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  • January 20, 2021
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LAUNCH Helps Students Gain Experience for Future Careers

Arjun Patel
The LAUNCH program offered through UCSD Extension provides students with an opportunity to gain hands-on experience Read More

What Does a Biology Major Mean?

SQ Staff
When you ask a UC San Diego undergraduate what their major is, their answer is likely to be one of the biology categories--which is not too surprising when you consider the fact that 21% of UCSD undergraduates are biology majors. There are nine majors within the biological division. Read More

The Letter for Your Future

Safwan Haque
BSSA recently held a seminar covering important aspects of procuring a good letter of recommendation. Read More

Scripps Oceanography Scientists Offer Free Course

Arjun Patel
Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography are offering a free massive open online course (MOOC) through Coursera Read More

Re-evaluating the Smoking Ban

Jennifer Ji Park
In the past, groups of cigarette smokers were commonly seen walking out of Geisel Library to gather... Read More

Making a Difference in Mexico

Natalya Ballard
It’s a Saturday morning, and the clinic trip volunteers shuffle through the door, many carrying boxes full of supplies... Read More

The Odd Ones Out

Vaishali Talwar
What do many doctors, scientists, lawyers, lobbyists, writers and administrators have in common? A degree in biology!... Read More

BSSA: Expanding Horizons

SQ Staff
Emphasizing the importance of their motto, “Educate, Enrich, Empower”, the Biological Sciences Student Association (BSSA) at... Read More

Abroad-en Your View

Humphrey Lin
For Mary Jade Farruggia, studying abroad during her spring quarter was anything but ordinary. Stepping out... Read More

Doing Bio Right

Anna Alvarado
It is that time of the year once again. Fall quarter is under way and for many... Read More

About SQ Online

SQ Online is part of the Saltman Quarterly program, a biology student organization committed to communicating science and research. The late Dr. Paul Saltman inspired the program’s creation, and the Saltman Family continues to generously support our efforts. For more on Dr. Saltman’s legacy, read our tributes.

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Hi everyone! We hope your first week back in class Hi everyone! We hope your first week back in classes is going well. Just last month we shared the article “Finding a ‘True Blue’ Friend in Nature” on our website and wanted to share it here as well! 

“On campus at UC San Diego, blue is a bountiful color, from the clear skies and great weather to the Pacific Ocean at our beaches. But despite the seeming abundance of blue in the world around us, blue still remains fairly rare in nature’s plants and animals. Blue pigments in plants are typically unstable due to their chemical properties.”
The bird on the second slide seems blue, but has no blue pigment at all! This is because they “rely on the use of structural color—tiny physical structures on the body that interfere with light to create the optical illusion of the color blue.”
“By using the right mechanism and pathway, animals are able to consume, modify, and eventually incorporate those pigments into their own bodies. However, animals that consume blue plants do not exhibit this same characteristic, and don’t integrate the blue pigments from their foods into their own physiological colors.”
“Although blue plants exist, the chemical instability of anthocyanin pigments make blue shades largely subject to their environments. As a result, blue anthocyanin pigments in plants might be too sensitive to pH for animals to consume them and incorporate them into their own bodies as the same shade.”

Thank you to our reporter Helen Zhu, illustrator Sara Kian, and photographer Bridget Spencer for the fascinating article! If you’d like to read more on this article, or any of our other articles, please go to sqonline.ucsd.edu. Have a great week 1!
Merry Christmas everyone! We wanted to share one o Merry Christmas everyone! We wanted to share one of our featured articles from this year!
Early June, we shared the article, “Petri Dish to Big Picture: How Microbes Inspire Creativity,” to talk about Agar Art, an annual competition accepting submissions by petri dish rather than canvas. "Every year, scientists and artists together embark on a quest to create paintings with a rather unorthodox material: microbes. These tiny organisms–bacteria, yeast, and more–are often invisible to our eyes in individual numbers, yet they are found almost everywhere–from the bottom of the ocean to our own tongues. 
“Painting” with microbes can be difficult due to their sporadic growing times and diverse life cycles.
Sticky E. coli bacteria are pushed outward by the more mobile A. baylyi bacteria, forming “petal” shapes that together create a flower-shaped biofilm. This flower pattern is one example of a biofilm, which forms when one or more species of microorganism grow together. Biofilms are found everywhere–hydrothermal vents in the ocean’s depths, showers and pipes throughout our cities, and even in our large intestines and plaque on our teeth.
Paying attention to the natural patterns of life can inspire new perspectives on traditional processes, like those of creating a painting or conducting a scientific experiment. "
You can find this article and more on our website, sqonline.ucsd.edu. 
Thanks to illustrator Arya Natarajan for the cool artwork! Happy Holidays :)
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