ARIBIDOPSIS

Pamela Ronald studies the genes that make plants more resistant to disease and stress. In an eye-opening talk, she describes her decade-long quest to isolate a gene that allows rice to survive prolonged flooding. She shows how the genetic improvement of seeds saved the Hawaiian papaya crop in the 1990s — and makes the case that modern genetics is sometimes the most effective method to advance sustainable agriculture and enhance food security for our planet’s growing population. Source: TED Talk

Undoubtedly we are living in the age of "genetically-modified-organism (GMO)". Scientist have taken the challenge to meet the demand of growing population through GMO and the other school of thought is completely against the practice of GMO. To break the ice by putting more profound examples for making it understandable that it's basically a natural process. A striking article has recently been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Kyndt and colleagues where they showed the sweet potato as genetically modified by natural events.  For plant scientist, the most popular technique for transferring gene is Agrobacterium mediated. Strains of bacteria from the genus Agrobacterium have a well characterized and widely utilized capacity to introduce DNA into plant cells. The transferred DNA (T-DNA) is specified by short left and right border sequences, and is delivered from the bacterium into plant cells by a mechanism that evolved from bacterial

It has no harm to memorize the whole dictionary, but as human being has limitation, it's always better to get some instant help rather than keeping everything inside our brain. Similarly, for a plant enthusiast it's almost impossible to recognize or identify all plants and flower around him or her. Not only for plant enthusiast, but also general people sometimes want to know the details about a flower or plant in their garden while walking in the morning or evening.  Garden Answers is the revolutionary plant identification app that instantly identifies over 20,000 plants and gives you accurate and detailed information about it. If you've ever wanted to identify a flower or plant or find out if a plant in your garden is harmful to your pets or small children, now you can with my Garden Answers Plant Identification app. Just snap a picture, tap submit and instantly you will get the accurate identity of the plant and detailed information about it by garden and hor

We always discuss about the power of single base mutation to understand the molecular mechanism of genetic disease. For example, a single base mutation at position 6 of beta-globin gene results valine instead of glutamic acid residue. On the mean time, such a powerful example of single base mutation for plants are limited in our text books. That's why I've decided to bring a profound example of single base mutation in plants and how it had changed the human history.  About 9000 years ago in Mexico, humans domesticated corn from the wild grass teosinte, whose kernels were covered by a tough shell, making them unpalatable to humans. For decades, scientists have studied how the wild maize could have been transformed into the plant we now eat, eventually zeroing in on the gene, known as  tga1 , that regulates other genes involved in producing the kernels’ casing. Now, a new study in  Genetics  has compared corn and teosinte further and found that a  single DNA base swa