Recognizing Our Authors: Carrie, Tyerman, Welti, and Yamaji

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

Creating a Pipeline for Food & Ag Careers Starts in Elementary School

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

Lights, camera, action! Prepare for a botanist to take center stage!

“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

Evolution and function of strigolactone / karrikin receptors

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