Attending Plant Biology 2016? The conference starts in six months, but if you want your work to be considered for a minisymposium or lightning talk, you need to submit your abstract now (or by 25 Jan, EST). You can read more about the conference, including major symposia topics and speakers, and the countless networking opportunities … Read more
This week’s Research in Focus is reprinted from an In Brief published by Science Editor Jennifer Mach in The Plant Cell, which summarizes an article newly published by Simpson and Ohlrogge. This study uses biochemical, morphological, and transcriptomic methods to examine an unusual surface wax produced by bayberry fruits, and reveals a cutin-related biosynthetic pathway … Read more
Guest post by Dr. Mike Jackson (bio below). Peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas – and other leguminous species. All are pulses or grain legumes, important crops around the world, adding essential nutritional value to human diets. And, while they’re about it, improving soil fertility through nitrogen fixation. During 2016, pulses will be in the spotlight. … Read more
On the front page of the November/December issue of the ASPB News, alongside my first President’s Letter, was an exhortation to “On your mark, get set…nominate!” ASPB currently has about 4,000 members and is hoping to greatly increase this number thorough its new Plantae portal. It is really important that members feel they are part … 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
Prepared by Lewis-Burke Associates LLC December 17, 2015 This week, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees concluded negotiations on an omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 2029) to fund federal government agencies for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2016. The final bill provides significant increases to federal investments in research, education, and healthcare programs important to … Read more
I am your ASPB representative on CAST. CAST is the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology and is a non-profit organization composed of scientific societies, many individuals, students, companies, nonprofits, and associate scientific and industry society members. The primary work of CAST is to organize scientists to write papers on different important topics. CAST assembles, … 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
A New Year’s gift to our authors and readers: The Plant Cell is now posting articles immediately after final acceptance by the Science Editor. This will speed the overall publication process by 2–3 weeks, so our authors will no longer have to wait for typesetting to share their exciting results with the world. Of course, … Read more
This Research in Focus is written by science writer Peter Minorsky (ASPB and Mercy College) who writes the monthly On the Inside column for Plant Physiology. This summary describes a paper available online now for publication in the February 2016 issue. Grain abortion enables a few viable seeds to complete development under drought conditions, but … Read more
This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors series. Kazuki Saito The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Kazuki Saito is deputy director of the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, where he is also group director of the Metabolomics Research Group. He is also a professor in the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Chiba University. As … Read more
Early in 2015, ASPB established a partnership with Wiki Edu. This post features some simple, yet critical details for understanding and using Wiki Edu to help your students think and write more effectively about plant science. The insights shared here come from Barbara Alonso (photo), Lab Manager for the Lemaux Lab at University of California-Berkeley. … Read more
We’re delighted to announce that the latest Teaching Tool in Plant Biology article “Light-Dependent Reactions of Photosynthesis” is published. This article was written by me (Mary Williams), as well Ru Zhang (Carnegie Institute of Science) and Johnna Roose (Louisiana State University). Ru and Johnna are both educators and researchers who specialize in the study of … Read more
Last year, Alastair Culham (@BotanyRNG) and Jonathan Mitchley (@Drmgoewild) from the University of Reading teamed up to create a series of blog posts called Advent Botany (advent is the season leading up to Christmas and is traditionally a period of waiting or counting days). This year Advent Botany 2015 features guest contributions. Today’s post, written … Read more
ASPB maintains an active partnership with Wiki Edu in order to expand the quality, depth and breadth or plant science information on Wikipedia. An equally critical goal is to mentor undergraduates to use real-life publication opportunities for their science writing skills. Here is another exciting tool for supporting these goals: The Wikipedia Year of Science … 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 November’s issue of The Plant Cell. Sascha Venturelli, featured co-first author of Plants Release Precursors of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors to Suppress Growth of Competitors Current Position: Senior researcher at the Department of … Read more
This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors series. Björn Usadel The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Björn Usadel studied biochemistry in Berlin and New York. He went on to pursue a PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology and Potsdam University with Markus Pauly. Afterward he worked with Mark Stitt on … Read more
Guest post from Sonja Dunbar, PhD student at the University of Cambridge Plants need nutrients and they have a lot of different ways to acquire them from the soil, as the 2nd year undergraduate students I teach at the University of Cambridge recently discovered in lectures. One thing our lecture courses try to emphasise at … Read more