I’m excited to see so many people writing about The Botanist .. er The Martian, including: Alun Salt in AoB Blog (Incidently, Alun wrote about the book back in 2014, inspring me and others to read it), Adam Rutherford in the Guardian, and Chris Martine in HuffPost (who, very coolly, just named a new species … Read more
This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors series. Inhwan Hwang The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Inhwan Hwang received his BS and MS degrees from the Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, in 1977–1981 and 1981–1983, respectively, and his PhD degree (molecular biology, adviser: Chi-Bom Chae) from the Department of Biochemistry University of North … Read more
By Lisa Martin, Outreach and Communications Manager, Global Plant Council @GlobalPlantGPC Did you know that members of the American Society of Plant Biologists are also members of the Global Plant Council? What is the Global Plant Council? The Global Plant Council (GPC) is a non-profit coalition of plant, crop, agricultural and environmental science societies from … Read more
In honor of the International Wheat Conference 2015 (#IWC2015), this week’s Plants in the News focuses on wheat. For an overview, one of the best sources of information about wheat science is Peter Shewry’s Darwin Review, simply titled “Wheat”; see also an excellent perspective in the Economist. Global wheat production Wheat provides 20% of global … Read more
We plant biologists live in exciting times, in terms of both scientific advances and the relevance of our collective research. Your professional organization, ASPB, is working hard to ensure that we all can stay productive and effective in our endeavors. Having returned home from Plant Biology 2015 in Minneapolis, and as my year as president … Read more
Mary Williams spoke about the potential for plant science outreach films in a recent blog post. In this blog post, I’ll share my own experience in commissioning a 90-second film for www.intobiology.org.uk. “For biology, it has to be visual,” Katie said. A 17 year old who’d left behind her old friends to transfer to a … Read more
Critical discussion and debate is a powerful tool for honing scientific ideas and developing public policy. Intellectual disagreements can be constructive even when people have starkly contrasting views. However, too often in our internet and social media-fueled age, honest disagreements degrade into name calling, ad hominem attacks, threats and bullying. When that happens, people are … Read more
This week we feature an article that will be interesting to different people for different reasons. The main thrust is to uncover the genetic basis for the black rice trait, which the authors trace through an elegant and comprehensive analysis and by sidestepping a few red herrings. For those who are engaged by the broader … Read more
By Dana D’Amico When I think about the purpose of science communication, I often think of outreach and education –persuading members of the community to take a particular stance on issues of public health, climate change, policy, etc. But there is also communication meant simply for thoughtful immersion, for making meaningful connections across planes of … Read more
This week’s episode has the theme of “Videos”. There are not enough good videos about plant science, but there’s a lot of talent out there, how about making an engaging video as your outreach project for the year? To get you started, here’s a video from the Eden Channel about how to make a great … Read more
This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors series. Olivier Van Aken The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Olivier Van Aken obtained his PhD at Ghent University (Belgium) in the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB, Plant Systems Biology). He then moved to the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at The University of … Read more
Welcome to Episode 4 of our weekly feature, Plants in the News. These stories are selected to provide educators with interesting and accessible news from the world of plant science. Although some of the stories we feature are based on articles with restricted access, we also provide links to news summaries that are available without … Read more
Engaging through POGIL – I had the opportunity thanks to the ASPB Master Educator Program to attend my first POGIL workshop (https://pogil.org/) in June of this year, accompanied by three of my Alfred University Biology colleagues. Our curriculum is in the process of revision to meet Vision and Change and the ASPB Core Concepts in … Read more
Scientists have long dreamed of the ability to make targeted genomic changes: precise and specific alterations in an organism’s DNA to affect its phenotype. Recently, this dream has become a reality through the discovery and engineering of nucleases that can be targeted to precise genomic locations. Double-strand breaks produced by targeted nucleases can induce mutations … Read more
By Dana D’Amico In my last entry, I left off with discussion of the difficulties scientists face in establishing public trust, particularly when it comes to contentious issues like GM food safety. I suggested experimenting with methods of communication that emphasize common values and experiences alongside factual evidence. Today I’ll explore how the narrative, or … Read more
This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors Series. Chris Carrie The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Chris Carrie received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Australia in 2005. He then went on to obtain his PhD in 2011 working at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Biology located at the University … Read more
Re-posted with permission from Robin Habeger’s blog A strong food and agricultural science education system is important for many reasons. The current release of the AGree paper titled Food and Agricultural Education in the United States highlights the need for parents, educators and policy makers to advocate for the inclusion of food and agricultural science … Read more
Welcome to Episode 3 of our weekly feature, Plants in the News. These stories are selected to provide educators with interesting and accessible news from the world of plant science. Although some of the stories we feature are based on articles with restricted access, we also provide links to news summaries that are available without … Read more
“The Martian” opens October 2. Why should you care? Because it is one of the most-anticipated movies of the year and it features a botanist, played by Matt Damon, in the lead role. Here’s the trailer. Botanists have appeared in big films previously; Laura Dern’s character in Jurassic Park (1993) was a paleobotanist, which is … Read more
Karrikins are small molecules found in smoke that promote seed germination and have been associated with the activation of seeds following fire (Nelson et al., 2012). Strigolactones are structurally similar small molecules that act as endogenous hormones and as secreted signals that promote the germination of parasitic plants and branching responses in mycrorrhizal fungi (Brewer … Read more
