Cultivating Safety

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

Career Opportunities for Plant Scientists

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

Life After the Government Shutdown

Last week marked the end of the first partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government since the Clinton administration. In the final days of the impasse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) were able to broker a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt limit. The deal … Read more

Plant Biology 2013 Video: Facing the Challenges of the Future

Plant Biology 2013 President’s Symposium – Plant Biology’s Diversity Molds Our Future – Part 1 Organizer: Peggy Lemaux, University of California, Berkeley, CA Speakers: Cary Fowler, Genebanks: Past, Present, and Possibly Future Phil Pardey, The Shifting Structure of Food and Agricultural R&D Worldwide Jonathan Lynch, Roots of the Second Green Revolution James Dale (recording not being released), … Read more

Land Use, Climate Change, and Food Systems through the Belmont Forum

The National Science Foundation (NSF) released a Dear Colleague Letter announcing a funding opportunity from the Belmont Forum and the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security, and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI). The Belmont Forum is supported by the G8 and emerging economies’ heads of research councils with the purpose of bringing together major funders of … Read more