News and Noteworthy

Spatiotemporal restriction of FUSCA3 by class I BPCs promotes ovule development and coordinates embryo and endosperm growth

Congratulations to Professor Gazzarrini and her group for their outstanding work on identifying an important regulatory component for coordinating ovule and seed development.  Their recent paper in The Plant Cell, the field’s premier journal, was also highlighted in a brief on the journal’s website.

Wu J, Mohamed D, Dowhanik S, Petrella R, Gregis V, Li J, Wu L and Gazzarrini S (2020) Spatiotemporal restriction of FUSCA3 by class I BPCs promotes ovule development and coordinates embryo and endosperm growth. The Plant Cell. Published April 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00764

Genetic study sheds light on the origin of kiwi birds

Professor Jason Weir and his team at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, published a new paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing evidence that New Zealand's kiwi birds are much newer than previously thought. Read the full article here.

Pioneer Collaboration To Save Local Species

Researchers at the Department of Biological Sciences collaborate with Parks Canada and the Toronto Zoo, in order to help threatened species in the Rouge Valley. The project started with the release of 36 radio-transmittor-tagged Blanding turtles into restored wetlands of the park, which would allow the researchers to track  their activity in the wild. The full story is available here.

UTSC's Canadian Centre for World Hunger Research Partnership

UTSC's Canadian Centre for World Hunger Research (CCWHR, headed by Herbert Kronzucker) has partnered with the Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN) and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health to launch a new joint ‘Public Health Diagnostics Initiative’ (PHDi) on health and nutrition, which has received a major funding award from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (at UT St. George).  As one of five projects in the initiative, the CCWHR will collaborate with engineers to develop a low-cost nanoparticle-based soil-fertility sensor for rice fields, to be deployed in developing nations.
Congratulations Herbert!

New Findings on the mating call of Tree Crickets

Our Chair, Andrew Mason, makes loud noise – as loud as the mating calls of the tree crickets!
Professor Andrew Mason’s recent paper, published in Biology Letters, was highlighted in the Washington Post, Science Daily, and UTSC news! Congratulations Andrew!
See the paper here.