Running a research group in the next generation: Combining sustainable and reproducible research with values-driven leadership This is a fantastic article to help new, future, and even current lab heads think about their postures, priorities, and practices. It was developed through a workshop held during the Arabidopsis meeting, originally scheduled for 2020 but held online […]
Plant Cell Webinar: Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress Celebrating the January 2023 Focus Issue on Climate Change and Plant Abiotic Stress Recorded Tuesday, February 7, 2023, About This Webinar In many regions of the world, climate change is leading to increased exposure to abiotic stresses for plants as well as humans and other animals. The most obvious […]
The January 2023 issue of The Plant Cell includes a focus issue on “Climate change and plant stress: From genes to ecosystems”. This timely focus issue has in it commentaries, reviews, and research articles on the topic. I particularly enjoyed reading the two reviews that include short perspectives from multiple authors. The first addresses how […]
We’ve all seen striking photographs comparing the modern maize (Zea mays spp. mays L.) ear to the seed head of its wild-grass ancestor teosinte (Zea mays spp. parviglumis). Besides the huge increase in size, one of the features that allows us to munch on “corn on the cob” is the absence of the hard, shell-like […]
An RNA world Annual Reviews editions typically start with a brief autobiographical essay by a noted scientist. The 2023 edition of Annual Reviews in Plant Biology includes a profile of David Baulcombe, the well-known scientist whose work was foundational in revealing the roles of small RNAs in gene regulation and viral suppression. Baulcombe started his […]
Annual Reviews editions typically start with a brief autobiographical essay by a noted scientist. The 2023 edition of Annual Reviews in Plant Biology includes a profile of David Baulcombe, the well-known scientist whose work was foundational in revealing the roles of small RNAs in gene regulation and viral suppression. Baulcombe started his PhD in 1973, […]
What a wonderful review! As the title indicates, this review by Liu et al. looks at transposons, considering their “life cycle” – from introduction into a naïve genome, through amplification, diversification, silencing, reactivation, and ultimately domestication or loss-of-function. Besides this thorough-but-readable walk through the transposon life cycle, the review also takes a pan-organismal look at […]
The May 2023 issue of The Plant Cell has a focus on RNA biology, and some of the articles for this issue are online now. I particularly enjoyed this multi-author perspective review by Manavella et al., in which 12 RNA biology groups from across the globe share the questions that they find most compelling in […]
This is an interesting paper that grabbed my attention from the very first line: “Tomatoes are the second most valuable crop in the USA”. Of course, a key trait in these important fruits is their flavor, something the Harry Klee team at the University of Florida have been studying for years. Here, Frick et al. […]