Hot temperatures can trigger an RNA response in plants

The stress of hotter temperatures may trigger a response in a plant's RNA, or ribonucleic acid—part of a cell's genetic messaging system—to help manage this change in its environment, according to a team of Penn State ...

Genome of wheat ancestor sequenced

Sequencing the bread wheat genome has long been considered an almost insurmountable task, due to its enormous size and complexity. Yet it is vitally important for the global food supply, providing more than 20 percent of ...

Serpentine plants survive harsh soils thanks to borrowed genes

Scientists from the John Innes Centre have analysed the genomes of plants that grow in harsh, serpentine soils to find out how they survive in such conditions. It appears that they have used two strategies: adapting to their ...

Plant engineered for more efficient photosynthesis

(Phys.org) —A genetically engineered tobacco plant, developed with two genes from blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), holds promise for improving the yields of many food crops.

Ferns borrowed genes to flourish in low light

During the age of the dinosaurs, the arrival of flowering plants as competitors could have spelled doom for the ancient fern lineage. Instead, ferns diversified and flourished under the new canopy—using a mysterious gene ...

How scavenging fungi became a plant's best friend

Glomeromycota is an ancient lineage of fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with roots that goes back nearly 420 million years to the earliest plants. More than two thirds of the world's plants depend on this soil-dwelling ...

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