New for Your Plant Biochemistry Course

Preview Sample Content Now!

Plant Biochemistry Florence K. Gleason, University of Minnesota with Raymond Chollet, University of Nebraska - Lincoln ISBN: 978-0-7637-6401-2 Paperback - 240 pp - © 2012

Written for the upper-level undergraduate and graduate course, Plant Biochemistry provides a student-friendly introduction to this fascinating area of study. It opens with a discussion of perhaps the most important biochemical processes on the planet: photosynthesis and carbon fixation in plants. An introduction to carbohydrates, their usage and their storage, is followed by a discussion of primary cell wall structure and synthesis, as well as coverage of the metabolism of inorganic nutrients such as nitrogen and sulfur. To ensure full student comprehension and retention, the text takes care to introduce basic metabolic pathways for the synthesis of lipids, steroids, and aromatic amino acids before discussing natural products such as lignin, flavonoids, and alkaloids. Additional Resources include: A Student Companion Website  Instructor's PowerPoint Lecture Slides Instructor's PowerPoint Image Bank eTextbook through CourseSmart.com - coming soon! Table of Contents:  1.  Photosynthesis -- The Light Reaction  2.  Carbon Dioxide Fixation  3.  Storage and Utilization of Fixed Carbon  4.  Primary Cell Walls  5.  Nitrogen and Sulfur Metabolism  6.  Lipids  7.  Isoprenoid Compounds  8.  Aromatic and Phenolic Compounds  9.  Alkaloids 10.  Plant Peptides and Proteins Appendices:  1.  Structure and Properties of the 20 Amino Acids Commonly Found in       Proteins  2.  Oxidation-Reduction (Redox)  3.  Steady-State Enzyme Kinetics  4.  Protein Three-Dimensional Structure Determination  5.  Reactive Oxygen Species  6.  Amino Acid Biosynthesis  7.  Light Properties and Analysis

Also Available in Plant Biology!

Preview Sample Content Now!

Botany An Introduction to Plant Biology FOURTH EDITION James D. Mauseth, University of Texas - Austin ISBN: 978-0-7637-5345-0 Hardcover - 672 pp -© 2009

As one of the oldest sciences, plant biology continues to develop and evolve over time as new information is introduced and environmental changes occur. The Fourth Edition of Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology provides a thorough overview of the fundamentals of botany while retaining the important focus of natural selection, analysis of botanical phenomena, and diversity. Students are first introduced to topics that should be most familiar (plant structure), proceed to those less familiar (plant physiology and development), and conclude with topics that are likely least familiar to the introductory student (genetics, evolution, and ecology). Sections are written to be self-contained, allowing topics to be covered in various orders.

Jones and Bartlett Author, and Shark Expert, John Morrissey Evaluates Gulf Disaster

John Morrissey, author of Jones and Bartlett Learning's Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life, finds silver lining in gulf disaster.

Sweet Briar College marine biologist John Morrissey sees an upside to the ongoing Gulf catastrophe even as he knows a generation of animals he is deeply invested in as a researcher are dying where the oil flows.

“There are embryonic sharks littering the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico near the spill that are trapped, are doomed, have nowhere to go and are being bathed in this oil spill as it percolates out of the rupture,” he said.

Morrissey knows that it will take years for many local species — from the deep sea-dwelling chain catshark that he studies in his laboratory to the shellfish that live in shallows — to recover from the events following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.

But offshore drilling and its inherent dangers have the attention of the entire world. That’s Morrissey’s silver lining.

And if there’s an opportunity to raise the issue, he takes it. As co-author of a textbook, “Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life,” he devoted a section to oil spills and the skewed view that most people have of them.

“For example, everyone in the U.S. has heard of the Exxon Valdez spill, formerly the largest in U.S. waters, but few realize that in terms of magnitude it’s the fifty-third largest recorded,” he said, including those occurring both on land and sea.

As others have recently pointed out, he notes the largest spill ever recorded was caused by Desert Storm, when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered the destruction of oil wells as his troops retreated from Kuwait.

“The Kuwait spill flowed from January to May 1991. The rate of flow was about one Exxon Valdez every twelve days,” he said. “The second-largest spill ever recorded was an oil well blow out off the coast of Mexico in the late 1970s.”

Morrissey was referring to the Ixtoc I rig, which blew up in 1979 in an accident disturbingly similar to the one playing out in 2010. Engineers then attempted the same ineffective technologies to stop or contain that spill that are failing BP engineers today.

