Science Buzz Lunch in Mixer Room, Building 1, 2-25-2013

Science Buzz Lunch in Mixer Room, Building 1, 2-25-2013

Topics discussed included:

1)  The recent paper published in The American Naturalist  by Anthony R. Raffert et al. titled

Limited Oxygen Availability in Utero May Constrain the Evolution of Live Birth in Reptiles

2) A news article (titled "Two Minutes to Impress") published recently in Nature (Careers Section) about how researchers should compose a pithy "elevator speech" for very briefly (2 minutes) explaining their research to other scientists, potential employers, non-scientist acquaintences, visitors to their lab, etc. A different speech should be devised for these different types of listener, and just a few key points should be presented (and can be chosen and refined and memorized in advance).  

Science Buzz Lunch in Mixer Room, Building 1, February 4, 2013

Science Buzz Lunch in Mixer Room, Building 1, February 4, 2013

Topics discussed included:

1) The thesis topics of Division of Biological Sciences Master's degree candidates in lunch participants' labs, ranging from a survey of nematode parasites in skinks in the Japanese main islands, to the evolution of UPR (unfolded protein response) components from single-cell fungi through vertebrates, to the roles of Piwi proteins and piRNAs in planarian regeneration.
Master's degree candidates from the Department of Biophysics will give short presentations of their work (in Japanese) tomorrow.

2) The paper  "Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation" by Marie Dacke et al. in the most recent Current Biology, Dung beetles are the first animals (other than humans) reported to use the Milky Way to guide their navigation.

3) The papers

Spatiotemporal Regulation of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Is Essential for Squamous Cell Carcinoma Metastasis, by Jeff H. Tsai et al.

and
Metastatic Colonization Requires the Repression of the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Inducer Prrx1  by Oscar H. Ocana et al.,

both published in the December 11, 2012 issue of Cancer Cell

These papers establish that plasticity of the cancer cells enabling an EMT followed by MET transition is required for the establishment of metastases by carcinomas