Psychedelic Biosynthesis. As noted in the previous post, the psychedelic compound psilocybin, naturally produced by “magic mushrooms“, has recently been biosynthesized “in high yields” in the laboratory via genetic engineering (see Ref. 1 below). By first isolating the genes involved in psilocybin biosynthesis from “magic mushrooms” in the genus Psilocybe,…
“Strawberry Fields Forever”. Thanks to this 1967 Beatles song (see below), strawberries may sometimes be associated with psychedelia, especially to people of a certain age (i.e., old farts like me). This comes to mind because psychedelic drugs have been in the news recently thanks to the publication of a popular…
On Death and Dicamba. About a year ago the recent controversy over the increased spraying of the herbicide Dicamba on midwest U.S. farms took a turn for the worse. Unfortunately, it involved alleged murder. You can listen to an excellent account of the story here: …and/or read about the story…
From Plant Secrets To Plant Antibiotics What were the five most re-tweeted and favorited plant news stories that I shared in September of last year? Well, here they are, in order of popularity, lowest to highest. “Scientists from the John Innes Centre have pioneered innovative new cell imaging techniques to…
From Very, Very Old Plants To New Uses For Plants It’s been an unusually cold winter here in the upper left-hand corner of the USA, so it’s pleasant to recall the warm days of June 2016. That month, the plant news topics ranged from ancient plants to new, exciting uses…
From Glowing Plants to “Talking” Plants As usual, the plant news of February 2016, ranged from the molecular level to ecosystem level, from single plant cells to whole plants. And since I can’t discern any common themes, I’ll go with the stories that I “tweeted” during February of last year…
Here, There, and Everywhere? Recent headlines – China to acquire Syngenta and Chinese farmers are illegally growing GMO corn: Greenpeace – got me wondering about the proliferation (or lack of it) of GMO crop plants outside the USA. It’s seems well-known that biotech crops are not welcome in most of…
GMO? OMG! Back in the day, I used to be a member of the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP), which morphed into the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) in 2001 to better reflect the diverse fields of plant science (read “plant molecular biology”) emerging in the 21st century.…
A Blast From The Past? Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot about the so-called “rewilding” of crop plants in the news lately? (Please see here, for example.) I think I first heard the term “rewilding” about 20 years ago in a Biology Department seminar…
Scanning Plants? Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to identify all the different plant species in your backyard or in a nearby park from just small pieces of their leaves? And how cool would it be to use a smartphone app to determine exactly what kind of plants are…