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Natural Science - Natural Beauty |
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Founded in the Bronx in the spring of 1891, the 250-acre New York Botanical Garden is visited by more than half a million people a year. As you stroll through any one of the fifty gardens and plant collections, you may be unaware of the Botanical Garden's preeminence in the world of plant research. And now, with the opening of the new Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, the Botanical Garden will take yet another step in our understanding of the earth's biodiversity.
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Host Rafael Pi Roman sits down with Dr. Dennis Stevenson, Vice President for Laboratory Research, to discuss the grand opening of the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory. This state of the art laboratory will triple the Garden's current research capabilities and help educate and train the next generation of plant scientists.
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Dr. Kenneth Cameron explains that just like the human's, plans also have DNA. He is working in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Program for Systematics Studies on a pilot project on plant identification
that will create DNA barcodes for plants. These barcodes will allow scientists to scan a plant quickly by using only a small fragment of tissue instead of the entire organism.
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Barbara Thiers takes viewers inside the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, where over 7 million plant specimens-some dating back to the 1700's are forever preserved for the benefit of botanical and scientific research. While the process of preserving plants has been relatively the same for hundreds of years, the sharing of such information will change radically with the Garden's new Virtual Herbarium, which will make specimen data available on the web for researchers and anyone else having an interest in plants.
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Barry Lewis and David Hartman explore the Garden's early history, and learn about some modern horticultural studies at the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections.
"Dutch Watercolors - The Great Age of the Leiden Botanical Garden," an exhibit at the Mertz Library, features more than 60 botanical watercolors, prints and rare books.
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| A New Center for Plant Research: The opening of the new Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory. |  |    | |
|  | An Interview with Dr. Dennis Stevenson: Host Rafael Pi Roman sits down with the new research lab's Vice President for Laboratory Research.
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| | The Plant Genome: Dr. Kenneth Cameron describes an innovative pilot project to record the DNA of plants. |  | | |
|  | Herbarium Tour: Dr. Barbara Thiers leads a tour of 7 million plant specimens.
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| | Garden Origins: Barry Lewis and David Hartman explore the garden's early history. |  | | |
|  | Dutch Watercolors: Curator Jane Dorfman takes us through the current exhibit at the Garden's Mertz Library.
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Major funding for this program was provided by:
George Soros and The Ambrose Monell Foundation.
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