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Categories: Biology: Botany, Mathematics: Statistics

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Scientists are harnessing cells to make new types of materials that can grow, repair themselves and even respond to their environment. These solid 'engineered living materials' are made by embedding cells in an inanimate matrix that's formed in a desired shape. Now, researchers have 3D printed a bioink containing plant cells that were then genetically modified, producing programmable materials. Applications could someday include biomanufacturing and sustainable construction.

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Scientists have discovered that calcium plays a significant role in enhancing the resistance of potato plants to bacterial wilt.

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Conventional plant regeneration approaches by cell culture require the external application of plant growth regulators, including hormones. However, optimizing culture conditions can be laborious. Now, researchers have developed a novel plant regeneration system that omits the need for hormone application by genetically regulating the expression of genes that control plant cell differentiation. Their work holds significant potential in the development of genetically modified plants in a simpler and cost-effective manner.

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Researchers have discovered a new mechanism of oil biosynthesis and found a way to genetically engineer a type of test plant to more efficiently produce different kinds of seed oil that it otherwise wouldn't make. While the engineering is proof-of-concept, this discovery could lead to improved production of valuable oils used in food and by a range of industries. The modified plant overcame metabolic bottlenecks and produced significant amounts of an oil similar to castor oil that it doesn't naturally produce.

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Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in understanding how genetic drivers influence the evolution of a specific photosynthesis mechanism in Tillandsia (air plants). This sheds light on the complex actions that cause plant adaptation and ecological diversity.

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Greening the way we eat needn't mean going vegetarian. A healthy, more realistic solution is to adopt a flexitarian diet where seafoods add umami to 'boring' vegetables. A gastrophysicist puts mathematical equations to work in calculating the umami potential of everything from seaweed and shrimp paste to mussels and mackerel.

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Elucidating the relationship between the sequences of non-coding regulatory elements and their target genes is key to understanding gene regulation and its variation between plant species and ecotypes. Now, an international research team developed deep learning models that link gene sequence data with mRNA copy number for several plant species and predicted the regulatory effect of gene sequence variation.

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Different types of barley recruit distinct communities of soil microbes to grow around their roots by releasing a custom mix of sugars and other compounds, according to a new study.

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A recent study utilized ground-based instruments to measure solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) that reflect plant health and photosynthesis.

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Scientists are using artificial intelligence software to analyze plant root systems, laying out a protocol that can be applied to gather data on crop and model plant phenotypes (physical characteristics) more efficiently and with equal or greater accuracy than existing methods.

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A rapidly spreading virus threatens the health of the cacao tree and the dried seeds from which chocolate is made, jeopardizing the global supply of the world's most popular treat. Researchers have developed a new strategy: using mathematical data to determine how far apart farmers can plant vaccinated trees to prevent mealybugs from jumping from one tree to another and spreading the virus.

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New study finds microbes may influence the taste of mustard seeds.

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Using a pair of sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers discovered signals that help plants respond to stresses such as heat, light, or attack from insects or bacteria. Farmers could use these sensors to monitor threats to their crops, allowing them to intervene before the crops are lost.

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During the unusually dry year of 2018, Sweden was hit by numerous forest fires. A research team has investigated how climate change affects recently burnt boreal forests and their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

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To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy counterparts. This could involve altering the crops' genomes so that they express pigments that are already produced by many plants, for example, anthocyanins, which make blueberries blue, or carotenoids, which make carrots orange. Then, they say, weeding robots could be trained to remove only the weeds using machine learning.

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By fueling the growth of plants that become kindling, carbon dioxide is driving an increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires, according to a new study.

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According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several times. Using new methods, the fossilized plant Furcula granulifer was identified as such an early forerunner. The leaves of this seed fern species already exhibited the net-like veining in the late Triassic (around 201 million years ago).

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Plants with multiple sets of chromosomes, known as polyploids, are salt-tolerant or drought-resistant and often achieve higher yields. However, newly formed polyploid plants are often sterile or have reduced fertility and are unsuitable for breeding resistant lines. The reason is that the pollen tube in these plants grows incorrectly, which keeps fertilization from taking place. Pollen tube growth is mainly controlled by two genes that could be useful in crop breeding.

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A research team discovers previously unknown gene that indirectly promotes photosynthesis Protein regulator NirP1 influences the coordination of the nitrogen and carbohydrate metabolism 'Such protein regulators could in future be deployed in 'green' and 'blue' biotechnology for targeted control of the metabolism,' says geneticist.

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Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds limiting their capacity to disperse seeds and restore healthy forests.