No grass? No Wimbledon, World Cup, worldwide golf or baseball According to SportsGrass.com, “sports and athletic field grasses must have dense, thick sod, be able to withstand impact and have the ability to repair quickly…Each seed mixture is used for the desired traits that are dominant to its variety and whether it grows well with … Read more
25 Years of the Kay Laboratory (1989–2014) BY PRATEEK TRIPATHI ASPB Student Ambassador, University of Southern California “The greatest thing of the past 25 years was the absolute privilege to know my present and past lab members. These people are good human beings: smart, funny, weird, goofy, tall, short…such a diverse group of uniformly intelligent … Read more
Succinct messages have power. Share your poster via Twitter, interact over your results, & your research impact will grow #PlantBiology14 See what we did there? In just 140 characters (equivalent of one whole tweet) you learned a key theme, professional goal, and a practical action item (the hashtag) for connecting at Plant Biology 2014 and … Read more
One plant narrative 10,000 years of agriculture has transformed our world. Several thousand years after farming became widespread, people started using papyrus to write on to record information and communicate. Papyrus was displaced by paper and eventually large parts of human endeavor were all communicated on bleached plant fibers; great paintings, doodles and the written … Read more
Leonardo da Vinci compared the movement of water in nature to the movement of blood in an animal, and concluded that, “Water is the driving force of all nature.” Five hundred years later we still can recognize the truth in this statement. However, with groundwater resources dwindling and rainfall patterns becoming irregular, could nature’s driving … Read more
Because We’re Happy…about Plants “Hop into Healthy, Swing into Shape,” was the 2014 White House Easter Egg Roll theme designed to support the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative. The soundtrack for the healthy hubbub on the South Lawn was filled with cheering egg race fans, bouncing basketballs, the thrumming of busy, giggling kids – all … Read more
If you were one of the many hundreds of kids and families at the ASPB booth during the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC (April 25-27) then you got the chance to dig in to the roots & shoots of plant biology. Booth visitors could: Dissect big seeds (lima beans) to find the … Read more
Recently, I was invited to attend a workshop at the University of Exeter, organized by George Littlejohn*, Tom Howard and Lizzy Dridge, a post-doctoral Research Fellow in Professor Nick Talbot’s group, Independent Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer respectively. The aims of the workshop were to help Early-Career Researchers (ECRs: e.g., graduate students and post-docs) make best … Read more
“Plant-Water Relations 1: Uptake and Transport” is the latest article in Teaching Tools in Plant Biology, and first of the in-depth series on the topic of Plant Physiology. It was written by me (Mary Williams), Mel Oliver of the USDA-ARS and Steve Pallardy of the University of Missouri. This topic is a cornerstone … Read more
In 1962, when I was born, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at 316 parts per million (ppm). Now nearly 52 years later, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has reached 400 ppm. I can’t see it, taste it or feel it but through the power of science I know it … Read more
I attended my first Plant Biology Meeting as a graduate student– and I was in awe. So many people, and I didn’t know a soul. It was scary and I thought I would drown in anonymity. And I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of scientific presentations. That changed very quickly though when my … Read more
A handy list of plant science grant and fellowship opportunities with deadlines in early 2014. Please leave a comment if you know of other opportunities we should promote. ASPB Travel Grant Program for Plant Biology 2014 ASPB is offering up to 80 $575 grants for students, postdocs, and faculty beginning their careers to attend the … Read more
On December 3rd, 2013, the National Plant Science Council partnered with the American Chemical Society; the Alliance of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Societies; and the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) to co-host a briefing on the report Unleashing a Decade of Innovation in Plant Science: A Vision for 2015-2025. The briefing was also … Read more
This year’s meeting will be great! We’ll have the best science, an outstanding locale, plus new opportunities for connecting at every level. 1. Award-winning science will be featured in symposia and mini-symposia. This year, top scientists in the US (ASPB) will be joined by others from Canada (CSPB) and beyond, to speak in major and mini-symposia on … Read more
If you recognize what the following string of 16 digits represents, you are welcome to stop reading: 0000-0002-4669-3215. If not, here’s a question: Wouldn’t it be cool if each scientist’s contributions to scholarship across all disciplines could be discovered, cited, and curated quickly and easily? That is exactly what the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) … Read more
One of the most meaningful perks of my job as a faculty member in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley is the opportunity to mentor students – both undergrads and grads. My job also gives me the privilege to share with students my passion for doing plant science research, and to … Read more
Communicating about your research to raise awareness and to get noticed is a critical skill. To be sure your abstract is a hot pick for talks, it’s important to use the right approach. Here are some tips and resources that can help your abstract get chosen. Consider Each Audience Reviewers will select your work for … Read more
What do locks, alarms, TSA screenings, guard dogs, and plants have in common? Each can deter danger. Yes, you read that right. Plants can make stuff safer. In fact, NOVA’s technology aficionado David Pogue explored cutting-edge examples of some leafy lifesavers in his PBS program, Making Stuff: Safer (airdate 11/6/13). So beyond thorns and prickly … Read more
Call me a nerd, if you wish; but the Career Tree, which I first saw in a report published over a decade ago by the European Science Foundation and the Human Frontiers Science Program, is one of my favorite images: The Career Tree depicts a plant, so it appeals to my innate pro-plant bias. (And … Read more