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Plants and Pipettes
Join us in exploring the fantastic world of molecular plant biology! We dive deep into the cells of all green things and together we discover the mechanisms behind photosynthesis, flower development and much more!
Blast in the Past makes Lettuce Less Limp
After harvest, products like lettuce can quickly lose their looks and crunch. Now, research shows that a short spell of high light before the harvest can help greens stay fresher and more nutritious. …
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You make my heart skip a beat
Roses are Red Delphinium is Blue It might look quite lovely But it’s poisonous too! In honour of the recent Valentine’s day, and the recording of our soon-to-be-released Plant Book Club ep…
Just like humans, these monkeys use plants to self-medicate
Observations of Brazilian monkeys shows once again that humans aren’t the only ones to use plants as medicine. Brown titi monkeys, Plecturocebus brunneus, lead a fairly docile life – spendi…
A mysterious molecular sunscreen protects photosynthesis
Change is a good thing but it can lead to problems. Like when you change your greenhouse to a nicer one – what if your plants don’t like it? Or worse, what if they like it so much that they don’…
Rat chews tree for added poison damage
The crested rat chews the poison arrow plant, extracting a deadly plant poison that is then smeared on its fur for defence. (Joram first mentioned the crested rat on our podcast). The East A…
The hard truth about soft fruit
During these cold winter months I long for the sensation of biting into a ripe peach or a deliciously soft strawberry. It is possible to get my hands on some fruit now, however, they are certainly not…
This AI looks at plants all day, so you don’t have to
A new machine-learning based pipeline that could help phenotype plants en masse, might just break a major bottleneck in the process of understanding what plant genes really do. Arabidopsis, the…