Image: Hans Hillewaert, Wikimedia Commons. Think of all the energy expended in planting fresh cereal grain every year to ensure just one season’s crop. Then think of all the energy expended in repeating the process each...
Category - News
Nigel Chaffey
Hormones and sugar network signalling in seeds
Hormones and sugar network signalling in seeds Endospermic legumes are abundant in tropical forests and their establishment is closely related to the mobilization of storage polysaccharides and proteins. Tonini et al...
botanyone
Floral polymorphism and environmental heterogeneity
Floral polymorphism and environmental heterogeneity Polymorphism in flower colour may be maintained either by pollinator preferences or by environmental fluctuations. Tang and Huan examine gynoecium colour polymorphism...
New botanic initiative is the ‘Size of Wales’
An interesting twist on an old cliché has been launched at the National Botanic Garden of Wales. In the UK the size of Wales has long been recognised as a useful measure of any disaster area (earthquakes, combat zones...
Alun Salt
Nanotechnology and self-cleaning from plant leaf surfaces
Self-cleaning nanotechnology from plant leaf surfaces comes of age
Editor Pat Heslop-Harrison
Plants plugging the gap
Image: Richard Wheeler, Wikimedia Commons. Engineers – and artists – have often sought inspiration from the natural world. Take for example the story of the discovery of Velcro by a Swiss gentleman when he observed how...
The Rich History of Eggplant or Aubergine
Eggplants in the 14th Century An interesting website, Zester, explores the culture of food and drink – including a range of different species with potential for exploitation, as well as recipes about...
How old is my meadow?
I was a bit fed up after hearing the UK government announce further cutbacks to the science budget today, so I thought I’d delve into the recent Free Access issue of Annals of Botany from Sept 2009 to see...
Ignore the small things at your peril…
Image: Gordon T. Taylor, US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. H. G. Wells dramatically demonstrated how mankind’s future may depend upon the action of small organisms in his War of the Worlds where...
Vernalization, stem lignification and floral transition in Phleum
Vernalization, stem lignification and floral transition in Phleum Stem lignification and resulting reduced digestibility of forage grasses is thought to be associated with the transition of apices to the reproductive...
Death by Powerpoint, Internet Science Nerds, and #Solo10
As the undergraduates I teach will testify, I’ve railed many times against ‘Death by Powerpoint’. Somewhat amazingly, a few talks at the Science Online 2010 Conference Solo10 did combine this...
Dissemination and Science On-line #solo10
I am with about 150 people interested in “science communication on-line” at the British Library in London this week. Journals are all about the communication of science results, and the not-for-profit...
Microarray-analysis for components of salinity-stress tolerance
Microarray-analysis for components of salinity-stress tolerance Thiourea has been demonstrated to impart salinity-stress tolerance to seedlings of mustard, Brassica juncea. Srivastava et al. perform a genome-wide...
