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 the May issue of The Plant Cell. Xunliang Liu, featured first author of The role of LORELEI in pollen tube reception at the interface of the synergid cell and pollen tube requires … Read more
This week’s Research in Focus is reprinted from an In Brief published by Science Editor Nancy Hofmann in The Plant Cell, which summarizes an article newly published by Ma et al. This study explores the dual and opposing roles of the enzyme xanthine dehydrogenase in modulation of ROS metabolism during defense responses in Arabidopsis. Xanthine … Read more
The first of the Teaching Tools Competition winning entries has been published. The latest in this series, “Rhythms of Life: The Plant Circadian Clock” was written by Katharine Hubbard (Lecturer in Biological Science, University of Hull) and Antony Dodd (Royal Society University Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol). This teaching tool explores circadian … 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 by Wuest et al., published in the May 2016 issue. In some plant species, floral initiation can overlap temporally with the development of seeds. … Read more
This week’s Research in Focus is reprinted from an In Brief published by Science Editor Nancy Hofmann in The Plant Cell, which summarizes an article newly published by Calderwood et al. This study explores the distribution and identity of mobile mRNA within the plant body, and presents a hypothesis that abundance in companion cells is … 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 Fortunato et al. This study explores the role of diatom phytochromes in sensing red and far-red light. In land plants, phytochromes sense red and far-red light and … Read more
In a study reminiscent of Jurassic Park, scientists have resurrected an extinct enzyme and watched it respond to today’s world. Rubisco is much older than dinosaurs; it is an ancient enzyme, billions of years old, and predates the origin of eukaryotes. Rubisco is found in all photosynthetic organisms, be they bacteria, algae or plant, as … Read more
This week’s Research in Focus is reprinted from an In Brief published by Science Editor Jennifer Lockhart in The Plant Cell, which summarizes an article newly published by Ondzighi-Assoume et al. This study examines how internal and external signals affect lateral root production, and specifically the interaction between nitrate and the hormone abscisic acid (ABA). … Read more
When we look at a metabolic pathway, we usually assume that the metabolites behave as diagrammed; that substance A will remain substance A unless acted upon by enzymes X or Y. It is becoming clear that this assumption is false, and that metabolite damage occurs alongside normal metabolic processes. Metabolite damage is described by Hanson … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
Plants that do the unexpected or that don’t conform to stereotype command attention and serve as portals to the diversity of the plant kingdom. Litter-trapping plants have an unusual and interesting strategy for obtaining nutrients. Zona and Christenhusz (2015), writing in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, describe plants that have evolved specialized adaptations … Read more
Metabolism is a widely-used term. It is used colloquially, as in, “My metabolism slowed down once I hit 40,” a usage that considers metabolism as a black box and focuses on its energetic inputs and outputs. Or, there’s the single-reaction view of metabolism, as in, “He doesn’t metabolize alcohol very well.” This view underpins the … Read more
*Note that we use the term biohacking as it has been used since 1988 to refer to DIY biology (Strange, 1988). More recently biohacking has been used also to refer to strategies to enhance the human body through wearable technology and nutritional supplements. Imagine a typical industrial process – say the production of gasoline or … Read more
This week we feature an article published by Stenberg et al in Trends in Plant Science that describes the potential benefits of optimizing crops for biocontrol of pests. It is difficult to estimate the true costs of herbivore damage to crop plants, but it is clearly in the billions of dollars; much more when pesticide … Read more
