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
I have questions for you, the readers (& anyone interested in plant science) as I consider my 2017 schedule for the blog and start to plan content for the year. So everyone knows (& can possibly help me), I will be moving onto a new job I still need to find within the first 3 … More What do You Want to see on The Quiet Branches 2017?
Why Genomes? Genome sequencing is routine now. Sequencing the A–T, C–G order of base pairs has gotten a lot cheaper and pipelines of software to do it have gotten better too. However, that doesn’t make it any less important. Before the era of physical (as in the actual basepair sequence structure), geneticists relied on maps … More Plant Genomes of 2016.
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 Like us, plants have stem cells too. These are innate, … More Shoot Apical Meristem development: Model plant for high yielding crops
I had the pleasure of attending Sci Comm Camp in Malibu, CA organized by Sarah Keartes, Cara Santa Maria, and Jason Goldman. There is much more to say, but this post tries to weave together the messages I took away from the experience, plus some pictures, tweets, and hopefully, some substantive answers as to what … More Take Aways From Sci Comm Camp
It was Carl Sagan’s birthday last week as well as a major election in the US that needs some perspective. And it is clear that science will need more advocacy and storytelling than ever on our pale blue dot, the only home we have ever known. Getting to Green Aroudn 3.7 billion (3,700,000,000) years ago, … More The Long Green View.
Go for the sun. It’s a prime directive for most plants on Earth. Gather enough light to drive carbon dioxide, an atmospheric gas, into sugars to fuel growth. The rest of the needed ingredients to build a plant come from underground and the roots. To build more roots, however, photosynthesis has to happen. Go for … More Reach For The Sun.
