Recommended reads #189
Hey there, Beronda Montgomery’s Lessons From Plants is now out! (indiebound | amazon). Her articles and blog posts are often the most-clicked links on here, so I thought you’d want to know about this.
Cultural capital in undergraduate research: an exploration of how biology students operationalize knowledge to access research experiences at a large, public research-intensive institution. In this new research paper, we learn why some students get access to research opportunities and why others don’t. Guess what makes the difference?!
Audubon has hired a union-busting firm. I don’t think people realize this is where their donations are going?
Resisting the call of exceptionalism. So many great pull quotes that could be taken from this essay from the perennially wise Tressie McMillan Cottom, but I’ll share the kicker: “Sometimes clear writing is a sign of clear thinking, and sometimes clear writing is just a sign of brightly drawn battle lines. You gotta know the difference.”
Here’s a well-done popular article about the discovery of horizontal gene transfer from plants to animals. Specifically, from plant to whitefly (which is not a fly, by the way), who use a plant gene to dextoxify some gunk that plants make to dissuade them from eating. Pretty sneaky, eh?) Here’s the original article in Cell. Wait, have I ever linked to a Cell article before? I doubt it.
Happy birthday to Adelaide! She seems absolutely charming.
HBD Adelaide! At 52, she is the oldest animal at Brookfield Zoo and one of the oldest echidnas on the planet.
Echidnas use their long, sticky tongue to grab their food–especially favorites, like wax worms! pic.twitter.com/8tkUNg20SP— Brookfield Zoo (@brookfield_zoo) March 23, 2021