“I guess my point is, if asked about the biggest spills ever, I predict that most Americans would answer ‘the Exxon Valdez spill’ or ‘the Amoco Cadiz spill off Portsall in 1978’ or ‘the Atlantic Express and Aegean Captain collision off Trinidad and Tobago in 1979,’ ” Morrissey said. “Nobody would answer ‘war,’ which is number one on the list or ‘offshore drilling,’ which is number two. Now, at least, people know about offshore drilling.”

Morrissey teaches biology at Sweet Briar, an all-women’s college that lies on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He maintains a reproducing colony of chain catsharks, a species small enough to thrive in aquariums 200 miles from their closest native habitat.

He studies catsharks in part for what they teach us about the deep sea, a mysterious place about which science knows too little because not enough attention is paid to it, he says. As in the case of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, no one knows what the lasting effects will be on the plants and animals that live at 5,000 feet.

More clear is what will happen closer to the surface.

“All of the vital plankton, the base of the marine food web will be hit pretty hard,” Morrissey said in a recent interview with WSET ABC 13 in Lynchburg, Va. “It’s almost like erasing all grass and all trees on land.”

Because most fisheries are managed by leaving only enough adults to produce the next harvest, what is lost today likely means hard times for coastal residents who earn their livings from the Gulf waters. “Shellfish babies are probably being harmed pretty badly, so the effects will be felt for a long time,” Morrissey said.

He is working on the 10th edition of “Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life.” With any luck, BP will close the chapter on the gushing leak before it goes to press, even if the full history of the Deepwater Horizon can’t be written for years to come.

 Article by Jennifer McManamay, Sweet Briar College

University of Michigan Scientists Have Found that Bone Marrow Can Harbor HIV-Infected Cells

The Science Daily News reported that University of Michigan scientists have identified a new reservoir for hidden HIV-infected cells that can serve as a factory for new infections. The findings, which appeared online March 7 in Nature Medicine, indicate a new target for curing the disease so those infected with the virus may someday no longer rely on AIDS drugs for a lifetime.

"Antiviral drugs have been effective at keeping the virus at bay. However once the drug therapy is stopped, the virus comes back," says senior author of the study Kathleen L. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of both internal medicine and microbiology and immunology at the U-M Medical School.

"Our finding that HIV infects these cells has clear ramifications for HIV disease because some of these cells may be long-lived and could carry latent HIV for extended periods of time," she says. "These HIV cell reservoirs can be induced to generate new infections."

A new sixth edition of the best-selling book, AIDS: Science and Society (Jones and Bartlett, 2011) by Hung Fan, Ross Conner, and Luis Villarreal, all from University of California - Irvine, provides readers with a solid overview of AIDS from both a biomedical and a psychosocial perspective. The authors cover the molecular and cellular aspects of the virus and the immune system's response to it, and examine epidemiology and its role in understanding HIV and AIDS. 

Scientists Hurry to Examine Devastating Haiti Quake

In the wake of the devastating earthquake that crippled Haiti earlier this week, scientists are eager to understand what happened and are trying to predict if it could potentially happen again. The destruction to Haiti has been extraordinary. Due to poor building construction and over population, a 7.0 earthquake, which is not massive by seismic standards, caused a major catastrophe leaving tens of thousands dead and many more injured and homeless.

“The question we are trying to address right now is if there could be other faults nearby or perhaps other portions of the fault to the east or west that could go,” says Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who has used GPS stations to monitor the area since 2003.

Scientists are bracing for what might happen next. “Our folks and others are acquiring all the imagery they can in order to examine possible landslide-dammed drainages that could create subsequent flash flood hazard, identify surface rupture and look for the extent of … ground failure,” says David Applegate, senior science adviser for natural hazards with the U.S. Geological Survey.

For the complete story visit ScienceNews.org

Visit Jones and Bartlett for numerous texts and resources in the physical sciences.

A Win for University Stem Cell Research...For Now.

A tie vote of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents Friday defeated -- for now -- a campaign to impose new limits on stem cell research at the system.

The outcome of the vote was in doubt until it took place, and the research only escaped the limits because of a change of heart by a regent who had been backed in his election campaign by anti-abortion groups. (Nebraska is among the minority of states where regents are elected in popular elections.) With that reversal, the vote was 4-4, and measures are considered defeated if they don't receive a majority.

Faculty groups and administrators at the university had strongly urged the board to reject the limits, which would have been based on those set by President George W. Bush and which were faulted by scientists for blocking vital research. Many academics in the state who don't do research with stem cells said that they feared a vote to impose the Bush-era limits would have scared off faculty talent, and would have led some top researchers to look for jobs elsewhere.

For the complete story visit Inside HigherEd.