The Mentoring Relationship—A Two-Way Street

The Minority Affairs Committee luncheon began with an informal lunchtime discussion between faculty and students. As suggested by attendees of a previous year’s luncheon, the setup involved assigning several faculty to each table and allowing students and post-docs to fill the remaining seats. The room was abuzz with discussion for the first portion of the … Read more

#plantbiology14 Day Two

Again, it’s late and I’m tired, so stream of conscious kind of writing that’s quick is happening tonight. I may even be more tired.  Today at the conference there were two major symposia, one on synthetic biology (making drugs from plant processes/engineering cheaper ways to make medicines) and the first in a series of 2: … Read more

Feeding the World

One cannot imagine anything more exciting than a food security session where science meets one of the greatest challenges in human history, feeding the world, now and in the future. Today’s session (Symposium III—21st Century Challenge: Feeding 9 Billion) commenced with a great introductory talk by UK Champion for Global Food Security, Professor Tim Benton. … Read more

Plant Biology 2014 Major Symposium I: Abiotic Stress Response

The first day of the ASPB meeting, 2014 included the major symposium on abiotic stress control in plants, presenting insights on the broad range of abiotic stress that impacts plants from extreme atmospheric conditions and availability of micronutrients; with discussions on recent experimental approaches in laboratory and fields to overcome those hurdles. Dr. Michael F. … Read more