Friday, salt, and plants

This week is a special week in the Entomology department because we're handing out the Distinguished Alumnus Award, so there's lots of food and meetings and, tonight, special receptions where the department gives us free booze. And I'm still paleo. Sigh! 

The fellow in question is a Coleoptera (beetle) guy, and definitely looks like a stud on paper. I hear he's amiable and a genuinely cool guy, so I am excited to hear his lecture and chat with him over lunch and/or dinner.

Anyway. A little science fact I thought was interesting comes from this week's Science Notes (October 19th, 2012). Originally published in Plant Journal, it was noted by McLoughlin et al. * that too much salt is bad for plants (as well as people!). This makes intuitive sense, but it's nice to read. And, it also was interesting (to me) that the author noted that, for plants, salt stress and drought stress are linked. Again... it makes intuitive sense, but it's nice to read some more intuitive research making the pages of Science. Granted, genes were involved -- in this case, snrk2.4 and snrk2.10 -- but you don't necessarily have to know the methods behind protein signaling to understand the basic premise and conclusions.

Too much salt is bad -- bad for us and bad for those leafy things we're supposed to be consuming the most of (a la Michael Pollan). In plants, too much salt invokes a response similar to drought stress, because the extra sodium is literally pulling water out of the cells. In humans -- similar phenomenon! I'm not a doctor and I struggle with my diet, but I can only imagine the complexities that happen in our body, with all it's moving parts and signaling pathways, if we flood the system with excess sodium. Does it mess up our sodium-ion channels? My guess is yes. But, perhaps that's getting a bit off topic.

Also:
What a PhD in chemistry looks like --- through dance!

I'm excited for this weekend, not only because I'm gonna get a lot of work done, but also because I'm going to be watching a cute little ginger-haired fellow for an afternoon. I guess I'd better get started on all that work!
Be well, stay strong, and keep moving.


*McLoughlin, F.,Galvan-Ampudia, C.S., Julkowska, M.M., Caarls, L., van der Does, D., Laurière, C., Munnik, T., Haring, M.A., Testerink, C. 2012. The Snf1-related protein kinases SnRK2.4 and SnRK2.10 are involved in maintenance of root system architecture during salt stress. Plant J. 10.1111/j.1365-313X.2012.05089.x