In a New York Times Opinion article, Nobel Laureate Phillip Sharp and CEO Emeritus of AAAS Alan Leshner make a strong case for raising the level of funding for agriculture research. Such an increase is necessary to maintain agricultural productivity in response to challenges such as the prolonged drought in California and the avian flu … 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
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