Plant Biology is the name of the annual meeting organized by The American Society of Plant Biologists- ASPB (& sometimes co-organized with partner plant science societies from around the world). This is one gathering of the plant science community, one of the bigger ones that occurs each year involving over 1,000 plant scientists over 5 … More What is Plant Biology? (#plantbiology15)
The Quiet Branches is taking a mini-vacation for most of July. I’ll be posting dispatches and plant stories from the annual Plant Biology conference organized by ASPB in Minneapolis, MN this year, July 26-30. So do check back here for plant stories I encounter while there (follow along with the conference at #plantbiology15). In the meantime, … More Vacation.
As you add condiments to your burgers, hot dogs, etc. at a summer barbecue, take a minute to reflect on where they come from. Most are plant products. And a recent study published in PNAS tells the story about how humans wound up with mustard. As life got going, it started to fill new niches … More Cutting the Evolutionary Mustard.
Being multi-cellular has advantages. Specialization of cells for different jobs is one advantage– akin to humans adopting agriculture, freeing up some of us to do other things. Multi-cellularity is also quite challenging as those cells have to communicate well together and there are more cells to feed/keep healthy. Different cells have to be able to … More Guardians of Gas Exchange.
This is a book review of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “The Signature of All Things”. There are many spoilers herein. so if you care about that kind of thing, stop reading early on. If you’ve read this book, do let me know what your impressions were. Botany for economic gain, natural curiosity, and artisanal botany popular in … More The Signature of All Things.
Originally posted on New Under The Sun Blog:
Next up in the Frozen series… we’re talking about flowering for the first time in ‘forever’ (really, just after winter). Here’s the Disney version for your reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YECmDiBhADk FRIGIDA’s gone, so’s FLC Winter is over? Can it be? We need to transcribe a thousand different genes For…
Flowering Flowering is a killer application of the natural world. There are 300,000 extant species of flowering plants, dwarfing any other type of plant. There are only several thousand species of other types of plants (about 15,000 mosses exist today– the next most abundant group of plants). To say flowers are an evolutionary success story … More Flowering time and genetic memory.
This week, I’m taking a break from the cutting edge science and am going to talk about getting outside to walk in a natural, green setting. The Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT has a network of trails with some outdoor exhibits, including the planet walk. Starting from The Sun, the planets are laid out … More Nature walk.
Do you ever wonder about how a plant goes from seed to whole plant? The flip answer is ‘it grows’. But how? How is a plant organized to generate shoots, leaves, roots, flowers, etc.? A scientist that studied that question passed away recently. His name: Ian Sussex. One of his former postdocs and a great … More Ian Sussex and Plant Meristems
For the last 3 years, Fascination of Plants Day has been observed to take note of plants in our world and to really become aware of these organisms that are right in front of us and yet go unnoticed so often. Plants are ubiquitous to the point that they’re a medium we exist in. Even in … More Fascination of Plants
The Quiet Branches 