Genes As Parasites? Yikes, has it really been over 40 years since the publication of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins? Indeed it has! (Please see Ref. 1 below.) This landmark book was very controversial when it was first published because it depicted biological organisms basically as “vehicles” for the …
Looking Out For Number One In a previous post, way back last December, regarding the notion of plant “pain”, I acknowledged the subject of “damaged-self recognition” in plants, but I didn’t want to elaborate on it at that time. Well, it looks like now’s the time…. “Damaged-self recognition” in plants …
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 …
“Double helix in the sky tonight Throw out the hardware Let’s do it right” – Steely Dan Here A CRISPR, There A CRISPR, Everywhere A CRISPR, CRISPR…. Yikes! You can hardly go through a week these days without reading some headline with “CRISPR” in the title. (Even in Time magazine!) …
Size Does Matter (If You’re Growing Giant Pumpkins) Question: What does a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and the current World Record Giant Pumpkin have in common? Answer: They each weigh about 1 ton (US) or about 2000 pounds (907 kilograms). Indeed, the current world record heaviest pumpkin (see the photo on …
Spraying RNAi To Silence Target Genes In Crops (And Insect Pests)… Many object to GMO crop plants, at least in part, because they contain foreign genes artificially – and permanently – inserted into the plant’s genome. But what if you could TEMPORARILY modifY plants (and even their insect pests) by …
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 …
Plant “Extremophiles”? Recently, I was reading about a new species of metal-eating plant discovered in the Philippines, and I discovered a new word (to me, at least). This new word is “extremophyte“. Simply put, most extremophytes are plants evolutionarily adapted to thrive in highly stressful environments. Physically stressful, that is, …
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 …
Hothouse Flowers Unlike animals, plants are not born with their “naughty bits”. That is, the sexual organs of plants, a.k.a., flowers, are typically formed after a period of so-called vegetative growth. In other words, plants first go through a vegetative stage of development (think shoots and leaves, over and over …