Ronny Reimann, co-first author of Durotropic growth of pollen tubes Current Position: Editor for chemistry and biology at the publishing house C.C.Buchner, Germany  Education: PhD in Biology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany; M.Sc. in Biotechnology, HS Lausitz - University of Applied Sciences,…

In eukaryotes, active import of large signaling molecules and proteins over 40kD in the nucleus is mediated by aptly named “importin” proteins. As there are considerably fewer importins than there are cargos, determining how cargo-transporter specificity is mediated constitutes a challenging issue…

Taro Kimura, first author of Arabidopsis ROOT PHOTOTROPISM2 is a Light-Dependent Dynamic Modulator of Phototropin1 Current Position: Post-doctoral researcher at Niigata University Education: Ph.D, Master of Science and BSc at Niigata University Non-scientific Interests: reading, driving, baseball Brief…

Zhao et al. investigate the function of a GDSL lipase in ethylene signaling in rice roots The Plant Cell (2020). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00840 By He Zhao and Jinsong Zhang, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Background: The plant hormone ethylene…

This is an interesting paper and certainly one to share with students. Nosek and Errington argue that how we usually think of as “replication”, repeating a study and observing the same results, is incorrect. Instead, they argue for abroader definition of replication, as something that supports the…

Graduate studies are challenging times, fraught with uncertainty and stress. Dewa et al. addressed this problem head on by developing a required, credited course for first-year graduate students, “Tools for Becoming a Successful Professional and for Enhancing Your Well‐Being and Work Environment”.…

Pigmented rice varieties are those in which a pigment is deposited in the bran, the outer layer of the grain. The pigment can be from brown to red (proanthocyanidins) or from purple to black (anthocyanins). In the course of domestication, humans have selected against the genetic factors responsible for…

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are widely used to link natural genetic variation to trait variation, with a single or a select few correlated traits assessed. High-throughput phenotyping allows the scoring of hundreds of individuals for various traits at several time points. An undeniable consequence…