Entries by Mary Williams

Special meeting issue, “Enhancing photosynthesis in crop plants: targets for improvement” ($)

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Here’s a great collection of articles that consider various approaches to increase crop productivity through enhancements to photosynthesis. The authors of the papers in this collection include many of  the leading photosynthesis researchers, and the topics include structural and architectural improvements at the subcellular level, hacking the thylakoid proton-motive force, photoprotection, models to identify targets […]

Making Science Make Sense – Simple experiments for younger children, from Bayer

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Making Science Make Sense (MSMS) has entered its 22nd year of making a positive STEM education impact on students across the United States. Since the program’s nascent year in 1995, Bayer’s MSMS has brought educational experiments to the classrooms that are kid-friendly and designed to intrigue and push curiosity in the field of STEM education. […]

Profiles of plant scientists: Ottoline Leyser

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Plant geneticist Dame Ottoline Leyser talks to Alison Woollard about the difference between working with animal and plant genomes, and her work to make science more inclusive The Biologist 64(4) p16-19 Dame Ottoline Leyser is a professor of plant development at the University of Cambridge. She directs the Sainsbury Laboratory, which aims to better understand […]

Review: Current Opinion in Plant Biology reviews plant nutrition ($)

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The October issue of Current Opinion in Plant Biology includes several articles that review various topics on the subject of plant nutrition. These span the spectrum of nutrients from trace and metal nutrients to macronutrients. The reviews also span topics such as membrane and tissue-level transport, regulatory signals, nutrient sensors, interactions with microbial symbionts, and […]

Review: Next-generation insect-resistant plants: RNAi-mediated crop protection ($)

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Insects compete directly with people for the energy and nutrients contained in plant matter, so it’s crucial for future food security to develop safe, effective and inexpensive means to control insect pests on crop plants. Zhang et al. review progress in using plant-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) for insect control. Challenges include differential sensitivities across insect […]

Review: Biotechnological advances for restoring degraded land for sustainable development ($)

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One of the challenges of future food security is to feed a growing population without further impinging on undisturbed ecosystems, which is a primary goal of efforts to increase yields. At the other end of the equation, Tripathi et al. address opportunities to recover degraded lands for sustainable development. They describe methods for removing metals […]

Ethnophytotechnology: Harnessing the power of ethnobotany with biotechnology ($)

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De la Parra and Quave describe the fascinating intersection of ethnobotany and biotechnology, which they define as ethnophytotechnology: “the use of plant biotechnology to improve or enhance the inherent economic or culturally valuable traits of plants as described and influenced by ethnobotany”. They observe that by applying modern tools to “thousands of years of indigenous […]

Forum: Carbon concentration in algae: Reducing CO2 from exhaust gas ($)

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Electricity-generating power plant produce CO2, and industrial and household waste water contains inorganic nutrients that can pollute waterways. What if both of these pollutants could be put to good use, for example in a growth medium for biofuel-producing algae? Ghosh and Kirin describe the feasibility of such a scheme, and point to opportunities for improving […]