How plants ward off a dangerous world of pathogens

The world's plants, immobile and rooted in soil which contains potentially lethal micro-organisms, face a constant threat from invading pathogens. In recent years, however, scientists have discovered that plant species employ ...

Humans are not the first to repurpose CRISPR

In recent years, the development of CRISPR technologies and gene-editing scissors in particular have taken the world by storm. Indeed, scientists have learned how to harness these clever natural systems in the biotech and ...

Virus inhibits immune response of caterpillars and plants

It is well known that certain wasps suppress the immune systems of their caterpillar hosts so they can successfully raise their young within those hosts. Now researchers at Penn State show that, in addition to suppressing ...

New information on the waste-disposal units of living cells

Important new information on one of the most critical protein machines in living cells has been reported by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and ...

Arabidopsis uses molecular decoy to trick pathogens

In the animal kingdom, predators use a full range of strategies, such as camouflage, speed and optical illusions, to catch their prey. Meanwhile, prey species resort to the same tactics to escape from their predators. Such ...

Shifting the balance of growth vs. defense boosts crop yield

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists are figuring out how to pack more kernels onto a corn cob. One way to boost the productivity of a plant, they say, is to redirect some of its resources away from maintaining ...

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