Plants and Pipettes

Plants and Pipettes

By Joram Schwartzmann and Tegan Armarego-MarriottScienceEducationNatural Sciences
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Plants and Pipettes episodes

  • Playing around with the ploidy level of plants

    We recorded in advance but then Joram edited late so overall it evens out to just be a day late in your feed. Not that you care, we know you live life like us, one moment at a time, not knowing what day of the week is today. At least we hope you do so we look less messy. Anyway – plants!

    • The Tweet announcing that we are an award winning podcast 
    • Intercrops as foraging habitats for bees: Bees do not prefer sole legume crops over legume-cereal mixtures
    • Massive effects on chromatin after ploidy rearrangement in doubled haploids | Journal of Experimental Botany | Oxford Academic 
    • Cats and Naked Ladies – Plants and Pipettes 
    • Predicting plant Rubisco kinetics from RbcL sequence data using machine learning | Journal of Experimental Botany | Oxford Academic
    • Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change? | The New Yorker
    • Red Rubiscos and opportunities for engineering green plants | Journal of Experimental Botany | Oxford Academic
    • Will the Academic Prisoner’s Dilemma impact eLife 2.0 | by KamounLab
    • Some People Hate Open Science. This Is What They Think. | by James Heathers
    • Rare bunny disperses seeds
    • All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, reach out to us via mastodon, twitter, facebook or instagram.

      Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

      Until next time!

      Support Us!

      48 min
    • The broccoli-cauliflower-conundrum

      We are back from the break! We are completely different but also pretty much the same so come along and learn about mucus seeds, pink cotton, dandelion physics and a play performed by two very much non-actors.

      • Ethereal New Plant Species Doesn’t Use Photosynthesis – It’s Found Something Sneakier
      • “Pink cotton candy” – A new dye‐free cotton – Li – Plant Biotechnology Journal – Wiley Online Library
      • Research Progress of Betalain in Response to Adverse Stresses and Evolutionary Relationship Compared with Anthocyanin
      • Flower patterns improve foraging efficiency in bumblebees by guiding approach flight and landing – Richter – Functional Ecology – Wiley Online Library
      • armor or invisibility cloak? Mucilage‐bound sand physically protects seeds from rodents and invertebrates – LoPresti – Journal of Ecology – Wiley Online Library 
      • Genomic analysis of an ultrasmall freshwater green alga, Medakamo hakoo | Communications Biology
      • Cytological Evidence of Cell-Nuclear Genome Size of a New Ultra-Small Unicellular Freshwater Green Alga 
      • Smallest known freshwater green algae, Medakamo hakoo, discovered 
      • Warming-induced changes of broccoli head to cauliflower-like curd in Brassica oleracea are regulated by DNA methylation as revealed by methylome and transcriptome co-profiling | Molecular Horticulture
      • Why dandelion seeds are so good at spreading widely
      • Environmental morphing enables informed dispersal of the dandelion diaspore | eLife
      • Three dialogs between a Professor and a student who performed an experiment without including controls – KamounLab
      • The Lost History of Cat Domestication Can Finally Be Told : ScienceAlert
      • All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

        Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

        Until next time!

        Support Us!

        1 hr 9 min
      • Bishop’s balls

        While plant science missed out on yet another Nobel prize, you are not missing out on yet another great plant science episode. We have a hairy balled plant, some evidence about ATP and a whole Can of Spinach!

