Plants that respond to touch, like Mimosa pudica (aka the sensitive plant) are great ways to introduce children to the fascination of plants. If you haven’t had the chance to explore this plant, a touch to a leaflet causes the leaflets to fold into themselves, and recurring touches cause the leaf to…

Many animals, including humans, tangibly benefit from living socially. Does this benefit extend to plants? A recent study by Höckerstedt et al. says it does. The authors studied a wild host-pathogen population, Plantago lanceolata, and its obligate powdery mildew pathogen Podosphaera plantaginis in…

Review: The power and perils of de novo domestication using gene editing I’m excited by the ways that knowledge about plant developmental and metabolic programs is being used to make new varieties of plants. This excellent review describes some of these applications such as changes in fruit size…

Zhang et al. discover how a tetratricopeptide repeat protein promotes heading by facilitating florigen transport in rice  Background: Hd3a and RFT1 are mobile flowering signals that promote the floral transition in rice and were proposed to function as florigens that play major roles under short-day…

Anna Olek, first author of "Essential amino acids in the Plant-Conserved and Class-Specific Regions of cellulose synthases" Current Position:  Recently retired Education: Anna Olek received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1977 from Kraków University of Technology, Poland, and she received…

María Fernanda Gómez Méndez, first author of "Ice plant root plasma membrane aquaporins are regulated by clathrin-coated vesicles in response to salt stress" Current Position: Lab assistant in Dr. Dahesh Lab at UC Riverside Education: BCs in Morelos State Autonomous University, Mexico. Master…

Huan Zhang, co-first author of "The B-box transcription factor IbBBX29 regulates leaf development and flavonoid biosynthesis in sweet potato" Current Position: Associate professor, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China Education: Ph.D. from China…

Xiaoru Gao, co-first author of “The B-box transcription factor IbBBX29 regulates leaf development and flavonoid biosynthesis in sweet potato” Education: 2012.09-2016.06 Henan Agricultural University (Bachelor); 2016.09-2023.01 China Agricultural University (Ph.D) Non-scientific Interests:…