Lights, camera, action! Prepare for a botanist to take center stage!
“The Martian” opens October 2. Why should you care? Because it is one of the most-anticipated movies of the year and it features a botanist, played by Matt Damon, in the lead role. Here’s the trailer....
View ArticlePlants in the News, August 28 2015
Welcome to Episode 3 of our weekly feature, Plants in the News. These stories are selected to provide educators with interesting and accessible news from the world of plant science. Although some of...
View ArticlePlants in the News, September 4 2015
Welcome to Episode 4 of our weekly feature, Plants in the News. These stories are selected to provide educators with interesting and accessible news from the world of plant science. Although some of...
View ArticlePlants in the News, September 11 2015
This week’s episode has the theme of “Videos”. There are not enough good videos about plant science, but there’s a lot of talent out there, how about making an engaging video as your outreach project...
View ArticlePlants in the News, Sept 25 2015: Wheat
In honor of the International Wheat Conference 2015 (#IWC2015), this week’s Plants in the News focuses on wheat. For an overview, one of the best sources of information about wheat science is Peter...
View ArticleCountdown to The Martian
I’m excited to see so many people writing about The Botanist .. er The Martian, including: Alun Salt in AoB Blog (Incidently, Alun wrote about the book back in 2014, inspring me and others to read it),...
View ArticlePlants in the News, 2 October: Cannabis, entry point to plant science or...
This week, Nature published an excellent Outlook on cannabis science and policy. How do you feel about cannabis as a topic of discussion in the classroom? I’ve tended to shy away from it – in my...
View ArticlePlants in the News, October 9 2015: Artemisia annua and coral bleaching
The biggest news in plant science is the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Tu Youyou for her discovery and development of the antimalarial drug artemisinin from the plant...
View ArticlePlants in the News, October 16 2015: Marvellous Mangroves
This week we feature mangroves, a polyphyletic group of plants that live in tropical intertidal zones. Mangroves are in the news as a consequence of a new paper out in Nature (Lovelock et al., 2015)...
View ArticlePlants in the News, October 23 2015: Booo-tany
Tired of the same old Halloween decorations? Maybe you’re ready for Booo-tany! There are plenty of plants that embody spooky themes, and what could be cooler than dressing up as a corpse flower or...
View ArticlePlants in the News, October 30 2015: Oxford Plants 400
The 400th anniversary of the founding of plant science at Oxford will be celebrated on July 25 2021 (see its history). As a celebration and count-down to this anniversary, the University of Oxford...
View ArticleKeiko Torii wins Japanese Saruhashi Prize
Keiko Torii, professor of biology at the University of Washington (UW), chief editor of The Arabidopsis Book, and a member of the editorial board of Plant Physiology, was recently awarded the 35th...
View ArticlePlants in the News 6 November 2015: Pineapple, Ananas comosus
This week we celebrate pineapples, in honor of the completion of the sequencing of the pineapple (Ananas comosus) genome and the insights it provides into an important metabolic pathway (Ming et al.,...
View ArticlePlants in the News 13 November 2015: Indonesia on Fire
Recent fires in Indonesia have been making headlines around the world and raising concerns about their impacts on wildlife, global carbon emissions and health problems for local people. Fires have been...
View ArticlePlants in the News: Help us identify 2015’s Plant Science Highlights
Normally, our Friday posts highlight plants featured in the news over the past week, but this week we take a short break to make an appeal for your thoughts on the most notable and newsworthy...
View ArticleChestnuts featured in #AdventBotany
Last year, Alastair Culham (@BotanyRNG) and Jonathan Mitchley (@Drmgoewild) from the University of Reading teamed up to create a series of blog posts called Advent Botany (advent is the season leading...
View ArticleBest of Plants 2015: Outreach and Communication
The Martian I don’t know if the book/film The Martian will have a lasting impact on plant science, but it certainly added some thrills to the plant scientists’ year. The story features a space-stranded...
View ArticleThe International Year of Pulses 2016: Remembering Dr. Joe Smartt
Guest post by Dr. Mike Jackson (bio below). Peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas – and other leguminous species. All are pulses or grain legumes, important crops around the world, adding essential...
View ArticleExplore the New York Public Libraries Digital Collections
On January 6, 2016, The New York Public Library enhanced access to all public domain items in its Digital Collections so that everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost...
View ArticleSolanum watneyi & an Oscar-worthy performance by a plant scientist
Dr. Chris Martine (Bucknell University) discovered a species of Australian bush tomato and named it after Mark Watney, the main character of Hollywood blockbuster, The Martian (based on Andy Weir’s...
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