Humans are inspired by nature in all sorts of ways. A substantial part of that natural world is the plants surrounding us. Some common, most rare, and many found medicinally useful to humans. Even some “useless” plants like Arabidopsis, thale cress, a mustard weed, has contributed human health through its place as a research organism. … More The State of The World’s Medicinal Plants
Give up on that riddle? Well, you’re right in thinking there’s not a lot in common between them. All life is connected, however, some is just further apart on the evolutionary bush than others. One is an animal, one is a plant. A lot of evolution and an endosymbiont (the chloroplast plants have that animals … More How is a Naked Mole Rat Like a Plant?
The professor that got me into plant biology, taught me plant physiology, and in a many ways helped me develop my technical writing ability is retiring this year. Gary Tallman, PhD is retiring from being the Taul Watanabe endowed Professor of Biology at Willamette University in Salem, OR, but has had a long career in … More Guard Cells Tolerating Heat
This is a guest post about a new plant science community resource by Erin Sparks, Guillaume Lobet, Larry York and Frédéric Bouché It is midnight on a cold winter evening and you are scheduled to give a seminar at 8 am the next morning. All you are missing to complete your presentation is one last … More A community repository of plant illustrations
This is a guest post by Arif Ashraf. Arif Ashraf is PhD student at Iwate University, Japan and Graduate Student Ambassador of ASPB. His research interest is understanding the hormonal interplay in primary root development of Arabidopsis. He blogs about plant science at http://www.aribidopsis.blogspot.com Lost Tomato Flavor Tomatoes show up in a lot of our … More Lost Tomato Flavors Regained.
George Washington Carver was a lot more than peanuts. He was born a slave, in Missouri, during the American Civil War and died in the middle of World War II. In between, he was part of creating a more sustainable farming system, particularly for poor African American farmers in the South. Carver essentially had a … More George Washington Carver, Planter of Productive Farmers.
Letter to a farmer from a plant scientist sharing values we share and why scientists say the world is warming up and how that links to local experiences. … More To a Farmer From a Plant Scientist
Coffea arabica Genome We now know the genes of good coffee. The Coffea arabica (Arabica coffee) genome was released this month, announced at the annual Plant and Animal Genome conference XXV. Arabica coffee is consdiered better quality and is 70% of the world’s coffee. Several years ago, the simpler genome of Coffea canephora was sequenced (a.k.a. … More Inside The Coffee Bean
This is a re-post of a piece I wrote for the All Under One Leaf, the blog of the UK Plant Science Federation in August 2016. It is reposted here with permission. A flowering world There are around 369,000 known flowering plant species on Earth today, by far the most numerous group of plants living … More How Does a Flower Come to be?
This is a guest post I wrote for the All Under One Leaf Blog for the UK Plant Sciences Federation on 10/7/2016. It is reposted here with permission. Seeds for The Future This is a story where people died to preserve plants for future generations. Nikolai Vavilov (1887-1943) is the scientist at the center of … More Securing the Future of Plants for All
The Quiet Branches 