The question of which extant angiosperm (flowering plant) lineage “came first” has puzzled biologists for centuries. This question is fascinating and important in its own right, but the answer also...

Addressing today's agricultural challenges requires a more balanced view that must be guided by evidence. But more importantly, it requires an optimistic outlook that recognizes the power of human creativity in responding to global challenges. International development expert Calestous Juma emphasized that developing countries will need agricultural technology innovations, particularly transgenic crops to feed their people. Professor Juma said that while 28 countries are now benefitting from planting such crops, not all regions of the world are reaping their full benefits.

Speaking at McGill University to receive his Honorary Degree, Professor Juma said, "As the world's food challenges increase, so must humanity enlarge its toolbox to include genetic modification and other technologies." He then cited examples of transgenic plant science innovations in Africa, where there are only four countries planting transgenic crops. 

"Water rights sharing can only mediate conflict in the short term but cannot address water scarcity. In practice, a shared understanding of watershed functions, and reconciliation of the diverse interest and expectations of multiple stakeholders at the landscape level, .

So far, the best-known attractants in carnivorous prey traps are nectar, colour and olfactory cues. Reporting a new prey capture mechanism in some species of carnivorous plants. They found the existence of distinct blue fluorescence emissions at the 'capture spots' of Nepenthes, Sarracenia, Drosera, Pinguicula, Dionaea muscipula and Utricularia stellaris at UV 366 nm. When the capture spot was masked by coating a non-fluorescent extract, the pray capture was drastically reduced. The study has been published as a short research paper in the current issue of 'Plant Biology' 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1438-8677.2012.00709.x/abstract

Jeanne walks you through the botany you need to know to understand pomegranate fruit structure.  Jeanne’s definition of “need to know” is arguably a bit broad and includes a brief tour of the many ...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) with E. coli lately – even more than usual.  One impetus has been the paper by Mike Wiser, Noah Ribeck, and me that appeared...

Absentee teachers, negligent doctors, high transport costs, missing fertilizers, and elite-captured industrial policy all stand in the way of poor people’s escaping poverty.  While the proximate reason for these obstacles may be a lack of resources...

TR4: will history repeat itself? - ProMusa blog" Looming large on the horizon is a new threat to African banana farmers: the tropical race 4 variant of Fusarium wilt (better known as TR4). TR4 was thrust into the limelight when it destroyed commercial Cavendish plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia in 1988. The killer fungus went viral (sorry) and spread to banana production areas in four more countries, including China. Once introduced, TR4 spreads rapidly with infected planting material, on contaminated tools, and in contaminated water and soil.

You might expect me to say that environmentalists should say no to meat, and that we should focus on changing what people eat in the interest of saving the planet. But it's not quite so simple.

Wetlands have often been at odds with agricultural land uses and their very existence threatened by pressure from cropland expansion or chemical runoff. However, one of the goals in taking a landscape approach is managing these conflicts within a landscape. Today’s blog post highlights ongoing research to realize synergies between agricultural land uses and wetlands.