Doug Bailey

I’m sorry to have to tell you that Doug Bailey died peacefully at his home on Monday (16th Jan) after a long battle with cancer. Doug was a Director of Research at INRA and was seconded as an INRA Visiting Fellow to work in the Department in the Epidemiology & Modelling Group.

Those who knew Doug well will remember him as a kind and generous colleague. He was an accomplished researcher with a remarkable ability to communicate the excitement and value of epidemiological research to experimenters, theoreticians, farmers and regulators. Others in the Department may not know much about Doug’s background and his contributions to research and I add an all too brief summary below. We shall miss him dearly.

Doug began his career in the University as a technical assistant in my group in the Dept of Applied Biology, transferring to Botany/Plant Sciences in 1989. He had previously worked at the Plant Breeding Institute and before that as a tractor driver for Pemberton Farms. Doug was an accomplished and much sought-after footballer with opportunities to play for major clubs but he decided instead to concentrate on a career in science, reading for a part-time degree at Anglia, from which he graduated with a first. This was followed by a part-time PhD with the Open University while continuing to work in the Epidemiology Group. Doug then completed several successful postdoc positions with us before being head-hunted by INRA to establish epidemiological programmes first on vine diseases in Bordeaux and then on soil-borne diseases in Rennes.

Doug was a remarkable experimenter with the rare gift of understanding how to interface experimentation with mathematical models in order to gain insight into the mechanisms of how diseases spread and to test that insight rigorously in both microcosms and in extensive field experiments. Doug produced seminal work on the roles of primary and secondary infection in the spread of disease. He pioneered research on disease-induced host growth, in which he showed how low levels of infection stimulate plants to over-compensate for infection by producing more leaves or roots that act as ‘stepping-stones’ to favour disease spread. He also carried out a series of elegant experiments on scaling from individual to population behaviour in epidemics. These experiments led to the first successful experimental test of percolation theory to predict disease invasion. Doug’s microcosm experiments in which he could study not only epidemiological mechanisms but the variability amongst replicate epidemics also led to new insights into how to improve the effectiveness of biological control of soil-borne pathogens by exploiting knowledge of the mechanisms and potential for variability. Doug’s research on primary and secondary infection in take-all of wheat was adopted by the Home Grown Cereals to explain the much–studied phenomenon of take-all decline in cereals, with related work impacting on sugar-beet diseases.

Doug’s work, matched with his enthusiasm and ever-friendly and helpful support, have endeared him to many and left a lasting legacy in laboratories here and in France and amongst many colleagues around the world.

Chris Gilligan

BBC Horizon covers Cambridge iGEM2012

Adam Rutherford meets the Cambridge iGEM2011 team, and Cat McMurran describes the use of squid reflectins as a biological source of iridescence. The iGEM team built reflectin biobricks for expression of the protein and production of iridescent films that response dynamically to changes in hydration. A video clip of the interview can be found here at the BBC website. The full programme is broadcast on Feb 17th at 9:30pm on BBC2, or can be played back on the BBC iPlayer. More information about the iGEM competition at the University of Cambridge can be found at: http://www.synbio.org.uk/cambridge/cambridge-igem-teams.html.

iGEM2011 wiki - iGEM2011 team wiki for Cambridge - Engineering iridescence.

iGEM2011 overview - Summary of iGEM2011 team and their research efforts.

Video:.

Extraordinary transgressive phenotypes of hybrid tomato are influenced by epigenetics and small silencing RNAs

New research from Dr Shivaprasad in the Baulcombe group explains why hybrid plants are sometimes much more vigorous or much weaker than the parents. Their findings that have been published recently in the EMBO Journal (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/emboj.2011.458) will influence thinking about evolutionary mechanisms and the use of hybrid plants in agriculture.

Scientists discover why buttercups reflect yellow on chins – and it doesn’t have anything to do with whether you like butter

New research sheds light on children's game and provides insight into pollination

Scientists have found that the distinctive glossiness of the buttercup flower (Ranunculus repens), which children like to shine under the chin to test whether their friends like butter, is related to its unique anatomical structure. Their findings were published today, 14 December, in the Royal Society journal Interface.

The researchers discovered that the buttercup petal's unique bright and glossy appearance is the result of the interplay between its different layers. In particular, the strong yellow reflection responsible for the chin illumination is mainly due to the epidermal layer of the petal that reflects yellow light with an intensity that is comparable to glass.

Scientists have been interested in how the buttercup flower works for over a century. They have previously shown that the reflected colour is yellow due to the absorption of the colours in the blue-green region of the spectrum by the carotenoid pigment in the petals. As the blue-green light is absorbed, the light in the other spectral regions (in this case, primarily yellow) is reflected. It has also been known for many years that the epidermal layer of the petals is composed of very flat cells, providing strong reflection.

This new study shows how the buttercup's exceptionally bright appearance is a result of a special feature of the petal structure. The epidermal layer of cells has not one but two extremely flat surfaces from which light is reflected. One is the top of the cells, the other exists because the epidermis is separated from the lower layers of the petal by an air gap. Reflection of light by the smooth surface of the cells and by the air layer effectively doubles the gloss of the petal, explaining why buttercups are so much better at reflecting light under your chin than any other flower.

