Occasionally, a scientific discovery can have such an effect that its immediate impact appears to be not all that worthwhile. But those with the ability to see what it might lead to can observe just what massive changes will result from it These kinds of findings end up rewriting fundamental sections of school textbooks and […]
Some pathogens are content to focus on their one host and live in their niche of evolutionary propagation. They go about their ongoing generational fight to one-up their host, just as their host works to outperform and prevent infection by the pathogen. Occasionally, one of these sorts of pathogens will branch off and appropriate one […]
Tracking plant pathogens is no simple matter. Due to their possible environmental hidey holes being in the soil, the air, other plants, or the host plants themselves lying dormant, any and every possibility must be accounted for. And the triggers that begin active pathogenicity and harm to the plant is connected to a convoluted system […]
Nitrogen fixation is a crucial part of plant growth and agriculture. Because the element nitrogen is a critical ingredient for proper development of plants, they need a steady supply of it in order to grow healthy and have a high yield of offspring seeds. For most plants, this is done by relying on nitrogen already […]
From the start of things, science has always relied on the organisms that can be made to be a representation of more complex systems. They were a model for either humans themselves or to show in their own simplicity how life builds up to larger formations of cells and processes. That has long been the […]
Control over the genome and the epigenome has continued to be a prime focal point for the fields of science. New genome editing technologies and their related epigenetic tools has only exacerbated this spotlight. However, there are other areas of expression control that are available and some techniques, such as RNA interference (RNAi), seem to […]
When dealing with plants in a lab, in a garden, or in an agricultural field, we often forget that there was originally a whole biome that those plants were involved in in the wild. We often try to simulate those conditions to the best of our capabilities, but there is still so much knowledge we […]
Contamination of the environment is a topic oft spoken of in an incredibly broad sense. That the actions of some governments or organizations are damaging to their surroundings comes as no surprise, but discussions on the specifics and what can be done to fix the issues rarely comes up in the public societal consciousness. The […]
Going back to the beginning of CRISPR feels like traveling through a time portal. The gene editing technology has become so ingrained in our lives, in scientific literature and the news, that it feels like it’s been a decade or two already since we started using it. It comes as a bit of a shock […]
Evolutionary history can often provide profound insights into genetic switchups in our past that may continue to hold a significant impact on our lives today. Thus, breaking down the genomes of our shared ancestors with other species and points of divergence is a primary area of research in biology. The Sialic Sugar Family The disparities […]
