Plant biology

Simple trick could improve accuracy of plant genetics research

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a technique used to study gene activity in other organisms can also be used to make studies in plants more accurate.

Weedy rice gets competitive boost from its wild neighbors

Rice feeds the world. But researchers have found that a look-alike weed has many ways of getting ahead.

‘Inert’ ingredients in pesticides may be more toxic to bees than scientists thought

Pesticide users sometimes know very little about how inerts function. That’s partly because they are regulated very differently than active ingredients.

Vampire viruses prey on other viruses to replicate themselves

And they may hold the key to new antiviral therapies.

You say genome editing, I say natural mutation

A Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory plant geneticist and computational biologist teamed up to decipher the unpredictability of natural and engineered mutations in tomatoes.

A cold day in Stockholm

At the dawn of a new age in neuroscience, the rivalry between Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal reached an icy climax.

Celebrating 100 years of the term ‘lipid’

Gabriel Bertrand put forward the idea in a paper published by the Bulletin de la Société de Chimie Biologique. The society approved Bertrand’s suggestion, with the French spelling “lipide,” in 1923.

Meet Sarah O’Connor

This JBC associate editor scouts the plant kingdom for intriguing pathways and hits the hiking trails in Germany.

Chemists build synthetic catalysts to break down biomass like super enzymes

Yan Zhao's research group is building nanospheres that act as super enzymes to break down the plant fibers in biomass such as crop residues.