Wes Dingman
Recent Stories
Notes from Planet Earth
Maternal behavior of a different sort
Can we learn from a worm?
Notes from Planet Earth
The short answer is yes — most decidedly. In fact this worm, known as Caenorhabditis elegans has played an important role in biologic science since 1974.
Complications in causes, cures of cancer
Notes from Planet Earth
Humans have been struggling with cancer for centuries but it has been only in the last 100 years that many of the root causes of cancer have been revealed.
Do fungi deserve more respect?
Notes from Planet Earth
As far as we know, fungi have been around at least as long as plants have and both apparently originated as marine organisms perhaps as much as a billion years ago.
Talking Trash
Notes from Planet Earth
Trash, prominent in the aftermath of the holiday season, is not a pleasant topic, but neither is it a hopeless topic
Planet Earth: Should we assign humans to a new Geological Epoch?
Notes from the North Woods
As earth scientists began to better understand and read Earth’s history from the detailed chemistry and ages of various rock formations and the fossils within them, they found that Earth’s history could be divided into different ages which they called “Eras.”
Does life have its lessons?
Notes from Planet Earth
The natural world seems to make the most it can out of apparent waste (in the form of animal excrement and dead organisms) by recycling it all very efficiently and effectively.
What does it take to alter one’s offspring?
Notes from the North Woods
Given that our current understanding of the mechanisms of inheritance has undergone major revisions over the past fifty years, I thought a brief review of our current knowledge was in order.
Can we build a brain?
Notes from Planet Earth
In the late 1950s, a colleague and I installed a biochemistry lab for the purpose of doing research in brain biochemistry in a building devoted to the teaching of psychiatry.
Can we bioengineer a renewable fuel?
Among alternative renewable fuels currently being researched for efficacy, algae has sparked considerable interest.