Patrut et al. report that 8 of the 13 oldest and 5 of the 6 largest African Baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) trees, known for their enormous size and great longevity, have died (or at least their largest and/or oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died). Included in the dead are Panke, the oldest Baobab…

Plant scientists are familiar with the steep drop in photosynthetic activity when plants are illuminated with far-red photons (> 700 nm), because the energy of these long-wavelength photos is insufficient to initiate photochemistry at the chlorophyll a reaction center. Previously, some studies have…

This week we have some guest contributions from undergraduate student interns working with Professor Maria Julissa Ek-Ramos from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon. Julissa helped the students select and read the papers, and worked with them on writing and editing the summaries, with additional editing…

Katharina Belt, first author of An assembly factor promotes assembly of flavinated SDH1 into the succinate dehydrogenase complex Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, CSIRO, Agriculture and Food, Floreat Education: PhD, School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia Non-scientific…

Nicola Zagari, first author of CHLOROPLAST RIBOSOME ASSOCIATED supports translation under stress and interacts with the ribosomal 30S subunit Current Position: (Starting 1/08/2018) Junior Researcher Cell Biology at Enza Zaden, Enkhuizen, NL Education: Biotechnologies BSc at Bologna University, Plant…

Pablo Pulido, first author of CHLOROPLAST RIBOSOME ASSOCIATED supports translation under stress and interacts with the ribosomal 30S subunit Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, Germany. Education: PhD in Redox Biology, Department of Vegetal Biochemistry…

Nikolay Manavski, first author of CHLOROPLAST RIBOSOME ASSOCIATED supports translation under stress and interacts with the ribosomal 30S subunit Current Position: Postdoc at IBMP-CNRS, Strasbourg, France Education: Diploma and PhD in Molecular Biology, Department of Molecular Plant Biology, University…

By Alex Harkess and Margaret Frank While working on very small RNA molecules, Blake Meyers tackles some of the biggest problems in plant biology. Blake has spent much of his academic career generating and sifting through billions of sequence reads to ask a deceptively simple question: what do small…