Page 1/2 Biologists use computers to study bacterial cell division A group of computational … to construct a hypothetical ‘wiring diagram’ of … A basic experiment is to create a mutant … Page 1/2 Biologists use computers to study bacterial cell division A group of computational biologists at Virginia Tech have created a mathematical model of the process that regulates cell division in a common bacterium, confirming hypotheses, providing new insights, identifying gaps in what is understood so far, and demonstrating the role of …
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Until now Indonesia is the biggest exporter for ornamental corals, for both wild and cultured. Coral collecting activity is potentially decreasing the number of species and population in nature. To minimize the pressure on nature, since 2002 government has required companies/traders to culture the ornamental corals. Government hopes in some years ahead, cultured corals may gradually replace the wild corals harvesting. (more…)

Description: Coral reefs are the ocean’s equivalent to terrestrial rainforests. By providing a protective habitat, they offer sanctuary to arguably the most diverse plant and animal communities of any marine system. Fish and invertebrates thrive on coral reefs, particularly areas with high coral diversity, because of the abundant and varied food sources, the variety of niches to inhabit, and the opportunities to reproduce. (more…)

Coral reefs ( kohola ) are among the most productive ecosystems on earth, even more than the densest rainforests of Hawai`i and South America. Kohola support such an enormous amount of organisms that they are as much as 100 times more productive. It is estimated that coral reefs make up only two-tenths of a percent (0.2%) of the world’s ocean, but provides 11% of the world’s fish harvest. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, which is approximately 2300 km. in length, is the largest single (more…)

The Department of the Interior protects sensitive habitats amounting to about 3,600,000 acres of coral reefs and other submerged lands. These reefs are important ecosystems in 13 National Wildlife Refuges, 10 National Parks and in certain territorial waters such as the Wake Atoll. Over the past several decades, there have been over 34 documented mass mortalities involving corals, sponges, urchins, (more…)

Signal Transduction: Intracellular Kinases Kinases are integral parts of signal transduction cascades and they regulate virtually all cellular functions. Therefore, it is of critical importance to have quality tools that make it easy to study kinases and their activities. R&D Systems offers a range of tools to study intracellular kinases. These include a wide selection of total and phospho-specific antibodies, and assay (more…)

The Education Commission’s education blueprint for the 21st Century, Learning for life, learning through life – Reform proposals for the Education System in Hong Kong (EC, 2000), highlighted the vital need for a broad knowledge base to enable our students to function effectively in a global and technological society such as Hong Kong, and all subsequent consultation reports have echoed this. (more…)

Synthetic biology aims to design and build new biological parts and systems or to modify existing ones to carry out novel tasks. It is an emerging research area, described by one researcher as “moving from reading the genetic code to writing it.”1 Prospects include new therapeutics, environmental biosensors and novel methods to produce food, drugs, chemicals or energy. This POSTnote outlines recent (more…)

One of the major challenges for computer scientists who wish to work in the domain of molecular biology is becoming conversant with the daunting intricacies of existing biological knowledge and its extensive technical vocabulary. Questions about the origin, function, and structure of living systems have been pursued by nearly all cultures throughout history, and the work of the last two generations has (more…)

What follows are my lecture notes for Math 365: Mathematical Biology, taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This applied mathematics course is primarily for final year mathematics major and minor students. Other students are also welcome to enroll, but must have the necessary mathematical skills. My main emphasis is on mathematical modeling, with biology the sole (more…)