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…

Although The Plant Cell Focus Issue on Biomolecular Condensates officially comes out in September, due to the idiosyncrasies of publishing many of the articles are already available online, and I’m highlighting them now because this topic is also the focus of a plenary session at the Plant Biology…

In my cruise around the internet looking for fascinating plant science, I found this tasty morsel. It’s a Spotlight feature of new paper on the effects of salt stress on plants of the genus Capsicum. I don’t want to detract from author Robert Calderon’s fine writing, so head over to Physiologia…

Starch is a polymer of α-glucose which is assembled into insoluble, semi-crystalline granules in plants. It is not known why we see only insoluble starch granules in plants and no soluble α-glucan polymers. To investigate this, Boehlein et al. took a synthetic biology approach. Eleven starch metabolism…

Stomata are pores on the surface of leaves essential for gas exchange. In grasses, stomatal aperture is controlled by pairs of dumbbell shaped guard cells, with each guard cell surrounded by a subsidiary cell. Despite cell geometry being well described, it was unclear how it influences stomata function.…

Tropisms enable plants to shift their growth direction in response to environmental changes. The roots of Arabidopsis plants respond to gravity by growing in the direction of gravity, a phenomenon known as gravitropism, while in response to unilateral blue light they bend away, demonstrating phototropism.…

Trapa natans, also known as water caltrop or bat nut, is an aquatic plant with large seeds encased by a hardened endocarp. Due to this durable endocarp, these seeds may remain dormant underwater for up to 12 years. Huss et al. studied the anatomical and biochemical factors responsible for the hardened…