In the late 18th century, the twice-widowed Mary Delany created nearly a thousand breathtakingly beautiful and intricate paper “mosaicks” of flowers.
Category - Life
annbot
Bananas, disease, diversity, research and The One Show
Our favourite fruit, the banana, is threatened by fungal, viral and bacterial diseases. This was discussed on the BBC TV programme ‘The One Show’ on 13 May, to include an interview with Pat Heslop-Harrison...
Editor Pat Heslop-Harrison
Presentations and purpose
Several AoBBlog.com posts have discussed presentations, because both teaching and conference talks are such an important part of what many botanists are doing – telling people about our research. Annals of Botany...
Big Question: Feast or famine?
This video from the The University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment makes a strong case why we're going to need more plant scientists. Lots more.
Charles Darwin and the Origins of Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology
I often quote the last paragraph of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species: “It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds … and to reflect that these elaborately...
Paying to read or paying for publication: what do you get?
Why not simply post your manuscript on your own or your Institute’s webserver, at minimal cost, fast and available to all? Following Annals of Botany’s decision to reduce our open access charges to be...
What I did on my day off
I visited Biddulph Grange Garden, a National Trust Property in Staffordshire. As visits go it wasn’t a huge success. The sky was solid cloud that hammered the light flat, meaning there was no real light and shade...
Alun Salt
Gene manipulation in plants – open educational resource
Genetic manipulation of crops is an issue of great current interest and controversy. This unit is part of the Open University OpenLearn project and covers some of the basic science that underpins the debate and examines...
AJ Cann
A mapping tool to add to my wishlist
This tool from Gatewing looks like the kind of mapping equipment I dream about. It’s a very simple idea. You can use a groundstation to control a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) equipped with various devices to...
Missing my own talk, communities, networks and journal development
Individually, as researchers and scientists, we want to read high-quality information, we want to find everything that is relevant to our interests, we want our own writings and publications to reach all the...
Q: What do plant fertilization, diurnal rhythms and hybrid vigour all have in common?
A: They are all connected by Epigenetics. Presenting the first Annals of Botany Special Seminar* at the Plant Sciences Department at Oxford University on March 31st, Professor Jeff Chen (University of Texas) explained...
Hugh Dickinson
The New Face of Science in the World
I remember sometime ago when I opened a journal to read a scientific paper, most papers were authored by two or three people from the same laboratory, less often from different laboratories of the same country and...
Mateus Mondin
Information overload and links: blogs, social networks and scholarly journals
Next week, a virtual conference is addressing some very pertinent questions of universal relevance to science. In fact, CIARD (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development) is asking more...
The Rhizosphere of wild barley across Evolution Canyon
Bacteria and other microorganisms contribute greatly to the Earth’s biomass as they form the bottom of the food chain and orchestrate the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and flow of other nutrients through the...
