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Recent Posts

Protected: July 2018 Spotlight: Basem Al-Shayeb July 11, 2018
July 2018 Spotlight: Dhruv Patel July 11, 2018
State of the Search for Life: From Early Imagination to SETI May 29, 2018

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These are a group of tobacco and benthi plants that I have been using to study disease resistance. I do this by injecting the plants with bacteria 🦠 We cover leaves we inject with foil as like when you go to the hairdressers it helps the colour (of dead cells) develop better. Image 2 where you see shiny circles shows cell death 💀A plant does this when it thinks it is infected to prevent an infection spreading. If you then put the leaves under UV (think tanning salon sun bed) then this cell death shows up even more clearly as black dots (image 3). Let me know if you have any questions ?? #agriculture #research #scicomm #womeninscience #ucberkeley #biology #plantbiologoy #womeninstem #plantbased #plantpathology #curious #science #agronomy #berkeley #plant #plantbased #botanical #hairdresser #plantvszombies

Science is rad. Whether I'm pointing my telescope at the sun for an eclipse, counting how many rubber bands it takes to make a melon explode, or knitting myself a DNA headband, science is part of it. #eclipse #solareclipse #telescope #idaho #sugarcity #melon #explode #knitting #knittersofinstagram #scienceknits #scicomm

In graduate school, I was a member The Millet Project. We worked to bring ancient, underappreciated grains back into public awareness. We collaborated with farmers to learn how and where to grow millet in California, planting different varieties in diverse regional climates. We also held events and provided samples - even millet beer! - to introduce people to new grains. There are a lot of challenges facing agriculture and food production. I enjoy exploring and learning about different approaches to solving some of these challenges. In the first picture, I'm planting millet at the Gill Tract in Albany, CA. In the second picture, the Japanese Millet has reached maturity. In the third, we are giving public tours or our millet field. The fourth is of our vegetarian millet slider! Yummmmm. #millet #spreadmilletlove #alternativegrains #themilletproject #farming #agriculture #innovation #gilltract #scicomm #womeninscience #womeninag #climatechange #foodsystems #research #berkeleyfoodie #globalfoodinitiative #berkeleyfoodinstitute #ucfoodobserver #ucanr

IG takeover part 4 continues... I first got interested in studying plant diseases because I really enjoy gardening. Aphids on my tomatoes and powdery mildew on my squash was endlessly frustrating. I wanted to know mine enemy. So I went to grad school at Berkeley to understand the evolutionary battle raging in my backyard between plants and their pathogens. I continued gardening in grad school. In the first picture, I've just harvested a bunch of tomatoes from my garden. In the second picture - hours later - I'm finishing bottling my fresh homemade salsa. In the third picture, you can see my tomato jungle. And finally, from the white dusting on the leaves of the squash plants, you can see that my PhD in plant biology has not made my plants immune to powdery mildew. #homegrown #gardening #backyard #plants #plantpathology #agriculture #phdlife #tomato #zucchini #squash #ucberkeley #aphids #powderymildew #ucanr #ucberkeleyfood #ucfoodobserver #womeninscience #womeninstem

CLEAR #instagramtakeover Part 4! Hi! My name is Becky. For my PhD, I studied how plants fight back against diseases. Just like humans get sick from bacteria and fungi and viruses, plants get sick too. The first picture shows a plant called Arabidopsis. Plant scientists use Arabidopsis like other scientists use mice. What we learn from Arabidopsis can be applied to many other plants, just like what we learn from mice can be applied to humans and other animals. The second and third pictures show how just one gene in Arabidopsis can really affect how well the plant can fight disease. The yellow leaves are taken from plants that DO NOT have a gene that helps them fight off disease. The green leaves are taken from plants that DO have the gene that helps them fight disease. Billions of dollars are lost each year in agriculture due to plants succumbing to disease. More importantly, truckloads - even stadiums full - of food that could help feed people are lost to disease. It's important to learn more about how we can fight these diseases in plants. #agriculture #research #scicomm #womeninscience #ucberkeley #biology #plantbiologoy #womeninstem #plantbased #plantpathology #arabidopsis #pseudomonas #curious #science #agronomy

[****growls seductively*****] When we are not doing amazing science, we are organizing events like this one: “Sex on the Kitchen Table”. What could be more romantic or sexy this Valentine’s Day than learning about ❤️❤️ P🌱L🌲A🌾N🍀T🌵S❤️❤️? Professor Norman Ellstrand of UC Riverside will discuss the sex lives of the plants we eat, and how the lurid details of plant sex is fully entwined to food and culture😻. More Tell-All plant facts are revealed in his book of the same name! 5:45 on February 14 at the Octopus Literary Lounge in Oakland. See you there ...🌿😘 #ucberkeley #scicomm #plants #plantbased #plantsex #valentines #science #sciencelove #biology #oakland #food #agriculture #pubscience #beer

Upcoming Events

Impossible Foods Talk February 21, 2019 at 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
CLEAR Meeting: Nanticha Lutt March 1, 2019 at 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

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