What do mentees want and need from their mentors, and are they getting it? How do factors such as gender identity and internationalism affect the quality of mentor/mentee interactions? Results from a survey of more than 2000 mentees (mostly postdocs and graduate students) are reported, along with a thorough…

As a monolinguist, I’m in awe of people who can write papers and speak at conferences in a language other than their first, but I never thought to quantify the additional burden that’s place on non-native English speakers. Fortunately, Amano and colleagues decided to ask this question, and the results…

Review: Strigolactones integrate metabolic and nutritional signals Strigolactones are a class of hormones first identified in the 1960s as components of root exudates that promote germination of parasitic Striga seeds, and later as a promoter of associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Strigolactones…

Yang, Liu, Ge et al. explore the relationship between brassinosteroids and very-long-chain fatty acids in regulating fiber elongation. Plant Cell By Zuoren Y, Zhao L, Xiaoyang G, Lili L, Wenqiang Q, Qanmber G, Le L, Zhi W, and Fuguang L Zhengzhou Research Base, State Key Laboratory of Cotton…

Ni et al. explore the relationship between ethylene, the ERF9 and RAP2.4 transcription factors, and anthocyanin biosynthesis in pear. Plant Cell By J. Ni1,3,4, S. Bai1,3,4 and Y. Teng1,2,3,4 1 Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, PR China 2 Hainan Institute…

Dong et al. investigate the role of 14-3-3 proteins in plant immunity in Arabidopsis. By Xiaojing Dong and Jian-Min Zhou Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Background: The plant innate immune system detects the presence of microbial…

Hong and Rusnak et al. explore how a 1000-bp region of DNA activates gene expression in giant cells. By Adrienne Roeder and Byron Rusnak Background: Specialized cell types carry out specific functions within plants. Some genes are expressed uniquely in one cell type and not expressed in other…

Lembinen et al. explore the molecular mechanisms underlying inflorescence diversity in strawberry. Sergei Lembinen1, Mikolaj Cieslak2, Teng Zhang1, Kathryn Mackenzie1, Paula Elomaa1, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz2, Timo Hytönen1. 1 Department of Agricultural Sciences, Viikki Plant Science Centre,…