When I’ve had a stressful week I feel like I’ve aged 10 years. Luckily I bounce back after a bit of rest. By contrast, a new paper by Swift et al. shows that, in plants at least, stress accelerates aging at the transcriptional level. First, they did single-cell transcriptional profiling of leaves…

In a new article by Wu et al., a large team of collaborators led by the Moi lab addressed this question by doing a huge outdoor evolution experiment at 30 places with different climates. The authors achieved real-time adaptation under natural conditions by sowing a mixture of 231 Arabidopsis thaliana…

Waterlogged paddy soils create anaerobic environments that support the growth of methanogenic archaea, contributing 7-17% of global methane (CH4) emissions. Prior work has shown that rice varieties with more extensive root aerenchyma can better oxygenate the surrounding soil, thereby reducing CH4 emissions.…

Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) provides plants with broad protection against many pathogens, but until recently, it was unclear how SAR signals are produced, transported, and expressed in distant tissues. In a new study in Nature Plants, Gaikwad and colleagues created a reporter construct that tracks…

Plant roots exude organic compounds such as benzoxazinoids (BXs) to the surrounding soil. BXs modulate soil microbiota, which in turn regulate plant growth. In this study, Stengele et al. show that BX-modulated soil microbiota also promote plant immunity. The authors first pretreated soil with BXs by…

Review: Plants calcium signaling is both conserved and plant-specific Although calcium ions are universal second messengers, plants employ both conserved and unique strategies to decode Ca²⁺ signals. In a new review in Cell, Sheng Luan reviews the molecular tools used to study calcium signaling…

You moved to a different country to do your PhD. You are navigating a new language, a complex academic system, and a life far from family and friends. After six months of failed attempts, your 12-hour experiment finally works, but there is no one around to share your happiness with. What you might be…