|
T. Ryan Gregory
T. Ryan Gregory (born May 16, 1975) is a Canadian evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist and genome, genome biologist and a Professor of the Department of Integrative Biology and the Division of Genomic Diversity within the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Career Gregory completed his B.Sc. (Hons) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario in 1997 and his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and zoology at the University of Guelph in 2002. He then carried out postdoctoral work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (2002–2003) and the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum in London, England (2003–2004) before returning to the University of Guelph as a Faculty (teaching staff), faculty member. He has broad interests in the life science, including genomics, cytogenetics, cell biology, morphology, behaviour, physiology, developmental biology, ecology, and palaeonto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology. The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation, molecular evolution, and the different forces that contribute to evolution, such as sexual selection, genetic drift, and biogeography. The newer field of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") investigates how embryogenesis is controlled, thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis. Subfields ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vector (epidemiology)
In epidemiology, a disease vector is any living agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen such as a parasite or microbe, to another living organism. Agents regarded as vectors are mostly blood-sucking (Hematophagy, hematophagous) arthropods such as mosquitoes. The first major discovery of a disease vector came from Ronald Ross in 1897, who discovered the malaria pathogen when he dissected the stomach tissue of a mosquito. Arthropods Arthropods form a major group of pathogen vectors with mosquitoes, Fly, flies, Sandfly, sand flies, lice, fleas, ticks, and mites transmitting a huge number of pathogens. Many such vectors are haematophagous, which feed on blood at some or all stages of their lives. When the insects and ticks feed on blood, the pathogen enters the blood stream of the host. This can happen in different ways. The ''Anopheles'' mosquito, a vector for malaria, filariasis, and various arthropod-borne-viruses (arboviruses), inserts its delicate mouthpart under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pathogen
In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a Germ theory of disease, germ. The term ''pathogen'' came into use in the 1880s. Typically, the term ''pathogen'' is used to describe an ''infectious'' microorganism or agent, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus. Small animals, such as helminths and insects, can also cause or Transmission (medicine), transmit disease. However, these animals are usually referred to as parasites rather than pathogens. The scientific study of microscopic organisms, including microscopic pathogenic organisms, is called microbiology, while parasitology refers to the scientific study of parasites and the organisms that host them. There are several pathways through which pathogens can invade a host. The principal pathways have different episodic time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitism
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson characterised parasites' way of feeding as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. One major axis of classification concerns invasiveness: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DNA Barcoding
DNA barcoding is a method of species identification using a short section of DNA from a specific gene or genes. The premise of DNA barcoding is that by comparison with a reference library of such DNA sections (also called " sequences"), an individual sequence can be used to uniquely identify an organism to species, just as a supermarket scanner uses the familiar black stripes of the UPC barcode to identify an item in its stock against its reference database. These "barcodes" are sometimes used in an effort to identify unknown species or parts of an organism, simply to catalog as many taxa as possible, or to compare with traditional taxonomy in an effort to determine species boundaries. Different gene regions are used to identify the different organismal groups using barcoding. The most commonly used barcode region for animals and some protists is a portion of the cytochrome ''c'' oxidase I (COI or COX1) gene, found in mitochondrial DNA. Other genes suitable for DNA barcoding a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onion Test
The onion test is a way of assessing the validity of an argument for a functional role for junk DNA. It relates to the paradox that would emerge if the majority of eukaryotic non-coding DNA were assumed to be functional and the difficulty of reconciling that assumption with the diversity in genome sizes among species. The term "onion test" was originally proposed informally in a blog post by T. Ryan Gregory in order to help clarify the debate about junk DNA. The term has been mentioned in newspapers and online media, scientific journal articles, and a textbook. The test is defined as: The onion test is a simple reality check for anyone who thinks they have come up with a universal function for junk DNA. Whatever your proposed function, ask yourself this question: Can I explain why an onion needs about five times more non-coding DNA for this function than a human?Onions and their relatives vary dramatically in their genome sizes, without changing their ploidy, and this gives an except ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Junk DNA
Junk DNA (non-functional DNA) is a DNA sequence that has no known biological function. Most organisms have some junk DNA in their genomes—mostly pseudogenes and fragments of transposons and viruses—but it is possible that some organisms have substantial amounts of junk DNA. All protein-coding regions are generally considered to be functional elements in genomes. Additionally, non-protein coding regions such as genes for ribosomal RNA and transfer RNA, regulatory sequences, origins of replication, centromeres, telomeres, and scaffold attachment regions are considered as functional elements. (See Non-coding DNA for more information.) It is difficult to determine whether other regions of the genome are functional or nonfunctional. There is considerable controversy over which criteria should be used to identify function. Many scientists have an evolutionary view of the genome and they prefer criteria based on whether DNA sequences are preserved by natural selection. Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation. The scientific theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived independently by two British naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, in the mid-19th century as an explanation for why organisms are adapted to their physical and biological environments. The theory was first set out in detail in Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species''. Evolution by natural selection is established by observable facts about living organisms: (1) more offspring are often produced than can possibly survive; (2) phenotypic variatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome Size
Genome size is the total amount of DNA contained within one copy of a single complete genome. It is typically measured in terms of mass in picograms (trillionths or 10−12 of a gram, abbreviated pg) or less frequently in daltons, or as the total number of nucleotide base pairs, usually in megabases (millions of base pairs, abbreviated Mb or Mbp). One picogram is equal to 978 megabases. In diploid organisms, genome size is often used interchangeably with the term C-value. An organism's complexity is not directly proportional to its genome size; total DNA content is widely variable between biological taxa. Some single-celled organisms have much more DNA than humans, for reasons that remain unclear (see Junk DNA and C-value). Variation in genome size and gene content Since the 1950s, with the emergence of various molecular techniques, the genome sizes of thousands of eukaryotes have been analyzed, and these data are available in online databases for animals, plants, and fung ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, and the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, eco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faculty (teaching Staff)
Academic staff, also known as faculty (in North American usage) or academics (in British, Australia, and New Zealand usage), are vague terms that describe teachers or research staff of a school, college, university or research institute. In British and Australian/New Zealand English, "faculty" usually refers to a sub-division of a university (usually the teaching/research staff of one or a group of departments). In contrast, in North America "faculty" refers to the people who teach and research, and is distinguished from "staff", who are hired in administrative, operations, and support roles. For example the ''Faculty Handbook'' at Boston University defines faculty as Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors, those with professorial titles modified by “Research,” “Clinical,” and “of the Practice, Lecturers of all ranks, and Instructors. In the United States and parts of Canada, universities, community colleges and even some secondary and primary schools use the ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
