Scientists have helped find a way to control different plant processes – such as when they grow – using nothing but coloured light.
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A research team’s model to explain photosynthesis lays out the next challenging phase of research on how green plants transform light energy into chemical energy
Alpine regions on the Tibetan Plateau are sensitive to climate change, however, little is known about their long-term hydroclimate variability due to short instrumental records. A research team established a 537-year standard shrub-ring chronology by cross-dating living and dead Wilson juniper shrubs sampled nearby the Nam Co Lake, on the south-central Tibetan Plateau.
When cells don’t divide into proper copies of themselves, living things fail to grow as they should. For the first time, scientists now understand how a protein called TANGLED1 can lead to accurate cell division in plants.
Researchers have shed light on the reproductive role of ‘dark matter’ DNA – non-coding DNA sequences that previously seemed to have no function.
Wheat, in its own right, is one of the most important foods in the world. It is a staple food for more than 2.5 billion people, it provides 20% of the protein consumed worldwide and, according to the FAO, supplies more calories than any other grain. Its long-term productivity, however, is threatened by rising temperatures, among other factors. Stress from heat, an increasing trend due to climate change, affects its performance, a fact that needs urgent solutions bearing in mind that, according to some estimates, the world’s population will reach 9 billion by the year 2050.
When we cut our fingers, blood rushes out of the wound to close it. However, the vegetable, we just wanted to slice and dice, would have reacted utterly different to this injury. Now scientists investigated how plant cells heal wounds. In their results the researchers discovered that the hormone Auxin and pressure changes are crucial to regeneration.
Citrus greening disease (Huanglongbing of HLB), transmitted by the Asian citrus psyllid, is currently the biggest threat to the citrus industry and is threat to many parts of the world. In Florida alone, citrus greening disease has accounted for losses of several billions of U.S. dollars. Despite HLB’s widespread prevalence, factors influencing the epidemic are poorly understood because most research has been conducted after the pathogen has been introduced.
Amongst the world’s most challenging problems is the need to feed an ever-growing global population sustainably. Securing the food supply is of paramount importance, and more attention must be given to the threat from fungal pathogens competing with us for our own crops.
Producing fewer sperm cells can be advantageous in self-fertilizing plants. An international study has identified a gene in the model plant Arabidopsis that reduces the number of pollen. In addition to supporting the evolutionary theory, these findings could help to optimize plant breeding and domestication in agriculture.
