Have you seen an exciting new paper you’d like to summarize for the community? Contact Mary Williams to inquire about contributing to this series! Reviews: Nature Insight: Plants ($) Nature journal published a special “Plant Insights” section featuring several excellent reviews.  Zipfel…

Guest post by Erin Sparks, Guillaume Lobet, Larry York and Frédéric Bouché It is midnight on a cold winter evening and you are scheduled to give a seminar at 8 am the next morning. All you are missing to complete your presentation is one last graphic to illustrate your conclusions. You wearily…

IN BRIEF by Nancy R. Hofmann [email protected] The economy of living cells includes energy production, energy utilization, and energy storage. Thus, a plant’s energy budget must connect the decision to produce lipids (for energy storage) with its overall energy status. Energy sensor kinases, such…

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. By Kevin M. Folta, University of Florida   Driving down a country highway in the Midwest can seem an endless ribbon flanked by green walls of corn, neatly planted in stately rows. But who would guess…

Over the past several decades, the amount of maize produced in the US Midwestern “Corn Belt” has been rising steadily. In order to accurately predict future grain yields, the factors that contribute to these recent yield increases must be identified. Tollenaar et al. found that more than a quarter…

The “Law of the Minimum” put forth by Justus von Liebig states that the most limiting nutrient governs plant growth. Although there is evidence in some conditions that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels can enhance plant growth, this only holds true under conditions in which CO2 is limiting growth.…

Moss are non-vascular plants and do not produce the phenolic polymer lignin, but they do have some enzymes associated with the lignin pathway, raising the question of the evolutionary origins of lignin. In angiosperms, the cytochrome P450 enzyme encoded by CYP98 catalyzes the first irreversible step…

The patterning of stomata in epidermal tissues involves both positive and negative cues, as revealed by the phenotypes of mutants including too many mouths and speechless, but the precise interactions between identified gene products are still not fully resolved. Qi et al. explore the interactions between…