exploring the inner workings of plants
Posted in Plant Cell Walls, Plant Development, Plant Stress on Dec 21st, 2008
Devil-may-care and out-of-control plants. A couple of reports in the science news this week seem to suggest that one way to cope with global climate change may be unbridled plant growth. One has to do with the discovery of a cellular regulator for the synthesis of cellulose by plant cells. The other involves plants’ natural [...]
Posted in Plant Cell Walls on Nov 2nd, 2008
Remember the melting witch in The Wizard of Oz? What if corn stalks, for instance, could be induced to “melt” from tough biomass into a sugary puddle? That is, to breakdown their cellulosic biomass into a solution of glucose and other sugars. If so, it would be much more cost effective to use corn biomass [...]
Posted in Plant Hormones, Senescence (Aging) on Oct 24th, 2008
Much can be found online about why leaves change colors in the fall… …but relatively little about the final part of the story, namely leaf drop. Components of this terminal process, called leaf abscission, are actually put into place at the beginning of the leaf’s life. At the end, a chemical signal from the leaf [...]
HowPlantsWork Weblog
exploring the inner workings of plants
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