Review: Characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening Whenever we talk about global trends there are of course local variations. Here, Piao et al. discuss recent trends of global greening, which is occurring at arctic as well as temperate and tropical regions. Overall, this greening is attributed to increasing atmospheric CO2, which promotes plant growth, […]
With the rise of high-impact commercially published journals in recent years, journals published by learned societies face greater competition than ever before. While many society journals are among the highest-impact titles in their fields, making them top choices among scholars, for societies it is becoming increasingly important to communicate the unique value of their titles […]
We have only recently begun to appreciate the phenomenon of cross-species or cross-kingdom small RNA transfer, and its applications. Using examples from plants and animals, Cai et al. summarize how some pathogens have evolved the capacity to introduce small RNAs into their host to suppress host defense responses, for example by hijacking host small RNA […]
Orphan genes are those that are found in only a single species. In trying to understand the origin of orphan genes, O’Conner and Li have found that many of these orphan genes are likely to have originated as mitochondrial genes, as many are nuclear genes whose encoded proteins are targeted to the mitochondria through encoded […]
How do cells know when it is time to divide? Helt et al. explore this question using the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas. Unlike most animal and fungal cells, which tend to maintain a relatively consistent size by dividing after their size has doubled, Chlamydomonas cells can undergo several rounds of size doubling during daylight, followed by […]
Sometime around 1.8 to 2 billion years ago, complex eukaryotic cells appeared for the first time, providing the ancestor for plants, animals and fungi. Many lines of evidence have indicated that this event probably involved an ancient archaeon taking up an ancient bacterium, the progenitor of all mitochondria. Genomic studies point to the ancient archaeon […]
Filamentous pathogens (fungi and oomycetes) use a variety of tactics to obtain nutrients from plants. Classically, they have been categorized as biotrophic (“eating” living tissues), nectrotrophic (eating dead tissues) or hemibiotrophic (biotrophic followed by heterotrophic). Hane et al. point out that these categories are imperfect and difficult to asssign and propose a new approach, based […]
Tamburino et al. analyzed text from more than 12,000 research articles published in the past 50 years that included the terms “global” or “world” and “food supply”, “food demand’, or “zero hunger”. From this dataset, they quantified terms related to population, total food production, or per-capita demand (e.g., through different types of diets). Across this […]
Review. Small RNAs and extracellular vesicles: New mechanisms of cross-species communication and innovative tools for disease control We have only recently begun to appreciate the phenomenon of cross-species or cross-kingdom small RNA transfer, and its applications. Using examples from plants and animals, Cai et al. summarize how some pathogens have evolved the capacity to introduce […]