Tag: Applied Plant Biology

Medicinal plants, which the majority of people use to some degree for their health needs, provide a platform for engaging students in scientific inquiry. Straus & Chudler present an overview of online teaching resources focused on medicinal plants and ethnobotany. The sites highlighted provide a…

They say that “chacun à son gout” (each has his own taste), but when it comes to tomatoes there is near universal agreement that they don’t taste as good as they used to: a fact that is borne out by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and the panel of taste-testers employed by Tieman et al. in…

Jatropha curcas is a perennial woody plant with high seed oil content that has potential to be used in biofuel production.  However, there is limited knowledge about the biology of seed oil production in Jatropha spp.  Sun. et al., used a genetic approach to identify a J. curcas QTL that controls seed…

Sexual reproduction, with all that recombination and independent assortment, is an excellent way to generate genetic diversity and increase the likelihood that some progeny will survive. However, the seed industry strives to produce genetically uniform seeds. Although there are various ways to circumvent…

The cosmetic industry uses a lot of different chemicals to produce the seven or so skin care products used by the average American every day. Efforts are underway to develop renewable sources for some of these. Derikvand et al. review the chemistry and potential applications behind compounds used by…

Filmed for iBiology 2016 Talk Overview Dr. Jay Keasling discusses the promise of biological systems to create carbon-neutral products for a range of applications, including fuels, chemicals and drugs. Keasling discusses the application of these principles to the development of a microbial platform…

Filmed at the 2011 Gatsby Plant Summer School Abstract: Rice is the most important food crop of the developing world and the staple food of more than half of the world’s population, many of whom are also extremely vulnerable to high rice prices. In developing countries alone, more than 3.3 billion…

Filmed at the Gatsby Summer School, University of Cambridge 2015 Western agricultural systems are reliant on the application of inorganic nitrogen fertilisers to greatly enhance yield. However, production and application of nitrogen fertilisers account for a significant proportion of fossil fuel usage…