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What We’re Reading: August 4th

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This week's edition is guest edited by Ian Street. Ian is a plant scientist, the writer and editor of The Quiet Branches Blog, The Resources Editor at The AoB Blog and an Associate Editor at The POSTDOCket and co-host of The Recovering Academic podcast. He can be found on Twitter @IHStreet.   Plant…

Taproot Podcast S1E3: Academia, Industry, and Pivoting on Projects with Luca Comai

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In this episode, Ivan and Liz talk with Luca Comai, a Professor of Plant Biology at the Genome Center at University of California, Davis. We discuss a paper he published as part of his transition from industry to academia that he feels illustrates a mistake he made in choosing a research direction. We…

Life as a Scientist, a Woman’s Perspective | Christine Fleet | TEDxEHC

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Published on Apr 28, 2016 How do you juggle a toddler in a research lab? Very carefully. This talk looks at issues facing women (or any caregiver) in scientific careers, along with examples from women who have found ways to be successful as parents and as scientists. As a member of the Biology…

Career-building opportunities for plant scientists – apply now!

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Publications are important, but these days it takes more than a couple of nice papers to move your career to the next level. Also, increasingly scientists are looking outside the (academic) box for their next career move. ASPB provides many ways through which scientist can build their careers and…

How Wheat Root Tips Break Through Tough Soil

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Soils exhibiting high mechanical impedance as a result of soil compaction or drying, limit root elongation and adversely affect soil exploration and resource uptake. When soil mechanical impedance is increased, root elongation rate decreases within hours and may entirely cease, leading to significant…

Is Root Cortical Senescence Beneficial?

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Root cortical senescence (RCS) is a type of programmed cell death found in the Triticeae tribe. RCS is unrelated to the formation of root cortical aerenchyma or the loss of the root cortex due to secondary growth in dicots. Conceivably RCS may benefit the plant by reducing maintenance respiration in…

What Limits the Growth of Cyanobacteria?

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The commercialization of cyanobacteria-based biomass and biomolecules requires optimization for sustainable economic viability. Many studies identified growth-limiting factors in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis  (e.g. nutrients and light). Understanding the factors controlling the limitation…

CropLife profile of Sophien Kamoun

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CropLife International has a series called "Food Heroes" - recently they profiled plant scientist Sophien Kamoun. Why did you want to be a plant scientist? I became a scientist because I grew up being extremely curious about the natural world. I wanted to know how living organisms function. How they…

Crossover Guard: MEICA1 Prevents Meiotic Mishaps

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During meiosis, recombination between allelic sequences on pairs of homologous chromosomes forms crossovers; these crossovers help make sure that the homologs segregate accurately (reviewed in Zhang et al., 2014). However, cells must suppress recombination between non-allelic sequences, as ectopic recombination…