Microorganisms are the dominant life forms on earth, are found in almost every conceivable environment, and are essential to sustaining life on this planet.
In this Science Update from Science NetLinks, features an interview with Yoshihiro Kawaoko a virologist at the University of Wisconsin. In this interview, Kawako describes what made 1918 flu virus, which killed 20 million people, so deadly.
The authors of the research presented in this special collection used the first description of the B73 maize genome to probe some of the most intriguing questions in genetics and plant biology. Read about maize centromeres, new insights into transposon types and distribution, the abundance of very short FLcDNAs encoding predicted peptides, and many other "genetic jewels" contained herein.
3D FractaL-Tree allows scientists to collect data from actual specimens in the field or laboratory, insert these measurements into a spatially explicit L-system package, and then visually compare to the computer generated 3D image with such specimens. The measurements are recorded and analyzed in a series of worksheets in Microsoft ExcelíŹ and the results are entered into the graphics engine in a Java applet. 3D FractaL-Tree produces a rotatable three-dimensional image of the tree which is helpful for examining such characters as self-avoidance (entanglement and breakage), penetration of sunlight, distances that small herbivores (such as caterpillars) would have to traverse to go from one tip to another, and Voronoi polyhedra of volume distribution of biomass on different subsections of a tree. These and other factors have been discussed in the Adaptive Geometry of Trees (Horn, 1971). Three different representations are available in 3D FractaL-Tree images: wire frame, solid, and transparent. Easy options for saving and exporting images are included.
This interactive L-system simulation produces visualizations of tree forms based on data from specimens in the field or laboratory.
