Programmable Plants in Synthetic Biology

Biologists are designing gene 'circuits' in plants to control various characteristics such as color, size, and resistance to drought.

The interdisciplinary field of synthetic biology involves designing genetic circuits to control different functions in microorganisms only, not plants.

June Medford leads a CSU team that is working to design genetic circuits in plants.

The design of genetic circuits in plants is a well-established field with a long history.

Most synthetic biologists primarily work with complex organisms like plants rather than simple microorganisms.

Animal migration can be loosely described as travel that takes place at regular intervals and may involve many members of a species, and is rewarded only after a long ______

Hugh Dingle has identified five characteristics that apply to all migrations, one of which is prolonged movements that carry animals outside familiar ______

Migrating animals maintain an intense attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals ______

An arctic tern, on its 20,000 km flight from the extreme south of South America to the Arctic circle, will take no notice of a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher’s boat along the way, demonstrating an instinctive sense of larger ______

The arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven by an instinctive sense of larger ______

The arctic tern flies on without being distracted by temptations because it is determined to reach its ______

The American pronghorn's migration is defined as movements from a seasonal home area away to another home area and back again by biologist Joe Berger, who studies other large terrestrial mammals, preferring a simple, practical definition suited to his beasts: 'movements from a seasonal home area away to another home area and back ______'.

Daily vertical movements by zooplankton in the ocean can also be considered migration, as they move upward by night to seek food, downward by day to escape ______.

According to evolutionary biologist Dingle, migration is distinguished by five features that separate it from other forms of movement, one of which includes aphids becoming sensitive to blue light (from the sky) when it’s time for takeoff on their big ______.

Birds prepare for long migrational flights by fattening themselves with heavy ______.

Human behavior is having a detrimental impact on animal migration, as exemplified by the American pronghorn population in Grand Teton National Park facing challenges due to the frozen months and feeding mainly on ______ blown clear of snow.

The value of Dingle's definition of migration is that it focuses on what wildebeest migration shares with aphids and helps guide researchers towards understanding how evolution has produced them ______.