The eukaryotic bZIP transcription factors are critical players in organismal response to environmental challenges. In fungi, the production of secondary metabolites (SMs) is hypothesized as one of the responses to environmental...
Cayo Cochino Pequeño (CCP) is a western Caribbean island with a surface area of only 0.64 km2 in the Cayos Cochinos Archipelago, Department of Islas de la Bahía, Honduras. It is relatively ecologically complex, with high...
Inquiry-based undergraduate laboratories provide the opportunity to engage students in a research experience that improves scientific thinking, but such activities can be difficult to develop and implement due to limited time...
For more information on the published version, visit Oxford's Website., Wohlbach, Dana J., Betania F. Quirino, and Michael R. Sussman. "Analysis of the Arabidopsis Histidine Kinase ATHK1 Reveals a Connection between Vegetative...
Constricting snakes must balance the energetic cost of constriction with the potential danger in releasing their prey too early. Therefore, it would be advantageous for these snakes to possess a mechanism to determine the...
Foraging behavior can have population-level effects that are of interest for wildlife management. For invasive species, foraging behavior has been tied to establishment ability and rate of spread and is generally of import in...
Boback, Scott M., and D. Mark Carpenter. "Body Size and Head Shape of Island Boa constrictor in Belize: Environmental Versus Genetic Contributions." In Biology of the Boas and Pythons, edited by Robert W. Henderson and Robert...
Boback, Scott M. "Body Size Evolution in Snakes: Evidence from Island Populations." Copeia 2003, no.1 (2003): 81-94., The current literature reports divergent conclusions on the patterns of body size change in island snakes. I...
The cytokinetic contractile ring (CR) was first described some 50 years ago, however our understanding of the assembly and structure of the animal cell CR remains incomplete. We recently reported that mature CRs in sea urchin...
Steffen, John E., Kyle M. Learn, Jonathan S. Drumheller, Scott M. Boback, and Kevin J. McGraw. "Carotenoid Composition of Colorful Body Stripes and Patches in the Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) and Red-Eared Slider...
For more information on the published version, visit PNAS's Website., Cellulosic biomass is an abundant and underused substrate for biofuel production. The inability of many microbes to metabolize the pentose sugars abundant...
Boback, Scott M., Christian L. Cox, Brian D. Ott, Rachel Carmody, Richard W. Wrangham, and Stephen M. Secor. "Cooking and Grinding Reduces the Cost of Meat Digestion". Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular &...
For more information on the published version, visit The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptile's Website., We describe here a device that allows a large number of venomous snakes to be transported and manipulated...
Curriculum guidelines for virology are needed to best guide student learning due to the continuous and ever-increasing volume of virology information, the need to ensure that undergraduate and graduate students have a...
Systems biology is a comprehensive means of creating a complete understanding of how all components of an organism work together to maintain and procreate life. By quantitatively profiling one at a time, the effect of thousands...
The demography of a painted turtle Chrysemys picta picta X C. p. marginata population from a eutrophic habitat was examined at a wetland site in south-central Pennsylvania (USA) during 2011–2019. Males reached sexual maturity...
Boback, Scott M., Erik K. Dichter, and Hemlata L. Mistry. "A Developmental Staging Series for the African House Snake, Boaedon (Lamprophis) fuliginosus." Zoology 115, no. 1 (2012): 38-46., Embryonic staging series are important...
For more information on the published version, visit BioOne's Website., Cayo Cochino Pequeño is a 0.64-km Caribbean island in the Cayos Cochinos archipelago, Department of Islas de la Bahía, Honduras. One published report noted...
For more information on the published version, visit Cambridge University Press's Website., Studies of recently isolated populations are useful because observed differences can often be attributed to current environmental...
Reed, Robert N., and Scott M. Boback. "Does Body Size Predict Dates of Species Description among North American and Australian Reptiles and Amphibians?" Global Ecology and Biogeography 11, no.1 (2002): 41-48., Which factors...
