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MECHANISMS OF PLOIDY. "Polyploids (individuals carrying more than two sets of chromosomes) can originate through a variety of pathways. These include the somatic doubling of chromosomes in meristematic tissue during mitosis and, perhaps more commonly, unreduced gametes." https://lnkd.in/es_dhAz View in LinkedIn

DEVILS AND DETAILS. "Hybridization between diploids and tetraploids can lead to new allopolyploid species, often via a triploid intermediate. Viable triploids are often produced asymmetrically, with greater success observed for “maternal-excess” crosses where the mother has a higher ploidy than the father." https://lnkd.in/es_dhAz View in LinkedIn

SPIN CYCLE CENTRALITY. "I suggest that this perspective is central to much of plant biology, a proposal bolstered by the realization that the size and functional diversification of contemporary plant multi-gene family structures, gene expression patterns, and genic contexts all represent the culmination of this repeated “wash–rinse–repeat” cycle of polyploidization followed by nonrandom and incomplete diploidization." http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2015/10/09/ajb.1500320 View in LinkedIn

FAVORED GENE SETS. "How does our new view of the genesis of modern flowering plant genome organization impact our understanding of plant evolution, form, and function?" http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2015/10/09/ajb.1500320 View in LinkedIn

DURABLE TRACES. "This phenomenon, termed biased fractionation, has been widely observed across angiosperm lineages, and leaves evolutionary footprints that may remain visible for at least 60 million years." http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2015/10/09/ajb.1500320 View in LinkedIn

PREFERRED GENOME. "A second intriguing aspect of the diploidization process is that it may be nonrandom with respect to retention of the ancestral progenitor genomes. Phrased alternatively, it has been suggested that one of the two genomes is preferentially retained, often with higher gene expression levels than in the more fractionated genome." http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2015/10/09/ajb.1500320 View in LinkedIn

HYPOTHESES FOR SELECTIVITY. "A number of nonmutually exclusive explanations have been forwarded to account for these patterns, including differences in the propensity of genes to experience neutral or selectively imposed subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization, constraints imposed by dosage considerations, and the need for stoichiometric balance in multiprotein complexes." http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2015/10/09/ajb.1500320 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS a peek at the work of a remarkable scientist who changed biology. This moment in the history of life science was rekindled by a similar firestorm in 2010 when Craig Venter claimed he had created a new branch to the tree of life, Synthia. The reaction of the public and of fellow scientists was equally split between superlative praise and a deluge of denunciation. https://lnkd.in/eQz5W6N View in LinkedIn

NOBEL CANDIDATE. "In 1901 Loeb was a finalist for the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine." View in LinkedIn

ABIOGENESIS. "But we see that plants and animals during their growth continually transform dead into living matter, and that the chemical processes in living matter do not differ in principle from those in dead matter. There is, therefore, no reason to predict that abiogenesis is impossible, and I believe that it can only help science if the younger investigators realize that experimental abiogenesis is the goal of biology.” (Contrary to the maxim: "only life begets life"). https://lnkd.in/exkuKab View in LinkedIn