CRISPR Combo Combines Gene Editing and Regulation Simultaneously

Gene editing has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past few years, particularly through the expansive use of CRISPR and the dozens of variant tools made from it that have spawned. But, at the same time, many of those tools focus on fixing individual problems or limitations in the original CRISPR systems and they […]

Grant Clark County Wisc soybeans

Nanocarrier Spray Silences Genes In Plants Without Gene Modification

The creation of transgenic plants and the use of gene modification technologies has been a marvel for agriculture and medicine, with the former seeing the ability to massively increase resistances to stress and higher production and yield possibilities. But, at the same time, even this sort of technology is slow and requires multiple generations of […]

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Plant Genome On and Off Switch Runs By A CLASSY System

Basic research has always had the tendency to contain surprising revelations on how the world functions. Whether in physics, chemistry, or biology. And in the case of biological studies, it is one of the reasons why model organisms are so important, as a reflection of all other organisms similar to them and as a way […]

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Transgenic Switchgrass Mimics Poplar-Fungi Symbiotic Relationship

The connectivity between plants and their environment is vast and it is those relationships that are essential for the proper growth and development of many leafy organisms. This is particularly so for large forests of trees that have special interactions with the soil microbiome in order to grow their roots and take up the copious […]

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Plants Made Resistant To Environmental Stress With Protective Covering

Plants and their interactions with their environment are always in the middle of a physiological quandary. When it comes to their roots, they need to be permeable so they can absorb water and other nutrients from the surrounding soil, but also impermeable to anything that could be harmful to take up, such as toxic heavy […]

Plants Copy Nematode Pheromones To Repel Infestations

Plants never cease to reveal their unique and astonishing methods of protecting themselves from pathogens. Here on Bioscription we’ve previously discussed the topic of the pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) system and how it allows plants to uptake and conserve important foreign molecules for future immune system response. It is, in many ways, similar to the […]

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Plant Oil Levels Controlled Via Cannibalism Of One’s Own Lipids

Plant-based oils make up an incredibly important part of agricultural research on both a food and fuel level. While we use many different kinds of oils from plants, they each have a meaningful niche in our food supply and, for some, as bioenergy fuel sources that are far cleaner to produce than other electricity generating […]

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Desert Bacteria Give Plants An Edge Over High Salinity Soils

While biological research is broad and vast, conducted by people all around the world, there are still often gaps and areas where no one has thought to look or just not bothered to take the time to do so. And it is in those areas that major new discoveries can often be found, whether we’re […]

Anther of thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), an artefact

New Insights On Agrobacterium Genetic Modification And Transgenes

Since the beginning of genetic engineering and its use in plant biology, the microorganism Agrobacterium tumefaciens has been a prominent figure in scientific endeavors. The natural processes of the species involves them modifying their cellular surroundings inside tree hosts to provide them with the nutrients they need. As a side effect of this process, they […]

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Fooling Soybeans With An Illusory Attack Produces Stronger Offspring

When attempting to produce new traits and properties in plants, it’s commonplace to try and expose them to stressful conditions alongside mutagenic agents in the hopes that this will help induce the formation of resistance genes. This process sometimes is successful, but it involves a large amount of trial and error, as most experiments involving […]