All posts

Cross both ways before you look!

Today, in this CROSSOVER with Vivian from Instagram’s @Fat_plants_only, we’re talking about literal crossing. 

More specifically, we’re diving into the molecular and genetic factors that play a role into directional crossing differences. I.e., why it is sometimes, using one parent species as the dad (pollen or sperm donor) and one as the mum (egg donor) makes a completely different offspring, compared to when we use those same parents, but switch their roles.… Read more

Free Access to Bonnie Tyler

  • joram 

We talk quite a bit about airports in the beginning but actually this episode is about CRISPR (yay!), favourite plants (yaaaaaayyy!) and fun stuff (yyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!). It’s a good episode.

Joram’s paper: Decaestecker, W., Andrade Buono, R., Pfeiffer, M., Vangheluwe, N., Jourquin, J., Karimi, M., … Jacobs, T. B. (2019). CRISPR-TSKO: A Technique for Efficient Mutagenesis in Specific Cell Types, Tissues, or Organs in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell, tpc.00454.2019.

Tegan’s favourite plant is Gloeomargarita lithophora.

Joram presents the work and life of Enid MacRobbie who pioneered the use of radio tracers to measure fluxes across membranes.… Read more

The forgotten organelle

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

Babyccino*, with Arabidopsis milk?

Plants have long been used as an important source of oil- sunflower, olive, canola and even pumpkin seed. And, more recently, they’ve also been used to make nilk**: soy, oat, almond and cashew.

Today, we’ve got a bit of a mixed bag for you, a post about how plant oils can be used to make milk products. The kind- in case the title of the post didn’t tip you off- that are designed specifically for babies.

*For those of you who don’t know what a babyccino is, it’s basically just frothed warm milk.… Read more

There’s an actual leaf in my chili

  • joram 

Tegan was wearing beautiful earrings. Unfortunately for you, they happen to make a nice little clinking sound that you might or might not pick up from the recording. Also I had terrible discipline in touching noisy wrapping paper. We’re terribly sorry, but the episode is worth it, I promise. 😘

Tegan’s paper: Fang, J., Zhang, F., Wang, H., Wang, W., Zhao, F., Li, Z., … Chu, C. (2019). Ef-cd locus shortens rice maturity duration without yield penalty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(37), 18717–18722.… Read more

What it takes to be a mitochondrion

You all know the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells.. but what exactly is required to get that power going?

Mitos were first seen as organelles way back in the 1800s, and known to be the sites of cellular respiration by the early 1900s. And although we now know that in order to do this respiration- plus a multitude of other functions- mito require thousands of types of proteins in order to function, we don’t really have a perfect idea of how many of each of those proteins is required.… Read more

Drawing Plants and Pipettes

I’m not an artist. I’m a fairly conventionally trained molecular biologist and I spent way more time assembling acrylamide gels than on the drawing board. Still, I draw most of the images here on the site. Today, I’ll show you how.… Read more

There is no such thing as a non-GMO peanut

  • joram 

Oh no, GMO! Did you know that your GMO-free peanuts are far from being free from transgenes? Also they’re full of chemicals, most of which are taken up by the body and used in the human metabolism. Beware the mighty peanut!… Read more

Global climate strike 2019

You might have noticed it on the news, or maybe you even joined – this year there was a Global Climate Strike on September 20th. We joined our local demonstration in Berlin… Read more