LMU’s Department of Biology

We’ve celebrated Darwin Day with the chili cook off competition hosted by Tri-Beta. Nine Fantastic Chilies has entered the competition highlighting the importance of variation in evolution. We even had sea food and quinoa inspired recepies, the opportunities are endless. Below are the winners:
Best carnivore chili (which happened to be the spiciest too): Clare Houston, student and Gen Bio TA
Best herbivorous chili (The Impossible Mushroom): Tanya Kuzmenko, professor
Best overall: Mary Catharine McElwain aka Cathy Emeritus professor with the secret recipe that no one can beat.
Congratulations!

Happy Halloween from the Biology department!

Nice summary of recent hominim findings.

Did you know, in modern humans, several skeletal features distinguish the female pelvis from that of the male? When did our ancestors develop hips that distinguished the sexes?

🔗 http://ow.ly/62zI50GN9mB

Nice story about frogs in Washington DC and some great pictures.

District of Frogs - The Uncommon District Let's call it the frog days of summer. Even in a very urban area such as ours, our green friends are on display, if you know where to look.

The cicadas are finally here! - The Uncommon District It's been a very long 17 years for Brood X, our resident periodical cicadas, but they have finally emerged and started to take over D.C.

And some very nice pictres

We Need to Talk About Spider Conservation • The Revelator Despite their ecological values, new research reveals we don’t understand how most arachnid species are faring — or do much to protect them.

“The natural world is built upon common motifs and patterns. Recognizing patterns in nature creates a map for locating yourself in change, and anticipation what is yet to come.” ― Sharon Weil

Explore the field-patterning of nature and the universe in the free Unified Science Course at ResonanceScience.org

In the sprit of celebrating Student Employees: Hurray to Biology Tutors!

Today, we thank our wonderful General Biology Tutors. James and Veronica are so thoughtful and dedicated to helping their fellow students in preparing for exams, completing homework assignments and more. Thank you both for going above and beyond to serve our department! 📚 Pictured: James Harper IV, Veronica Casarez 📖 Drop a quick Hello or Thank You to your Gen Bio tutors below!! ⬇️

It's Student Employee Week! 🤩 Let's celebrate our fantastic student workers!

Producing viable, reproductively competent offspring is a fundamental measure of evolutionary success. So why are human babies so hard to deliver?

Having babies isn’t easy—and the standard explanation may be wrong.

👶 In humans, the size of the head of term fetuses is a tight fit for the mother’s bony birth canal.

👶 According to the obstetrical hypothesis, we need a wide pelvis to bear big-brained babies but a narrow one to walk or run efficiently.

👶 The obstetrical dilemma hypothesis postulates that newborn brain size is limited by the disadvantages to the mother’s locomotion posed by wider hips.

👶 The energetics-of-gestation-and-growth hypothesis postulates that the baby’s head size is limited by the metabolic cost to the mother of carrying a large baby.

🔗 http://ow.ly/a8Un50DU0tx

I do love a great nature video

Shake Your Silk-Maker: The Dance of the Peacock Spider - Science Friday With their ornately-colored fur, rhythmic pulsations, and booty-shaking dance moves, male peacock spiders attract the attention of spectating females as well as researchers.

Another nice graphic

[INFOGRAPHIC] A timeline of the discoveries of chemical elements.

The years shown for element discoveries are those in which the element was isolated for the first time & the flags identify the country in which the discovery was made.

High-resolution: http://ow.ly/69Kf50D6UKQ

Makes you want to have a patch or two of super black to bring out the color.

A team of biologists used electron microscopy and hyperspectral imaging to examine the deep black areas that abut colors in peacock .

🕷️ Male peacock spiders have brightly colored abdomens that they wave in courtship displays. A team of biologists used electron microscopy and hyperspectral imaging to examine the deep black areas that abut colors.

🕷️ They found that tiny bumps act as micro-lenses that decrease reflections, resulting in super-black regions that reflect less than 0.5% of light.

🕷️ Vertebrate predators see reflections as white highlights, which they use as reference points to calibrate colors. Eliminating these highlights makes nearby colors appear brighter.