Reed, Robert N., Scott M. Boback, Chad E. Montgomery, Stephen Green, Zoe Stevens, and Daniel Watson. "Ecology and Conservation of an Exploited Insular Population of Boa constrictor (Squamata: Biodae) on the Cayos Cochinos,...
For more information on the published version, visit Herpetological Conservation and Biology's Website., Koons, David N., Roger D. Birkhead, Scott M. Boback, Matthew I. Williams, and Matthew P. Greene. "The Effect of Body Size...
According to previous studies, vermicompost has been found to promote beneficial organisms, nutrient life, transplant growth and disease suppression in potting soils and aqueous extracts. The objective of our study was to test...
Boback, Scott M., and Craig Guyer. "Empirical Evidence for an Optimal Body Size in Snakes." Evolution 57, no. 2 (2003): 345-351., For more information on the published version, visit Wiley's Website., and The concept of optimal...
Cruciferous plants produce sulforaphane (SFN), an inhibitor of nuclear histone deacetylases (HDACs). In humans and other mammals, the consumption of SFN alters enzyme activities, DNA-histone binding, and gene expression within...
The objectives of this research were to understand and use HEC-HMS, a hydrological model developed by US Army Corps of Engineers, to develop a method to document land use changes over time in a small watershed, and to evaluate...
A nematocyst is a specialized organelle within cells of jellyfish and other Cnidarians that sting. Nematocysts are also present in some single-celled protists. They contain a barbed venomous thread that accelerates faster than...
For more information on the published version, visit Science Direct's Website., Regulatory divergence is likely a major driving force in evolution. Comparative transcriptomics provides a new glimpse into the evolution of gene...
Convergent evolution is often documented in organisms inhabiting isolated environments with distinct ecological conditions and similar selective regimes. Several Central America islands harbor dwarf Boa populations that are...
Chemical biologists commonly seek out correlations between the physicochemical properties of molecules and their behavior in biological systems. However, a new paradigm is emerging for peptides in which conformation is...
The fermentation of lignocellulose-derived sugars, particularly xylose, into ethanol by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is known to be inhibited by compounds produced during feedstock pretreatment. We devised a strategy that...
Horn flies are a common pest to cattle in agroecosystems resulting in economic losses of hundreds of millions (USD) to farmers annually. Their populations can be controlled through the use of insect growth regulators (IGRs),...
This study seeks to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which the acute myeloid leukemia cell line, HL-60, is induced to differentiate into macrophage-like cells following exposure to phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)....
The main research question we chose to investigate is: what are the combined impacts of ocean acidification and nutrition on larval shell growth, metamorphosis, and juvenile growth in the gastropod Crepidula fornicata? Based on...
For more information on the published version, visit Wiley's Website. https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.21519, Kushner, David B. "Introducing SELEX Via a Semester-Long Course-Based Undergraduate Research...
Animal movements reflect temporal and spatial availability of resources as well as when, where, and how individuals access such resources. To test these relationships for a predatory reptile, we quantified the effects of prey...
Mevalonate kinase deficiency (MKD) occurs in patients with mutations in the mevalonate kinase (MVK) gene, which is responsible for the phosphorylation of mevalonate in the mevalonate pathway. Patients with MKD exhibit a...
See related Poster in Dickinson Scholar: https://scholar.dickinson.edu/student_work/52 and Since 2011 the Dickinson College Farm has been used as a living laboratory for student researchers, investigating organisms within an...
Since 2011 the Dickinson College Farm has been used as a living laboratory for student researchers, investigating organisms within an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. IPM is a technique used to control pest insects...
The evolution of constriction and of large prey ingestion within snakes are key innovations that may explain the remarkable diversity, distribution and ecological scope of this clade, relative to other elongate vertebrates....
For more information on the published version, visit American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists's Website., Relative to mainland Boa constrictor , boas from islands off the coast of Belize aredescribed as being...
Canonical Wnt/β-catenin (cWnt) signaling is a crucial regulator of development and Dishevelled (Dsh/Dvl) functions as an integral part of this pathway by linking Wnt binding to the Frizzled:LRP5/6 receptor complex with...