Plant pathogens are skilled manipulators, using specialized molecular weapons to weaken plant defenses and establish infection. Traditionally, scientists have focused on secreted proteins, known as effectors, that help pathogens suppress plant immune responses. But recent discoveries show that fungal…

This is a very interesting Perspective article by Barry et al. that should be of interest to anyone who has benefitted from Indigenous Knowledges or who teaches about scientific writing. The authors, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars in Australia, explore how Indigenous Knowledges should…

When looking at the foods that fill our supermarkets, it can be hard to imagine we are relying on just a handful of domesticated plant species. Thousands of wild plants, each with its own unique strengths, remain overlooked and underused. For years, plant breeders have tried to borrow these unique traits…

This comprehensive review by Mogollón et al. would be a great starting point to help students think about the pressing challenge of feeding growing numbers of people in the face of climate change. The article begins with the impact of food production on the environment; the release of greenhouse gasses,…

Plants rely on microbes to aid their uptake of nutrients. Most plants from an intimate association with mycorrhizal fungi, in which both partners benefit through the exchange of nutrients and photosynthate. In the most common form, arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, the fungus forms branched structures…

Withania somnifera (ashwagandha) is popularly known for its most prominent bioactive compound called withanolide. This natural product has enormous medicinal potential and has traditionally been used in the Indian Ayurvedic system for more than 3000 years to treat various illnesses. However, the industrial…

No other alkaloid has received as much scientific attention as nicotine. For better or for worse, tobacco has been used by humans for at least 12,000 years, yet the final steps of nicotine biosynthesis have remained stubbornly unresolved until now. A new paper in Cell by Chang et al. (2026) reveals that…

The totipotency of plant tissues makes them very amenable to propagation through somatic tissues. Tissue culture propagation is used to regenerate gene edited plants from single cells and to cultivate plants that are difficult to propagate sexually. In a recent paper, Davis et al. investigated the genomic…