🔗 http://ow.ly/oV9Q50D6Uzl

Huntsman spiders eat tree frogs after luring them into leaf traps "Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the frog.

Recent Biology alumni Ali Imani continued his research project after graduation: https://www.forbes.com/profile/center-health/?list=30under30-consumer-technology&sh=1711fca34086

Center Health Julian Laval and Ali Imani founded diabetes device and management company Center Health in 2017 to make glucose monitors that connect to a smartphone and work with an app.

Another Biology graduate doing great things Rickabaugh-Zucker

Direct exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and cigarette smoke increases infection severity and alters the stem cell-derived airway repair response Current smoking is associated with increased risk of severe COVID-19 but it is not clear how cigarette smoke (CS) exposure affects SARS-CoV-2 airway c…

Great videos

UM researchers capture spine-tingling video of spider dragging opossum in Amazon rainforest Just when you think you've seen it all, a team led by University of Michigan biologists captured shocking video of a massive tarantula dragging a small opossum around the forest floor in Peru.

LMU campus has very few people which seems to be quite appreciative by birds. We can’t wait when we can have students over here again and miss seeing you All in person.

An interesting pair of studies on the careers of women in science. The second is specifically about the effect of the pandemic on female scientists with children.

One factor explains much of the dearth of women in math-based fields: choosing motherhood
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/when-scientists-choose-motherhood

Now, a hypothesis about the decline of women's production during the pandemic, including on .
https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/decline-women-scientist-research-publishing-production-coronavirus-pandemic

From Dr. Eric Strauss

More Wildlife Seen During the Day as Angelenos Stay Safer at Home Animals are reclaiming the natural habitats.

https://youtu.be/kxu3agySFCY
Hallie Ryan, our Biology senior, is the 2020 LMU Valedictorian! She was featured on Preview Day video. It's a touching speech and a beautiful video of our campus life. Enjoy!

LMU Virtual Preview Day: Matt and Hallie's Special Message Assistant Vice Provost of Admission Matt Fissinger and Valedictorian Hallie Ryan's message to the incoming Fall 2020 Class.

Scientific resources about COVID-19:
-Updated pandemic data and graphs: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com
- Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Global-to-Local COVID-19 Dashboard
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html #/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
- A series of Podcasts from Johns Hopkins, daily updated science and evidence-based insights from Johns Hopkins
https://www.jhsph.edu/podcasts/public-health-on-call/
- Daily updated guide for recent publications on COVID-19: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=b10caef2d2-briefing-wk-20200403&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-b10caef2d2-42936591

Stay safe and scientifically informed

gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com

This sounds like it might be a fun read and who thought that could be said of a statistics text book.

Have an adventure... in statistics?

Embedded in this science fiction story with graphic-novel artwork are clear explanations by an experienced and conscientious teacher https://www.americanscientist.org/article/stats-and-fiction

Study Finds ‘Rollie Pollies’ Remove Heavy Metals From Soil, Protects Groundwater Turns out a little bug we don’t think of much is one of the best protectors of soil ever imaginable.

1 billion birds en route to California The greatest aerial show on Earth, the migration of 1 billion birds on the Pacific Flyway to California, is a full go this week as early winter weather hits hard in Canada. These numbers include 3 million waterfowl at peak migration in the Central Valley.

Study: Better sleep habits lead to better college grades Data on MIT students underscore the importance of getting enough sleep; bedtime also matters.

Mark Malonzo, LMU biology 2002

We wish to extend a hearty congratulations to Mark Malonzo who was recently appointed to the National EMS Education Standards and Revisions Development Team. The National EMS Education Standards have helped educators, certification bodies and regulators ensure EMS providers receive an education that is standardized and best protects the public. Mr. Malonzo will be part of an initiative to align the National EMS Education Standards with recently completed revisions to the National EMS Scope of Practice Model and will update the standards to reflect the latest evidence and current EMS practice. The revision of the National EMS Education Standards is being led by the National Association of EMS Educators (NAEMSE), in collaboration with other stakeholder groups and members of the EMS community across the country.

We are proud to have Mr. Malonzo represent UCLA and the Center for Prehospital Care at the upcoming National EMS Education Standards Development meeting in Washington, DC and at future meetings.