Mindzilla – Plant Sciences

Plant Sciences

Self-Isolation or Keep Calm and Carry on — the Plant Cell’s Dilemma

April 15, 2020
Mindzilla

Norwich, UK — Self-isolation in the face of a marauding pathogen may save lives but it comes at the expense of life-sustaining essentials such as transport, communication and connectivity. This...

Hormone Produced in Starved Leaves Stimulates Roots to Take Up Nitrogen

April 14, 2020
Mindzilla

Nagoya, Japan — Nagoya University researchers have found that in response to the nitrogen demand of leaves, plants produce a hormone that travels from the leaves to the roots to stimulate the uptake...

Mutation Reduces Energy Waste in Plants

April 9, 2020
Mindzilla

Bochum, Germany — To this end, the team identified several thousand proteins, determined their respective amounts in mutant and reference lines and combined the findings with measurements of photosynthetic...

Better Plant Edits by Enhancing DNA Repair

April 9, 2020
Mindzilla

Thuwal, Saudi Arabia — A new genome editing system enhances the efficiency of an error-free DNA repair pathway, which could help improve agronomic traits in multiple crops. Genome editing involves...

Researchers Show How Forest Loss Leads to Spread of Disease

April 8, 2020
Mindzilla

Stanford, CA — Viruses that jump from animals to people, like the one responsible for COVID-19, will likely become more common as people continue to transform natural habitats into agricultural land,...

Pollen-Based ‘Paper’ Holds Promise for New Generation of Natural Components

April 7, 2020
Mindzilla

Singapore — Scientists at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have created a paper-like material derived from pollen that bends and curls in response to changing levels...

Making Biofuels Cheaper by Putting Plants to Work

April 7, 2020
Mindzilla

Berkeley, CA — Biofuels are an important part of the broader strategy to replace petroleum-based gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that we use today. However, biofuels have so far not reached cost parity...

Study Identifies New Temperature Sensing Mechanism in Plants

April 6, 2020
Mindzilla

Riverside, CA — A protein called phytochrome B, which can sense light and temperature, triggers plant growth and controls flowering time. How it does so is not fully understood. In a paper published...

Researchers Discover a Novel Chemistry to Protect Our Crops from Fungal Disease

March 30, 2020
Mindzilla

Exeter, UK — Pathogenic fungi pose a huge and growing threat to global food security. Currently, we protect our crops against fungal disease by spraying them with anti-fungal chemistries,...

‘Thermometer’ Protein Regulates Blooming

March 24, 2020
Mindzilla

Paris, France — As average temperatures rise every year, it is no longer rare to see plants flower as early as February. Behind this phenomenon is a complex of proteins whose activity is controlled...

Open Sesame: Micro RNAs Regulate Plant Pores

March 19, 2020
Mindzilla

Daegu, South Korea — Environmental cues prompt small RNA segments to regulate the development and distribution of tiny pores involved in photosynthesis in plants. The finding by DGIST researchers in...

Biomass Fuels can Significantly Mitigate Global Warming

March 12, 2020
Mindzilla

Beer-Sheva, Israel — Biomass fuels derived from various grasses could significantly mitigate global warming by reducing carbon, according to a long-term field study by researchers at Ben-Gurion University...

How Three Genes Rule Plant Symbioses

March 3, 2020
Mindzilla

Norwich, UK — For billions of years life on Earth was restricted to aquatic environments, the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes. Then 450 million years ago the first plants colonized land, evolving in...

Discovering What Makes Durian Stink

March 2, 2020
Mindzilla

Freising, Germany — Researchers at the Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (Leibniz-LSB@TUM) have confirmed the presence of the rare amino acid ethionine...

Genetic Map for Maize

February 24, 2020
Mindzilla

Newark, DE — Maize is a staple food all over the world. In the United States, where it’s better known as corn, nearly 90 million acres were planted in 2018, earning $47.2 billion in crop cash...

Global Climate Frameworks Miss the ‘Big Picture’ on Food, Say Scientists

February 19, 2020
Mindzilla

Mexico City, Mexico — Global schemes to fight climate change may miss their mark by ignoring the “fundamental connections” in how food is produced, supplied and consumed, say scientists...

Climate Change is not the Only Threat for Our Plants

February 18, 2020
Mindzilla

Stockholm, Sweden — To maintain plant and animal species on earth, we need not only to consider the direct effects of climate change, but we must also take other equally important environmental issues...

Local Genetic Adaption Helps Sorghum Crop Hide From Witchweed

February 12, 2020
Mindzilla

State College, PA — Sorghum crops in areas where the agricultural parasite striga, also known as witchweed, is common are more likely to have genetic adaptations to help them resist the parasite, according...

Tropical Trees Are Living Time Capsules of Human History

February 7, 2020
Mindzilla

Jena, Germany — In a new article published in Trends in Plant Science, an international team of scientists presents the combined use of dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating and isotopic and genetic...

Herringbone Pattern in Plant Cell Walls Critical to Cell Growth

February 6, 2020
Mindzilla

State College, PA — Plant cells tend to grow longer instead of wider due to the alignment of the many layers of cellulose that make up their cell walls, according to a new study that may have implications...

T&C

Privacy