Profile

• Time Zone

  Pacific

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I am a plant evolutionary biologist interested in how the extraordinary diversity of plants came to be. I use genetic sequence data to investigate relationships between different plants. Knowing the relationships between plants then allows me to study other aspects of their evolutionary history, such as how different traits have evolved or how plant distributions have changed over time.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is best about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  Being a scientist means your job is to follow your curiosity to figure something out that no human has ever known before. You are creating new knowledge that not only makes the world more interesting, but could also have big benefits to society. If you are studying something you are truly passionate about, there is nothing more fulfilling than being a scientist.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is the coolest thing you have discovered or learned about plants?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  There are so many cool things about plants; it's hard to name just one. But one very cool group of plants are the pitcher plants of Southeast Asia, in the genus Nepenthes. The tips of their leaves form pitchers or cups, which fill with water and enzymes that digest any animals that have the misfortune of falling in and drowning. The leaves can then absorb the nutrients from the animal's digested body. One species in this group has evolved not to capture animals, but attracts small mammals to pee in its pitchers. Pee has a lot of nutrients which the leaves can absorb.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is a typical day like for you?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  There is no typical day for me, which is part of the fun of being a plant scientist. Some days, I am doing fieldwork, perhaps in the wilds of a faraway country looking for plants. Some days, I am in the lab, working with DNA to get gene sequence data. Some days, I am working on the computer to analyze the sequence data. Some days, I am reading papers about exciting new discoveries or writing one of my own.

  
  

Recent Posts

kool krew John Chau Nov 29, 2017

Sounds like you got another interesting result! What possible explanations have you thought of for why the light green leaves had the most floaters (=did the most photosynthesis)?

The results from your second assay show the importance of having…

more

Sounds like you got another interesting result! What possible explanations have you thought of for why the light green leaves had the most floaters (=did the most photosynthesis)?

The results from your second assay show the importance of having replicates when doing a scientific experiment. During any one procedure, all sorts of different things can happen to affect the results you get. When you repeat the experiment many times, the most probable result hopefully comes through.

phswcrogersfall2017 project 1 John Chau Nov 15, 2017

Hello,

Looks like you guys are planning to look at how salinity (amount of salt in water) affects plants. Sounds great!

What will you measure to determine if there is an effect? In other words, how will you determine if spinach is…

more

Hello,

Looks like you guys are planning to look at how salinity (amount of salt in water) affects plants. Sounds great!

What will you measure to determine if there is an effect? In other words, how will you determine if spinach is "growing" or "dying"?

-John

kool krew John Chau Nov 15, 2017

Hello,

Great reasoning about your first assay and explaining the mechanism behind what you saw. One small clarification about why the leaf disks float: It is true that oxygen gas accumulates in the leaves when photosynthesis occurs, causing them…

more

Hello,

Great reasoning about your first assay and explaining the mechanism behind what you saw. One small clarification about why the leaf disks float: It is true that oxygen gas accumulates in the leaves when photosynthesis occurs, causing them to rise, but it is not due to the leaves "absorbing" oxygen from water. During photosynthesis, water molecules are broken apart and oxygen gas is produced as a by-product of that reaction.

For your second assay, it sounds like you got an interesting result. Oftentimes, unexpected results are the most interesting! How long were the leaf disks in each treatments, ex. # minutes in light, then # minutes in dark? For the light to dark treatment, do you think all the oxygen produced during photosynthesis in light would be consumed by respiration in dark? In other words, do you think the rates of photosynthesis and respiration are equal (assuming times in light and dark were equal)?

 

Let's talk about your own experiment in more detail. Have you thought about the questions I asked you before?

I see now that you are planning to measure the number of floaters in each treatment. But you predict temperature will affect the rate of photosynthesis, so how will the number of floaters tell you something about rate?

What specific temperatures will you use for your 3 treatments? Do you think it matters the specific temperatures you use? For example, for the warm treatment, do you predict that photosynthesis will be faster at both 30 and 100 degrees C?

-John