The Cornell University-led Eastern Broccoli Project, which built a broccoli industry on the East Coast worth an estimated $120 million over the last 13 years, has produced a promising new broccoli variety in partnership with Bejo Seeds, a Geneva, New York-based seed company.
Photosynthesis plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining life on Earth, yet many aspects of the process remain a mystery. One such mystery is how Photosystem II, a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water, producing the oxygen we breathe. Now researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, together with collaborators from Uppsala University and Humboldt University and other institutions have succeeded in cracking a key secret of Photosystem II.
Cycads, a group of gymnosperms which can resemble miniature palm trees (like the popular sago palm houseplant) were long thought to be “living fossils,” a group that had evolved minimally since the time of the dinosaurs. Now, a well-preserved 80-million-year-old pollen cone discovered in California has rewritten scientific understanding of the plants.
Research led by Dmitri Nusinow, PhD, associate member, Danforth Plant Science Center, and former Nusinow graduate student Maria Sorkin, PhD, has identified a new protein complex in plants that regulates temperature response by the circadian clock.
Spider mites avoid chemicals extracted from caterpillar traces; the repellent effect lasts for days. Butterfly and moth caterpillars then indiscriminately consume spider mite-infested and intact leaves along with dormant individuals or their eggs.
Scientists have been studying the possibility of electrical signal transfer between mushrooms and across trees via the mycelial networks. It is thought that fungi generate electrical signals in response to external stimuli and use these signals to communicate with each other, coordinating growth and other behavior.
Ensuring the supply of food to the constantly growing world population and protecting the environment at the same time are often conflicting objectives.
An international team of researchers led by Prof. MA Keping from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS) has shown that forests with higher tree species richness tend to have greater arthropod diversity.
Research into grape pips found from an excavated Byzantine monastery in Israel hints at the origins of the ‘mysterious’ Gaza wine and the history of grapevine cultivation in desert conditions.
Biocides can harm the environment and hinder the work of wastewater treatment facilities. Besides this, toxic biocides can make waste unsuitable for further use as biofertilizers and biofuel production. The Russian scientists proposed the solution to this problem
In just six years since the 39 North Master Plan was unveiled, more than $120 million of private/public investment has been made to advance the goals outlined in the plan. To build on the momentum, seven institutions from the public/private sector have announced their commitment as anchor institutions and established 39 North AgTech Innovation District as a 501(c)3. The new organization will be responsible for elevating the innovation district to the next level of successful growth and economic impact.
Scientists demonstrated that retting of seeds in the agent on the base of chitosan enables not only to hasten lettuce sprouting, but also to improve its yields
In just six years since the 39 North Master Plan was unveiled, more than $120 million of private/public investment has been made to advance the goals outlined in the plan. To build on the momentum, seven institutions from the public/private sector have announced their commitment as anchor institutions and established 39 North AgTech Innovation District as a 501(c)3. The new organization will be responsible for elevating the innovation district to the next level of successful growth and economic impact.
Mangrove forests are an essential component of the coastal zones in tropical and subtropical areas, providing a wide range of goods and ecosystem services that play a vital role in ecology. They are also threatened, disappearing, and degraded across the globe.
Researcher will discuss the study which involved a sleeping aid known as suvorexant that is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for insomnia, hints at the potential of sleep medications to slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
A group of researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil have grown microalgae under controlled conditions in a laboratory in order to use their metabolites, especially lipids, with the prime purpose of producing biofuel.
Roots of a traditional medicine plant called the orange climber can fluoresce an ethereal blue hue under ultraviolet (UV) light. And now, researchers in ACS Central Science have identified two coumarin molecules that could be responsible, one of the which could someday be used for medical imaging.
UD1022, a patented beneficial bacteria, can protect alfalfa plants from fungal pathogens that cause plant disease. But plant growth-promoting bacteria like UD1022 can have a dark side and antagonize other beneficial bacteria present in soil.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists exploring bioenergy plant genetics have made a surprising discovery: a protein domain that could lead to new COVID-19 treatments.
