From Stressed Plants as Good Neighbors to the Genome of a Parasitic Flowering Plant. And the top five most popular tweets of 2021 at HowPlantsWork are: #5 – How plants become good neighbours in times of stress “So how do plants prevent elongated growth under deep shade conditions? The secret lies in…
From Killer Citrus Disease to Driller Plant Roots. In this penultimate episode in counting down the top 25 tweets of HowPlantsWork, we go from #10 to #6. #10 – Researchers find peptide that treats, prevents killer citrus disease “Huanglongbing, HLB, or citrus greening has multiple names, but one ultimate result: bitter…
From How Roots Provide Symbiotic Bacteria Oxygen to How Flowers Changed the Evolution of Life on Earth. Counting down the top 25 tweets of 2021 from HowPlantsWork, here’s Part 3 – #15 to #11: #15 – How legumes give oxygen to symbiotic bacteria in their roots “The roots of legume…
From the Extinction of Indigenous Languages to the Perseverance of New York City’s Wildflowers. What were the top 25 tweets of 2021 from HowPlantsWork? Here’s Part 2 – #20 to #16: #20 – Extinction of Indigenous languages leads to loss of exclusive knowledge about medicinal plants “Many of today’s mass-market…
First Signs of Spring? We’re about to switch to the stupid “daylight savings time” here in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m starting to see some daffodils around town…both iconic signs of spring in many parts of the world. The appearance of the daffs motivated me to revisit this post from…
From “Friendly” Bacteria To Plants In The “Fast-Lane”. A key word in the plant science news of November 2018 appears to be “heat”…from how hot temperatures affects plant genetics to how hot (as in spicy) plants may be used for pain relief. Also featured in last November’s news was how…
From Taller Arctic Plants To GMO Organic Farming. A recurring topic in the plant science news of last October seemed to be “big”, as in Arctic plants may be getting bigger due to a warming climate, or making bigger fruit using genetic engineering. Speaking of GMO’s, the idea of organic…
From Trees That “Bleed” Metals To Visualizing Danger Signals In Plants. There was lots of unusual plant science news last September, from trees that apparently accumulate certain heavy metals, such as nickel, to plants that glow in the dark when wounded. Added to these September 2018 stories are reports ranging…
From How Plants Tell Time To Saving The American Chestnut. Time seemed to be a recurring theme in the plant science news of August 2018…from how plants tell time to how long seeds have to successfully germinate. The future was also a theme…from the future of food production in the…
From “Talking” Trees To The Origin of Plant Hormones. The plant science news of March 2018 began with a recent (but a somewhat unfortunate, in my view) trend of mysticism somehow creeping into scientific studies of plant physiology. (Think plant consciousness. Or that plants possess some sort of “secret wisdom”.)…