JoVE Monthly Highlights: November 2017

Here's a look at what's coming up in the November 2017 issue of JoVE: The World's Premier Video Journal. From a cornucopia of articles for November, we begin with cosmetic applications for chicken feathers. In JoVE Biochemistry, our authors describe a method to prepare keratin hydrolysate from chicken feathers via alkaline-enzymatic hydrolysis, and demonstrate how to test its effect on the skin barrier. These keratin hydrolysate formulations improve skin barrier function by reducing transepidermal water loss. Without "feather" ado, JoVE Environment goes from the farm to the field. Here, our authors present a methodology to create life tables of Bemisia tabaci, a global agricultural pest. Life tables allow quantification of the rates and sources of mortality in insect populations, and as these methods can be extrapolated to other pests, this research provides a valuable tool for the management of economically expensive pests in agroecosystems. In JoVE Biology, we switch focus from the pests to the plants, with an experimental procedure for detecting protein-protein interaction dynamics in the tobacco plant Nicotiana benthemiana. A luciferase complementation assay is used to quantify the interaction between two proteins in leaves infiltrated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This method provides a simple, rapid proceedure that may be used to answer key questions in the plant signal transduction field. Our final article, in JoVE Applied Physics, really turns up the heat. Here, our authors describe a series of wind tunnel experiments designed to study the transition of a fire from the ground to canopy in chaparral shrubs. Such experiments may lead to an increased understanding of chaparral crown fires, and can provide knowledge to aid in wildlife prediction and control. For that, we give thanks. You've just had a sneak peek of the November 2017 issue of JoVE. Visit the website to see the full-length articles, plus many more, in JoVE: The World's Premier Video Journal.