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…
Turgor Pressure + Plant Cell Wall “Loosening” = Growth. In the previous post, we explored the question of whether or not plants grew at night. The main point of this story was that plant cell turgor pressure is the force that drives plant cell enlargement, and thus plant growth. But…
Do Plants Grow More During The Day Or At Night? A silly question? Whenever I posed this question in my plant science classes, most students thought I was joking. They presumed that plants grow only during the daytime, when the plants are photosynthesizing. If you’re like them, then it may…
Plant Growth = Plant Cell Enlargement. The tallest trees in the world are the California coast redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens), which can grow to over 100 meters (328 feet) tall. That’s higher than a 30-story building. These huge trees can grow so big mainly because their growing cells can enlarge…
From Mapping Trees to Mapping Plant Genomes. As with most of the year, the favorite plant news reports of December 2017 ranged from the macroscopic to the molecular – from global plant ecology to individual plant DNA. “Detailed global maps of key traits in higher plants have been made available…
From Mysterious Flowers to GM Bananas. The favorite plant news stories of November 2017 ranged from the seemingly esoteric to seriously familiar. “The mysterious flowers of Aspidistra elatior are found on the southern Japanese island of Kuroshima. Until recently, scientists thought that A. elatior has the most unusual pollination ecology…
From “Monster” Plants to Pumpkin DNA. Looking back at the most popular plant news items of October 2017, I detect a bit of a Halloween theme in many of the stories. See for yourself… “Cat Whitney’s thread of her favorite spooky plants includes some of the plant kingdom’s most horrifying…
From Fat Leaves to Tree Blindness. On my HPW Twitter feed I typically feature one news story per day, covering a wide range of plant-related topics. The most favorited stories of September 2017 certainly reflects this diversity of subjects. “Eat too much without exercising and you’ll probably put on a…
From Chronic Drought to the Shyness of Trees. Perhaps fitting with the month of August (in the northern hemisphere at least), a couple of the more popular plant news items four months ago had to do with how plants respond to drought. Other retweeted stories ranged from ancient algae to…