As a monolinguist, I’m in awe of people who can write papers and speak at conferences in a language other than their first, but I never thought to quantify the additional burden that’s place on non-native English speakers. Fortunately, Amano and colleagues decided to ask this question, and the results…

Review: Strigolactones integrate metabolic and nutritional signals Strigolactones are a class of hormones first identified in the 1960s as components of root exudates that promote germination of parasitic Striga seeds, and later as a promoter of associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Strigolactones…

Yang, Liu, Ge et al. explore the relationship between brassinosteroids and very-long-chain fatty acids in regulating fiber elongation. Plant Cell By Zuoren Y, Zhao L, Xiaoyang G, Lili L, Wenqiang Q, Qanmber G, Le L, Zhi W, and Fuguang L Zhengzhou Research Base, State Key Laboratory of Cotton…

Ni et al. explore the relationship between ethylene, the ERF9 and RAP2.4 transcription factors, and anthocyanin biosynthesis in pear. Plant Cell By J. Ni1,3,4, S. Bai1,3,4 and Y. Teng1,2,3,4 1 Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, PR China 2 Hainan Institute…

Dong et al. investigate the role of 14-3-3 proteins in plant immunity in Arabidopsis. By Xiaojing Dong and Jian-Min Zhou Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Background: The plant innate immune system detects the presence of microbial…

I often joke that one of the best things about working as a plant scientist is getting to be alone with my plants in the lab. In practice, I get a lot of my joy from working with other plant biologists: learning from them, mentoring folks, and discovering and celebrating all the wonderful things…

Pablo Picasso once said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Building upon this notion, Anna Kuchment mentioned that “all children have an inner scientist, and we need to get them in touch with their inner scientist” (Kuchment, 2013). With this…

Hong and Rusnak et al. explore how a 1000-bp region of DNA activates gene expression in giant cells. By Adrienne Roeder and Byron Rusnak Background: Specialized cell types carry out specific functions within plants. Some genes are expressed uniquely in one cell type and not expressed in other…