biology

Mary Clutter

Mary Clutter is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mary Clutter rather than just read about it. In short: Mary E. Clutter (March 29, 1930 – December 9, 2019) was an American plant biologist who studied the interactions between plant hormones and gene activation in order to understand how to manipulate and alter gene expression.

Key takeaways

Mary Clutter belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mary Clutter to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mary Clutter from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mary E. Clutter (March 29, 1930 – December 9, 2019) was an American plant biologist who studied the interactions between plant hormones and gene activation in order to understand how to manipulate and alter gene expression. A Pennsylvanian, she obtained a Ph.D from the University of Pittsburgh while studying plant tissues and went on to produce groundbreaking genetics research at Yale University. In addition to her research, she spent much time improving outreach for women in science and addressing sex discrimination in regards to promotions and advancement. She joined the National Science Foundation in 1974 and later became assistant director for all of the biological sciences, helping use the Foundation's grants to support scientists based on merit, especially the accomplishments of overlooked women. Her following appointments and activities would see her help organize multiple scientific projects around plant biology, including the genome of model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. She served in several professional scientific societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Association for Women in Science, along with a number of boards for governmental science committees, particularly those involving biotechnology. Multiple awards and honorary doctorates were given to her, including three Presidential Rank Awards during three separate presidential administrations.

Childhood and education Born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania on March 29, 1930, to Frank and Helen Clutter, Clutter attended Allegheny College, where she earned a Bachelor's of Science in biology and went on to work in the lab of Ralph Wetmore at Harvard University. When one of the lab members, Ian Sussex, left the lab to become an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Clutter took the opportunity to join him to start graduate studies in his lab, obtaining a Master of Science degree and a Ph.D. while studying the process of plant tissue culturing.

Career

Early research and women in science In 1960, Sussex moved his lab to Yale University and Clutter decided to join him as a research associate. The work she conducted with graduate students formed into its own independent research program, despite technically still being under the purview of the Sussex lab. But due to the hostility toward women in high level academic positions at the time, Clutter knew it was not likely that a permanent professorship position would be offered to her at Yale. She noticed this lack of advancement for other women and how little the all-male graduate class at the university cared about the issue, so she made two decisions. First, she formed a class with Virginia Walbot on how science and society interact, having the students collect local river water nearby to factories and other industries, in order to see how such sites had negative impacts on the people living in New Haven, Connecticut. She secondly decided to create a women's society with Walbot, Mary Lake Polan, and other women scientists that would bolster the entire movement of encouraging and supporting women in science. During the 1971 meeting of the AAAS, she and Walbot organized a women's caucus within the organization and had a $50,000 funding extension authorized for the creation of a Women In Science Office, which they announced in Science the following year.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary Clutter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mary Clutter claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mary Clutter before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mary Clutter ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mary Clutter

In research: Mary Clutter appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mary Clutter in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mary Clutter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 2019 deaths, 20th-century American biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary Clutter outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mary Clutter in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mary Clutter means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mary Clutter out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary Clutter in simple terms?

Why does Mary Clutter matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mary Clutter?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mary Clutter.