Category: Plant Signaling
HPW Retrospectacle 2018 – September
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…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – August
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – July
From Crowdfunded Plant Science to Bad Fertilizer. Citizen-funded scientific research is an interesting concept, made real by the internet. An example of how crowdfunded research paid off was reported last July. Also in the plant science news in July 2018 were articles regarding plant evolution, progress in engineering nitrogen-fixing bacteria…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – May
From Cocoa CRISPR to Artificial Plant Cells CRISPR is the latest “tool” in the plant molecular biology “toolbox”, and it’s being applied to many crops, including cocoa trees, as we saw in May 2018. Other plant science news from last May included reports of new information regarding plant interactions with…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – March
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”.)…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – February
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – January
Dancing With Mr. D – New Troubles For An Old Herbicide
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…
The Selfish Plant 3 – Self-Incompatibility and Kin Recognition
When No Really Means No (In Plants) When it comes to sexual reproduction, nearly half of all flowering plant species are self-incompatible. That is, the pollen (male parts of flowers) produced by an individual plant is somehow recognized by the plant and rendered ineffectual in self-fertilizing the ovules (female parts…
HPW Retrospectacle 2018 – September

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…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – August
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – July

From Crowdfunded Plant Science to Bad Fertilizer. Citizen-funded scientific research is an interesting concept, made real by the internet. An example of how crowdfunded research paid off was reported last July. Also in the plant science news in July 2018 were articles regarding plant evolution, progress in engineering nitrogen-fixing bacteria…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – May

From Cocoa CRISPR to Artificial Plant Cells CRISPR is the latest “tool” in the plant molecular biology “toolbox”, and it’s being applied to many crops, including cocoa trees, as we saw in May 2018. Other plant science news from last May included reports of new information regarding plant interactions with…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – March

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”.)…
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – February
HPW Retrospectacles 2018 – January
Dancing With Mr. D – New Troubles For An Old Herbicide
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…
The Selfish Plant 3 – Self-Incompatibility and Kin Recognition

When No Really Means No (In Plants) When it comes to sexual reproduction, nearly half of all flowering plant species are self-incompatible. That is, the pollen (male parts of flowers) produced by an individual plant is somehow recognized by the plant and rendered ineffectual in self-fertilizing the ovules (female parts…