On the surface, the humble melon may just look like a tasty treat to most. But researchers have found that this fruit has hidden depths: retrotransposons (sometimes called “jumping sequences”) may change how genes are expressed.
An international study has discovered a stem-cell promoting hormone in the liverwort Marchantia polymopha. Marchantia, a common liverwort, is a representative of an ancient lineage of plants. Their evolutionary history presents researchers with an excellent opportunity to explore the fundamental insights into how genes and hormones have evolved in plants.
A new study demonstrates how site-directed mutagenesis can be achieved in virtually any wheat germplasm of choice by intergeneric pollination of wheat with cas9/guide-RNA (gRNA)-transgenic maize.
A team of scientists has developed two strategies based on trans-acting small interfering RNAs (syn-tasiRNAs) to modulate the level of silencing induced by a plant’s genes.
Floral architecture influences pollination and reproduction: open flowers facilitate cross-pollination, while closed flowers limit outcross.
First spotted in the United States in 2014, bacterial leaf streak of corn is an emerging disease of corn that has now spread to ten states, including the top three corn-producing states of Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.
Research could lead to major improvements in crop production. The new study shows a new way to help study and ramp up photosynthesis. The breakthrough is based on revisiting an original, billion-year-old strategy in plants. It looks specifically at rubisco activity – a crucial part of the process according to authors.
Plant geneticists seeking to understand the history of the plants we eat can decode the genomes of ancient crops from rare, well-preserved samples. However, this approach leaves significant gaps in the timelines of where and when many modern-day fruits, vegetables, and cereal crops evolved, and paints an incomplete picture of what they looked like. A Science & Society article details a unique approach to filling these gaps using art–and calls on museum goers and art aficionados to help find paintings that could have useful depictions.
Vertical farms with their soil-free, computer-controlled environments may sound like sci-fi, but there is a growing environmental and economic case for them, according to new research laying out radical ways of putting food on our plates.
Microplastics, tiny plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in length, can now be found throughout the ocean and other aquatic ecosystems, and even in our seafood and salt. As microplastics have become ubiquitous, scientists have become concerned about their transfer from the environment to the food chain and their potential impact on human health.
