WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University scientists have found the last undiscovered gene responsible for the production of the amino acid phenylalanine, a discovery that could lead to processes to control the amino acid to boost plants’ nutritional…
Fresh insight into how biological clocks adjust to having less sunlight in the winter could help us better understand the impact of jet lag and shift work.
Scientists studying the daily activity cycle in plants — known as circadian rhythms — h…
Though it’s been at least a billion years since plants and animals shared a common ancestor, they have through the eons shared a common threat in the form of microbes, including bacteria, eukaryotes and viruses. This has resulted in remarkably sim…
New University of Arizona research indicates that leaf vein patterns correlate with functions such as carbon intake and water use — knowledge that could help scientists better understand the complex carbon cycle that is at the heart of global …
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to a popular hypothesis, grasses such as maize, sugar cane, millet and sorghum got their evolutionary start as a result of a steep drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the Oligocene epoch, more than 2…
Using particles that are 1/100,000 the width of a human hair to deliver drugs to cells or assist plants in fighting off pests may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but these scenarios may be a common occurrence in the near future….
COLLEGE STATION — A virus that normally deforms or kills plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants isn’t all bad: A gene within the virus has been found useful for allowing foreign genes to be introduced into a plant without harmful effects, acco…
Powdery mildew is a fungus that infects both crop and ornamental plants. Each year, powdery mildew and other plant pathogens cause immense crop loss. Despite decades of intense research, little is known of the plant molecules that allow fungal hypha…
The seeds that you plant in your backyard garden next spring — and farmers sow in their fields — may have a guardian angel that helps them sprout, stay healthy, and grow to yield bountiful harvests. It’s a thin coating of chemicals termed a “s…
The November/December issue of the International Journal of Plant Sciences explores the current state of our knowledge of natural selection in plants.
“Plants were crucially important to Darwin’s development of the theory of natural selection (si…
Swiss researchers studying the projected effects of climate change on alpine plant species have discovered that mountain ranges may represent a ‘safer’ place to live during changing climate conditions. The research, published in the Journal of Bioge…
UPTON, NY In theory, plants could be the ultimate green factories, engineered to pump out the kinds of raw materials we now obtain from petroleum-based chemicals. But in reality, getting plants to accumulate high levels of desired products has been…