Soybean fields at Applethorpe Farm

Temperature Tolerance: Recent Efforts In Biotechnology

Temperature is something we worry about in our lives all the time. What temperature is it outside so you know what to wear and what are the conditions going to be in coming days or weeks. Farmers have to worry about this as well, as excessive periods of heat or cold snaps can prove damaging […]

Dictyostelium discoideum 43

Bacteria-Eating Amoeba Effective Against Antibiotic-Resistant Biofilms

Biofilms are an ingenious evolutionary creation, but one that gives us humans a lot of trouble in fighting bacteria. Film Development Originally, there was no real need for bacteria to clump together in most situations, due to their free-floating water environment. But land surfaces (and debris in the waters) enabled them to form extracellular matrixes […]

A juvenile root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita) penetrates a tomato root - USDA-ARS

Genetic Protection For Plants Against Parasitic Worm Attack

Parasitic worms aren’t only a threat to animal or insects, plants have to deal with them as well. The Worms Attack While these sorts of worms may not outright kill their target plants, they can significantly damage them by causing root and nutrient pathways, like the xylem and phloem, to become deformed from the worms […]

Roots by cesarpb

Plants Use Root Structures To ‘Listen’ And Search For Water

Water is important for life. It is a primary source of structure and function in all life forms, even including viruses that use it as interstitial fluid for containing their viral genome. For organisms that produce their own complex compounds, commonly known as autotrophs, water remains the main source of outside material they need to […]