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 are sobering if not surprising; […]
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 also have endogenous roles within plants, for example as regulators of shoot branching. […]
Although The Plant Cell Focus Issue on Biomolecular Condensates officially comes out in September, due to the idiosyncrasies of publishing many of the articles are already available online, and I’m highlighting them now because this topic is also the focus of a plenary session at the Plant Biology meeting in August (https://plantbiology.aspb.org/plenaries/). Although the term […]
In my cruise around the internet looking for fascinating plant science, I found this tasty morsel. It’s a Spotlight feature of new paper on the effects of salt stress on plants of the genus Capsicum. I don’t want to detract from author Robert Calderon’s fine writing, so head over to Physiologia Plantarum for the story […]
Here’s a sweet story of gene expression and fruit form, starting with the simple question of “why do closely related strawberry and raspberry fruits look so different?” In strawberry, the ovaries become dry achenes where in raspberies they become juicy druplets; in strawberry the stem tip (receptacle) becomes the juicy fruit, where in raspberry it […]
I love reading about pathogens hijacking host systems; I’m always thrilled to see how “life finds a way”. Here’s another. Plants use a variety of peptides as hormones, many of which have covalent modifications of one sort or another. One class are the tyrosine-sulfated peptides, the PLANT PEPTIDE CONTAINING SULFATED TYROSINE (PSY)-family. PSY family peptides […]
Focus Issue: Biomolecular Condensates Although The Plant Cell Focus Issue on Biomolecular Condensates officially comes out in September, due to the idiosyncrasies of publishing many of the articles are already available online, and I’m highlighting them now because this topic is also the focus of a plenary session at the Plant Biology meeting in August […]
Plant Physiology Webinar: Fruit Crops (2) Celebrating the July 2023 Focus Issue on Fruit Crops Recorded Thursday, July 27, 2023 About This Webinar Fruits are major sources of nutrients for humans, and fruit growing is a significant driver for economic growth and development in rural areas and their communities worldwide. The fruit industry faces enormous […]
I’ll be honest, I was surprised to see “a decade after implementation” in this title, but indeed, the first publication describing CRISPR/Cas in plants was in 2013. We’ve learned a lot in the past 10 years and the technology provides many opportunities, but challenges remain, both of which are highlighted in this excellent review by […]