Posts Tagged: transformation

Shedding New Light on Honey Bee Chromosomes

Honey bee geneticists with long ties to UC Davis are putting together those missing pieces of the puzzle involving bee chromosomes. Newly published...

"The honey bee genome,” Robert Page Jr. explained, “is composed of about 15,000 genes, each of which operates within a complex network of genes, doing its small, or large, share of work in building the bee, keeping its internal functions operating, or helping it function and behave in its environment. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

"The honey bee genome,” Robert Page Jr. explained, “is composed of about 15,000 genes, each of which operates within a complex network of genes, doing its small, or large, share of work in building the bee, keeping its internal functions operating, or helping it function and behave in its environment. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey bee geneticist Robert Page Jr. (left) with colleagues: bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk of UC Davis, and Martin Beye, former postdoctoral fellow in the Page lab and now a professor at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Honey bee geneticist Robert Page Jr. (left) with colleagues: bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk of UC Davis, and Martin Beye, former postdoctoral fellow in the Page lab and now a professor at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Being Philosophical

It’s as if during the transformation of summer to fall, that the earth (substitute here whatever you like, world, universe, creator, etc.) is being philosophical. It’s expressing its grasp on the understanding that all things change.  We get to see the explanation of that lesson through the changes that we see around us. Sometimes the beauty of the change of a season is magnificent and awe-inspiring. The leaves change colors and some plants flourish. Sometimes the reality of the change hits us as we look at bare trees or blackened plants after a hard freeze. We are left only with the memory of what once was or the joy it brought us. With that thought, I decided to root around (pardon the pun) for some quotes that might express more clearly what many of us gardeners and non-gardeners feel during this thoughtful time.

“He plants trees to benefit another generation.”—Caecilius Statius

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”—May Sarton

“I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.”—Phyllis Theroux

“If a tree dies, plant another in its place.” –Carolus Linnaeus

 “Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.”—Robert Browning

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”—Albert Camus

 

 

 

Magnificent sunset. (photo by Patricia Brantley)

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