Category: Published Science Articles

Today the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew announce the online publication of The Plant List, the world’s first database of all land plant species. The Plant List includes all accepted botanical names and their synonyms, as well as a number of names whose status as accepted or synonym is unresolved in the current literature.

“If we want to conserve plants, we need to know what species there are,” said Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. “We all need to work from the same page.”

Conservation today is a worldwide undertaking. Fully one-fourth of existing botanical species are in danger of extinction. The preservation of biological diversity demands shared priorities.

Information technologists and scientists at the botanical gardens in St. Louis and London worked together to develop innovative computer strategies to make the database comprehensive and available in a timely manner. The plant list is available to anyone in the world with access to a computer.

Continue reading One List for All the World’s Plants

Nick Matteucci was in third grade when his teacher reported that he was slow learning to read, and not writing well. The teacher suggested he might have an attention deficit disorder, but because his IQ was high, and he was not yet behind grade level, the school was not ready to test him.

His mother Sandra, a faculty member at Washington University’s School of Engineering, didn’t think that attention deficit diagnosis fit Nicky.  He could play the same game for hours, and he could answer any question about a story read aloud to him.  In fact, after a particularly bad social studies quiz, she persuaded the teacher to read the questions to him—and he showed dramatic improvement.

So Sandra went to the web, and found the home page of the Center for Vision and Learning in Creve Coeur.  On a hunch, she made an appointment for testing.  Upon examination Nicky’s vision was 20/20 and his eyes were healthy.  He was able to focus correctly for a time, but when Dr. Gail Doell, a developmental optometrist, and her therapists observed his eye movements, they found that his eye moved well for a short time, and then stopped scanning correctly.  His eyes were experiencing extreme fatigue.

The good news was that Nicky’s problem was amenable to vision therapy, according to Doell.  Exercises could strength his eyes to let them move quickly and accurately without fatigue.

 

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This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.

Invaders wreak havoc.

No, we are not referring to Attila the Hun or Hagar the Horrible. In scientific context, invaders are plants or animals whose introduction by humans to a new environment allows them to displace native species and change the ecology of that area.

One particularly successful plant invader is bush honeysuckle. It forms a dense understory in many of our local forests. It borders roadways — Ladue Road being a good example — and it finds its way into many of our backyards and gardens. Its red berries taste good to birds, so seeds are readily spread into new territory.

Conservationists and environmentalists have been concerned about honeysuckle’s dominance for a long time, but many of us have not felt threatened by the pretty bush.

 

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This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.

Why do some people have a high tolerance for pain, while others experience the slightest touch as painful? Why do some injured soldiers perform heroic feats and claim that they felt no pain at the time?

Nobody quite knows, but new findings by Meinhart Zenk and Toni Kutchan at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center offer some tantalizing possibilities.

Humans and other mammals excrete morphine in their urine. That has been known for a long time. The levels of morphine are also known to vary widely. The source of the morphine has been the unanswered question until now.

Zenk and colleagues in Germany showed in a recent article that mice, and presumably all mammals, have the metabolic equipment to manufacture morphine from the amino acid tyrosine, found in all proteins. Furthermore, the way morphine is produced by mammals mimics the same chemical steps as the pathway that the opium poppy uses.

 

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This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.

Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer may soon be helped by a discovery made in 1880 by Alexander Graham Bell.

Currently, the removal of the lymph nodes draining the breast is a routine diagnostic procedure to see whether the cancer has spread. The surgery is invasive and often has significant side effects, including fluid retention, swelling and limited range of motion. In most cases — 80 percent — the test shows that the cancer hasn’t spread. That is a relief to the patient. But both doctors and patients have long hoped for a way to learn these results without surgery.

Now Washington University professors are developing techniques using Bell’s photoacoustic effect. The new imaging technology being developed by Lihong Wang and his colleagues will identify the sentinel lymph node (the first one to drain the breast) and guide the doctor in taking a needle biopsy. For most patients, that biopsy will reveal that the cancer has not spread and those underarm nodes can remain in place and keep working to drain the area.

What is the photoacoustic effect, and how does it translate to medical imaging?

 

Read the entire article (750KB PDF).
This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.