Biodiversity Blog

Friday, 25 September 2020

BFL to the Rescue: Helping Instructors Teach During a Pandemic

 All lined up and ready to learn. (Photo: Larry Gilbert) It’s a hot late August afternoon. Classes have started for UT students, but this year things look a little different. Fifteen minutes from campus, at Brackenridge Field Lab (BFL), ecology students stand ready, six feet apart, notebooks in hand, masks covering their mouths and noses. D...

Monday, 06 April 2020

Some Virus History and Origins

   Illustration: Nicole Elmer The history of viruses is difficult to trace because they don’t exist in the fossil record. Unlike our beloved dinosaurs, viruses don’t have bones that can be fossilized, and they are just too small and fragile. However, there is another way viruses can make their mark in the fossil record, and that’s th...