Around the world, honeybees are dying in large numbers. This die-off is in part because of a deadly virus that can kill bees or impair their ability to return to the hives after foraging. But researchers now show that a cheap and naturally occurring chemical compound could prevent or reverse the effects of the virus in bees.
Plants adapt to their nutritional needs by modifying the permeability of their roots through the production or degradation of a cork-like layer called suberin. By studying the regulation of this protective layer in Arabidopsis thaliana, an international team, has discovered four molecular factors responsible for the genetic activation of suberin.
Chicory is a beautiful plant with blue flowers, but the interesting part is in the ground: the chicory taproots are a source of inulin, a natural sweetener that is used in bread and dairy products and as dietary fibre for healthy intestinal function. Researchers have now used a new breeding techniques to develop a chicory variety that no longer contains bitter compounds.
Recently, a group of scientists, successfully developed a new high-yielding transgenic desi chickpea variety. For that, they used the chickpea cytokinin oxidase/dehydrogenase gene expressed under the chickpea WRKY31 gene promoter.
Plant breeders around the globe have worked for decades to create peanut varieties that can fight off fungal diseases, and several have been successful. Now DNA detectives show how important peanut seed exchange is to food security.
New research sheds fresh light on plant chloroplasts, and the proteins inside them. The regulation of chloroplast proteins is important for plant development and stress acclimation and is increasingly significant as plants – including our staple crops, wheat, rice, barley – are having to respond to our changing environments.
New study provides new target for increasing oil content of plant tissues for potential applications in bioenergy, chemical engineering, and nutrition.
Plants regulate their growth and development using hormones, including a group called strigolactones that prevent excessive budding and branching. For the first time, scientists have synthesized strigolactones from microbes.
A new method for quantifying plant evolution reveals that after the onset of early seed plants, complexity halted for 250 million years until the diversification of flowering plants about 100 million years ago.
Researchers have successfully developed plants that can be used to detect organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which contaminate soil and water.
