Plant & zo
The science of plants and more
Plants, maybe just hearing the word makes your hart beat quicker. Maybe not, up to now you just viewed plants as decorations. Not inconceivable. But plants are so much more. They are essential for us. They give us the oxygen we breathe. Give us the food we eat. Plants extremely interestingly even without knowing this. Did you know plants can do calculus? That they can detect nutrients, and grow actively towards them? That they use insects, not only for pollinating their flowers, but also as defence against other insects? Here you will read about this and more. About the ingenuity of plants, the discoveries about this made by researchers, and how plants actual do all those things.
Are you searching for what I have writen for the media about plants, you will find that here.
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Armed against salt
Armed against salt When there is an extensive amount of salt plants take action. One of the things they do, as researchers lead by Christa Testerink show in The Plant Cell, is adapting their cell wall. To prevent weakening by sodium ions. Plants, just like other organisms, don’t like an extensive amount of salt. It…
Biggest plant family tree
Biggest plant family tree Always wanted to know how forget-me-nots and oak trees are related. Now you can find out using the up till now biggest ever family tree of flowering plants. Researchers recently published this family tree in Nature. First a few numbers. 279 researchers out of 27 countries worked on the family tree.…
Better with far red light
Better with far red light Plants use light for their growth. To be more specific, they use the photons from blue and red light. Now Now Dutch researchers show that in addition, photons from far-red light can contribute to the conversion of CO2 to sugars. Plants use far red light it to figure out if…
Learned early
Learned early A good immune response is important to quickly overpower incoming pathogens. Now researchers show in Plant Cell that that basis of this response stems from 500 million years ago. Immune receptors are important for the recognition of pathogens. Plants have multiple types of immune receptors. One of those are the NLR immune receptors…
Many roads lead to the flower
Many roads lead to the flower There are many roads to Rome, or in this case to the flowers of plants like sunflower, gerberas and bellis. That is what researchers of the Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz and Paula Elomaa groups show in the New Pathologist. How the vascular tissues form remains an intriguing phenomenon. So far in…
Microbial helpers
Microbial helpers Striga, a parasitic weed, causes large cereal production losses in Sub-Sharan Africa. Preventing striga infections is therefore important. Now a group of international researchers discovered that microbes may hold the key to preventing striga infections. Striga infects many cereals. As they are dependent on their host, striga seeds wait with germinating till they…
Apparently not synchronised
Apparently not synchronised In spring all plants of the same species appear to flower at the same time. Their age apparently does not matter. Now American researchers show that age may indeed have a role. Synchronised flowering of plants is the source of exuberant floral splendour. At the same time it helps with the pollination…
Receiver discovered
Receiver discovered Plants use volatile compounds for communication. Lots is known about how these compounds are made and distributed. But how plants recognise these volatile compounds remained a mystery for a long time. Now American researchers have discovered one of these volatile receivers. That the receivers of volatile compounds in plants remained for a long…
Weeping peaches
Weeping peaches Weeping willows and other trees that grow their branches downward appear to give up their fight against gravity. But American researchers show that this is not the case, the hanging branches of peach trees are just as strong. The branches of most trees grow towards the sky. But some trees like weeping willows…
Knowing what your neighbour is doing
Knowing what your neighbour is doing Plant cells are connected to each other via their cell wall. While growing, it is therefore useful that they know what their neighbouring cells are doing. Now researchers show in Nature Plants how plants perceive changes of their neighbours: though holding on to them. When plant cells don’t react…
Slowly improving
Slowly improving Rubisco, the most occurring enzyme of our planet, is not really efficient. It is more a good enough type of enzyme. Now researchers from England show that rubisco is one of the slowest evolving proteins, which is improving with each slow step it takes. Rubisco, the enzyme that is converting CO2 into sugars,…
Orange flavour
Orange flavour The typical flavour of oranges stands out between the other citrus fruits. But long was unknown what causes that specific flavour. Now American researchers identified that a combination of 26 flavour compounds that give oranges their unique orange flavour. Flavour compounds are often volatile substances that we perceive with our nose. Think alcohols,…
Controlled orientation
Controlled orientation Sometimes, when you are studying something in more detail, it turns out to be working a little different than you first imagined it. This is shown by American researchers in Nature for the orientation of cell divisions of root cells. The final form of an organism is the result of a whole bunch…
A smart one-two reaction
A smart one-two reaction After recognition of pathogens by plants, often a lot of things simultaneously takes place. Everything to react as soon as possible. Now American and Dutch researchers show that plants initiate the first response to intrudes using a smart one-two like reaction. An alarm is useful to be notified when something goes…
Helping hand
Helping hand Plants do better when they get help from in the soil living microbes. New research from Dutch, Belgian and Swiss researchers shows that this effect is increased when these individual microbes also help each other. The soil is full of microbes, fungi and bacteria. Lost of these microbes have a positive effect on…
Fixed place
Fixed place In the busy chloroplasts of a plant it is essential that starch has its own place to prevent it blocking the way. Now Swiss researchers show in PNAS that the protein MFP1 is picking the spot. Starch is made by plants both to survive long and short periods or scarcity. While for the…
Layer against drought
An extra layer against drought The suberin is a fatty layer between the cell membrane and the cell wall. In roots plants develop this layer either in the outermost or second outermost cell layer. American researchers now show in Nature Plants that in tomato plants this layer helps the plants to deal with drought. The…
Sabotaging plans of attack
Sabotaging plans of attack Our current pesticides with retirement. Then we need good alternatives. To develop these researchers like to know more about how a pest is creating its advantage. This, German researchers analysed for the fungus botrytis. Botrytis infects a whole range of plants, and covers them with a grey mold. As part of…
Longer roots
Longer roots in summertime weather Often warm weather and drought come as a pair. Although there is a reasonable amount known of how the above ground parts of plants deal with this, we know less about how roots deal with the combination of heat and drought. To change this Dutch researchers decide to study this…
New tools
Potential new tools Nature is full of potential useful tools. Proteins that can do tricks that we find useful or handy. But to use those potential tools optimally requires understanding of how they do the tricks they do. That is why British researchers set to find this out for the potential new protein tool SAP05…
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Plant en Zo 