A study conducted at the Santa Bárbara Ecological Station, an environmental protection unit in São Paulo state, investigated how much bark is produced by savanna and forest species in the Cerrado, whether savanna species that produce more bark also protect their gemmae more effectively, and whether generalist species (occurring in both savanna and forest) produce different amounts of bark depending on the environment in which they grow.
The alnus ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus, also known as the black stem borer, was accidentally introduced by humans from its native east Asia to North America and Europe around the beginning of the 20th century.
Argonne, The Morton Arboretum, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign received a grant from NOAA to assess drought resilience in the urban tree canopy.
A team of Cornell researchers and their colleagues want to learn how to fix cardiac malformations by analyzing brain cancer or plants with a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Pests and diseases may reduce global wheat yields by over 20%. A study published April 11th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Sergio Latorre at University College London, UK and colleagues suggest that genomic surveillance may be an effective disease management tool with the ability to trace lineages of emerging crop diseases, and to identify genetic traits for breeding disease-resistant lines.
New research lead by Keith Slotkin, PhD, member, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center opens the door for scientists to equip plants with the tools they need to adapt to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), high heat, and other stressors associated with climate change.
Insights into gene and protein control systems that regulate the use of nitrogen by plant roots could help develop crops that require less nitrogenous fertilizers to produce acceptable yields. Plant biochemist Soichi Kojima and colleagues at Tohoku University discuss their findings and future plans in an article in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science.
Plants are capable of responding to people and have behaviors comparable to tameness, according to authors of new research that calls for a reappraisal of the process of plant domestication, based on almost a decade of observations and experiments.
The dynamics and availability of soil nutrients affects the growth of plants and microbes and how ecosystems respond to changing environmental conditions. Researchers investigated climate impacts on peat nutrient availability as part of the large-scale Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE). The experiment found that above- and below-ground warming exponentially increased the availability of nutrients throughout below-ground peat layers. However, elevated carbon dioxide did not affect the availability of nutrients.
A pre-market regulatory status review conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has concluded that teff modified by genome editing to have a semi-dwarf stature is not subject to biotechnology regulation under USDA’s SECURE Rule.
Georgia Tech researchers show that rising temperatures in northern regions may damage peatlands: critical ecosystems for storing carbon from the atmosphere — and could decouple vital processes in microbial support systems.
Ants are pretty much everywhere. There are more than 14,000 different species, spread over every continent except Antarctica, and researchers have estimated that there are more than four quadrillion individual ants on Earth-- that’s 4,000,000,000,000,000. But how ants evolved to take over the world is still a mystery.
Global breakthrough: for the first time in the world, researchers at Tel Aviv University recorded and analyzed sounds distinctly emitted by plants. The click-like sounds, similar to the popping of popcorn, are emitted at a volume similar to human speech, but at high frequencies, beyond the hearing range of the human ear.
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Scientists aboard a U.S. research vessel in the tropical Atlantic are taking advantage of the ship’s long-planned path through the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt to take some of the first samples from a massive, ongoing bloom. Photos and video from the ship show the algae mats on the surface of the eastern Atlantic in the belt that extends from west Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.
The fruit of the cocklebur plant, which grows worldwide and is often considered a noxious weed, has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory components that could make it useful as a skin protectant, according to new research.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have identified specific proteins and amino acids that could control bioenergy plants’ ability to identify beneficial microbes that can enhance plant growth and storage of carbon in soils.
In North America’s hottest, driest desert, climate change is causing the decline of plants once thought nearly immortal and replacing them with shorter shrubs that can take advantage of sporadic rainfall and warmer temperatures.
Wistar Institute researchers identified hopeaphenol, a natural plant-based compound, as possessing antiviral properties that are effective against HIV.
The partnership will enable both organizations to engage in discussions and dialogue on key global issues related to animal science and phytobiomes research.
Saint Louis University’s Cannabis Science and Operations Certificate program was named the 2023 Outstanding Program by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA). The award recognizes outstanding professional and continuing education programs allowing students to earn academic credit.
Rising temperatures and higher CO₂ levels are fueling longer and more intense pollen seasons, negatively impacting the health of those with allergies. A medical expert and public health scientist both offer strategies to fight back.