The researchers also found that the buttercup reflects a significant amount of UV light. As many pollinators, including bees, have eyes sensitive in the UV region, this provides insight into how the buttercup uses its unique appearance to attract insects.

Dr Silvia Vignolini, from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physics (Cavendish Laboratory), explained the importance of the buttercup’s unique appearance: "Although many different factors, such as scent and temperature, influence the relationships between pollinators and flowers, the visual appearance of flowers is one of the most important factors in this communication. Flowers develop brilliant colour, or additional cues, such as glossiness - in the case of the buttercup - that contribute to make the optical response of the flower unique. Moreover, the glossiness might also mimic the presence of nectar droplets on the petals, making them that much more attractive."

Dr Beverley Glover, Department of Plant Sciences, said: "This phenomenon has intrigued scientists and laymen alike for centuries. Our research provides exciting insight into not only a children’s game but also into the lengths to which flowers will go to attract pollinators."

Professor Ulli Steiner, from the Nanophotonics Centre at the Cavendish Laboratory, the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physics, said: "It is fun to revisit a problem that is more than one century old and, using modern methods, discover something new. The strong collaboration between Physics and the Plant Sciences has enabled this."


The paper ‘Directional scattering from the glossy flower of Ranunculus: how the buttercup lights up your chin’ will be published in the 14 December edition of the Royal Society journal Interface.

Study highlights how litterfall could lead to a release of stored carbon from the soil

A new study shows that as climate change enhances tree growth in tropical forests, the resulting increase in litterfall could stimulate soil micro-organisms, leading to a release of stored soil carbon.

Read more.

Food Security in Research Horizons magazine

The challenge of global food security features in much of the research and teaching in the Department of Plant Sciences. A recent issue of "Research Horizons" features three projects from the Department and one from the Sainsbury Laboratory - read online here.

There are also other articles addressing the broader context of the food security challenge that illustrate how Cambridge University can provide multidisciplinary solutions to this complex problem.

You can ask experts including Department members about food security in an online dialogue here: Your chance to ask the experts

How flowers use a touch of bling to woo the bees

Beetles use it, birds use it. Plants use it too. Iridescence is the shimmery colour effect that makes things eye-catching. Tilt a CD in your hands and you will see it change through all the colours of the rainbow. CDs are clear plastic: they appear brightly coloured because the tiny data grooves on their surface reflect different wavelengths of light at different angles. This type of colour is called structural colour to distinguish it from pigment colour, colour created by chemicals that absorb light.

At Science Live, the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London this week (5-10 July), a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge will present some of the latest research into structural colours in flowers. This phenomenon was only identified in 2009 when hibiscus flowers were shown to use the same trick as CDs. Plant scientists have collaborated with physicists to create a series of interactive displays. How nature dresses to impress explores the science of colour in plants, and shows in particular how some flowers use structural colour to give them the edge in attracting pollinators.


Plants use animals, such as bees, to carry pollen from one flower to another so that fertilisation can take place. To attract pollinators, flowers offer a reward such as sugary nectar. The bright colours of flowers act as adverts, making them visible against a green background. Structural colour can be very intense, and makes flowers even more vivid and irresistible to pollinators. Visitors to Science Live will be able to watch a colony of live bumble bees explore different objects, and observe how they select between varying colour effects.


It used to be thought that plants with structural colours were exotic rarities. But some of our best-known garden flowers, such as tulips, are now known to have them. They use nanostructures – surface grooves or layers of different materials - that cause interference and allow some colours of light to be reflected while others pass through the flower. Only some of the colours produced by these nanostructures are visible to the human eye, which explains why scientists have only just begun to investigate them: until quite recently they were simply not known to exist.

Presenting their research to the public in the highly interactive environment of Science Live will be plant scientists from the University of Cambridge led by Dr Beverley Glover, who heads the Evolution and Development lab in the Department of Plant Sciences. She and her team have worked with Professors Ulli Steiner and Jeremy Baumberg from the Nanophotonics Centre at the Cavendish Laboratory to illustrate the interaction between flower colours and the physics of light. "We're really keen to show the public, and school students in particular, how biology and physics interact and how exciting it is to explore the ways that plants and animals play tricks with the light." The exhibit also includes collaborative work from Professor Pete Vukusic from the University of Exeter and Dr Lucas Joppa from Microsoft Research Cambridge.

Visitors to Science Live will be able to test their skills in a specially-devised "Nanoblocks" game which will allow them to design their own nanostructure and see what colours it would produce to the human eye and to a bee’s eye. Every hour, one of the Cambridge University scientists taking part in the exhibition will perform an "interference dance" with bubbles – devised to show how interactions between different wavelengths of light can result in spectacular colours. Beverley says "We hope that people will find this a fun way of learning about the physics of colour - I certainly enjoy watching my physicist colleagues dancing!".

How nature dresses to impress is one of 22 displays at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, open to the public 5-10 July, no charge. For full details go to http://royalsociety.org/summer-science/2011/

How nature dresses to impress has its own website at http://www.colours.phy.cam.ac.uk/