Recent Posts

What We're Reading: June 30th

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This edition of What We're Reading is guest edited by Mather A Khan, a Postdoc Fellow in the Mendoza Lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA. He is very much concerned about hunger, poverty, and global food security. His research is always been motivated by these factors. "Plant…

iBiology - Magdalena Bezanilla: Understanding Cell Shape

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Magdalena is a Reviewing Editor for The Plant Cell and a Professor at UMass Amherst. Here she describes her research interests in a series of videos published by iBiology.  A set of three video lectures, published by iBiology on May 2, 2017 Part 1: Understanding cell shape: Big insights from…

Squeezing oil out of plants and into your gas tank: it's hard

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Here is a summary of new research published in The Plant Cell, written by Martin Vorel and published on the Michigan State University website. Sometimes, when a science experiment doesn’t work out, unexpected opportunities open up. That’s what Yang Yang and the Benning lab have found…

Broadcasting Plant Science Live to the World

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This week’s post was written by Dr Ian Street (@IHStreet), the Resources Editor at AoB Blog. He is also a science writer and plant scientist. His science blog is The Quiet Branches. On 18th May 2017, plant scientists from all over the world celebrated “International Fascination of Plants Day”.…

Ivan wants to know! Your thoughts on new ideas for Plant Direct

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Plant Direct Editor-in-Chief Ivan Baxter wants your input on new ideas for Plant Direct. This is your opportunity to help shape the editorial policies of the newest plant science journal. Read more and share your thoughts! Is Ivan on the right track? Why or why not? What other ideas would help to make…

What We're Reading: June 23rd

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This week's What We're Reading is guest edited by Gaby Auge, a Senior Research Associate at Fundación Instituto Leloir, IIBBA-CONICET (www.leloir.org.ar), in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Gaby's research interests focus on how environmental changes shape plant responses (plasticity), and the ecological…

Direct and indirect visualization of bacterial effector delivery into diverse plant cell types during infection

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Bacterial effectors are proteins produced by bacteria and introduced into their hosts, where the effectors support successful infection by the pathogen. Effectors can function in diverse cells and cell compartments, but many studies of effector localization have relied on overexpression systems which…

Root tip shape governs root elongation rate under increased soil strength

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We live at a time of unprecedented insights into root anatomy, diversity, plasticity, and the genetic underpinnings of these traits. Colombi et al. examined how wheat root tip shape contributes to soil penetration and the root’s response to increasing soil density. Not surprisingly, pointier roots…

Abscisic acid Antagonist 1 (AA1): A ray of hope for extending shelf life of leafy vegetables ($)

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Abscisic acid (ABA) is one of the phytohormones that plays a pivotal role in a plant's life from germination to senescence, and it drew additional attention of researchers owing to its involvement in abiotic stress. Leaf senescence is a natural phenomenon but if this process can be delayed by non-toxic…