Welcome to
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!
No, your plants won’t purify the air of your office
Sitting in an office is rarely fun. Sure, sometimes you sit with crazy colleagues that you quite cherish and who will eventually start a plant blog with you… but how often does that happen, really? …
Rhinoceros and Anthoceros are two very different things
If you had asked me two weeks ago how to pronounce Anthoceros, I would have confidently (or, as confident as I ever am with these naming things) replied: AnthoCERos. Hard push on the ‘cer’. But if…
You have to be quick to do science on cell defence – really quick
Plants form relationships with bacteria all the time, but these relationships vary a lot. Sometimes, the two are best friends who share nutrients, while at other times they are their worst of ene…
Faced with fire- how some plants beat the burn
We’ve been thinking a lot about the Australian bushfires recently. In case you’ve missed it, the 2019-2020 fire season in Australia has been absolutely catastrophic, with nearly 18 million hectare…
Algal biofuels have a gassy problem
Following on from Monday’s post, where we delved into the nitrogen cycle, today we’re again talking about gaseous nitrogen. But this time, the story is about nitrous oxide. You may have heard nitro…
Can Scientists Hack Nitrogen Fixation?
We are surrounded by nitrogen. The important life processes of photosynthesis and respiration revolve heavily around oxygen and carbon dioxide, but it’s nitrogen gas (N2) that makes up 78% of the …