and change songs. Zebra finches are really cool. They are a model species for working on neuroethology, the field which investigates the role of the nervous system in animal behaviour. By studying the learning of birdsong in zebra finches we can learn a lot about how experience can change the brain. For instance, zebra finches are able to learn songs even when deafened, showing that their ability to sing is genetically encoded rather than learned through experience growing up listening to other birds sing. Very neat. I had…
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Science and Arts: Methods of Discovery
I have always been interested in both the sciences and the arts. Only recently have I been able to step beyond society’s dichromatic thinking about the two subjects to realize that they are more alike than they are different. Many scientists will tell you that science is different because it’s a hypothesis driven method of investigation. We create a hypothesis, and we test that hypothesis with experimentation, and through this process we glean insight into whether our hypothesis is supported or rejected. Scientists create knowledge. Art is far more subjective, using expressive representation to convey ideas rather than concretely supporting their claims. Objective vs. subjective. Night vs day, heads vs.…
