Mary Williams Learning to read a scientific paper is an important skill for undergraduate students to acquire, but selecting a suitable paper to read with undergraduates can be challenging (see this for example). The chosen research article should be accessible (meaning not too much specialized terminology or methodology), interesting, and meaningful. A new Plant Physiology paper by … Read more
BREAKTHROUGHS AND EVENTS CRISPR Science magazine named CRISPR the 2015 breakthrough of the year. Although the application of CRISPR-mediated genome editing in plants dates back a few years, the rate of its use has been growing rapidly. Searching PubMed for CRISPR shows an exponential growth in citation numbers. There’s no doubt that this technology provides … Read more
The Martian I don’t know if the book/film The Martian will have a lasting impact on plant science, but it certainly added some thrills to the plant scientists’ year. The story features a space-stranded botanist (although some argue he should have been described as a horticulturalist) who had to grow plants to feed himself until … Read more
COP21 was the 21st session of the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Its goal, which it achieved, was to get governments to agree to cut carbon emissions in order to limit global temperature rise. A resolution was passed, in which the 195 countries present agreed on the … Read more
Recently, we’ve been profiling first authors of Plant Cell papers that are selected for In Brief summaries. Here are the first-author profiles from December’s issue of The Plant Cell. Hyo-Jun Lee, featured first author of Systemic Immunity Requires SnRK2.8-Mediated Nuclear Import of NPR1 in Arabidopsis Current Position: Post-doctoral fellow, Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, … Read more