Author: joram

It’s grey and rainy days like this November in Berlin that make you very aware of your immune system and how it works, perhaps not always successfully, to fends off all kinds of pathogens. Plants are in a similar situation, their immune response has to constantly be ready to fight off fungi, bacteria or viruses. Recently, researchers gained new understanding of the workings of a key part of the plant’s immune response.… Read more

Natural light is a challenge for plants. It’s far from constant and it changes not only in intensity but also in quality, shifting between blue-ish and red-ish hues, depending on the time of the day. Here’s a tale of how plants rise to the challenge of change, by fine-tuning their light collectors in response to the light. … Read more

Heading into the future, we have to solve some extremely complex problems. Take agriculture for example: we want to feed an ever increasing population, protect the local environment, reduce carbon emissions and have a sustainable long-term production pipeline.

Today, we’re looking at one of these problems and discussing potential solutions.… Read more

The outside world can be harsh – and I’m not only saying that because I am sitting at home with a cold, looking at the dull grey sky through the window. Too much of any of the elements- wind, rain, cold, heat- can cause us all stress. And they can stress plants, too. Today we’re talking about how plants feel when raindrops keep falling on their leaves…

drip

drip

drip… Read more

Small things are fun. That’s why they call tiny chocolate bars fun-sized. So we thought we’d look into the plant biology version of those shrunken-down candy bars: the fun-sized class of Mamiellophyceae.… Read more

In 1884, during the Cotton State Exhibition in the United States, well-meaning presenters handed out small plants to visitors. Those visitors brought the gifts to their backyards where they excitedly planted the aquatic planted in small streams and ponds. Just 16 years later, the plant had become a serious pest in many bodies of water in several federal states. … Read more

Think of a plant organelle. You probably picked the chloroplast, the guy that’s specific to plants. Or maybe the giant vacuole. If you‘re weird, you picked the tiny mitochondria*. Chances are, however, that you forgot about one organelle – the peroxisome.

*We’re both chloroplast people, thus the mito shade.… Read more