        • Bits und Bäume
        • Carbon Offsets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) 
        • Gomphocarpus physocarpus – Wikipedia
        • Gomphocarpus physocarpus
        • Reward research for being useful — not just flashy
        • A bryophyte-like polymer layer protected supercapacitor electrode with enhanced cycling stability
        • A nuclear import pathway exploited by pathogenic noncoding RNAs 
        • Every Life Form on Earth Uses The Same Chemical For Energy. This Could Explain Why. : ScienceAlert
        • A prebiotic basis for ATP as the universal energy currency | PLOS Biology 
        • Massive crossover suppression by CRISPR–Cas-mediated plant chromosome engineering
        • Algae as microscopic biorefineries — ScienceDaily
        • In vivo Olefin Metathesis in Microalgae Upgrades Lipids to Building Blocks for Polymers and Chemicals – Schunck – Angewandte Chemie International Edition – Wiley Online Library
        • Structure of wheat immune protein resolved — important tool in the battle for food security — ScienceDaily
        • A wheat resistosome defines common principles of immune receptor channels | Nature 
        • CAN OF SPINACH, a novel long non-coding RNA, affects iron deficiency responses in Arabidopsis thaliana
        • Ahmet’s answer on twitter
        • Watch A Houseplant Control A Machete-Wielding Robotic Arm, For Science | IFLScience
        • Increasing evidence that bears are not carnivores: Given a choice, captive bears mimic mixed diets of wild peers — ScienceDaily
        • Ursids evolved early and continuously to be low-protein macronutrient omnivores | Scientific Reports

        All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

        Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

        Until next time!

        Support Us!

        50 min
      • Party of Pokers

        They trained dogs to search for underground orchids and we trained ourselves to talk about it. Amazing.

        • The first evidence of microplastics in plant-formed fresh-water micro-ecosystems: Dipsacus teasel phytotelmata in Slovakia contaminated with MPs
        • ‘Like finding life on Mars’: why the underground orchid is Australia’s strangest, most mysterious flower
        • PROFILE | MAREE ELLIOTT
        • To protect this rare underground orchid, researchers are keeping its location top secret – ABC News
        • NOTES ON AUSTRALASIAN ORCHIDS 6: A NEW SPECIES OF Rhizanthella (DIURIDEAE, SUBTRIBE PRASOPHYLLINAE) FROM EASTERN AUSTRALIA
        • Rhizanthella gardneri – Wikipedia
        • Rampant Gene Loss in the Underground Orchid Rhizanthella gardneri Highlights Evolutionary Constraints on Plastid Genomes – PMC
        • Pando’s pulse: Vital signs signal need for course correction at world-renowned aspen forest
        • Identification and quantification of giant bioaerosol particles over the Amazon rainforest | npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
        • Palynology – Wikipedia
        • The Effect of Species Soybean Vein Necrosis Orthotospovirus (SVNV) on Life Table Parameters of Its Vector, Soybean Thrips (Neohydatothrips variabilis Thysanoptera: Thripidae)
        • Sorting of mitochondrial and plastid heteroplasmy in Arabidopsis is extremely rapid and depends on MSH1 activity | PNAS 
        • Social networks in the single cell | Journal of Experimental Botany | Oxford Academic
        • Altered collective mitochondrial dynamics in the Arabidopsis msh1 mutant compromising organelle DNA maintenance
        • Daily briefing: Most US professors went to the same few universities
        • The Story of the 2021 World Lemur Festival Logo

        All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

        Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

        Until next time!

        Support Us!

        56 min
      • Turn humans into moss

        Last week, we wanted to be moss and this week science has listened to us and turned human (cells) into moss. Well kinda. Not really. A little bit. Still, we’re excited to become moss.

        • Past Ig Winners
        • TALENT VERSUS LUCK: THE ROLE OF RANDOMNESS IN SUCCESS AND FAILURE | Advances in Complex Systems  
        • How Kenyans help themselves and the planet by saving mangrove trees | Science News
        • Carbon Offsets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
        • Jabuticaba – Wikipedia
        • Plant mitochondrial RNA editing factors can perform targeted C-to-U editing of nuclear transcripts in human cells | Nucleic Acids Research | Oxford Academic
        • Temperature induced changes in Arabidopsis Rubisco activity and isoform expression  
        • Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition | eLife
        • DNA from mummy’s tomb reveals ancient Egyptian origins of watermelon | New Scientist
        • A 3500-year-old leaf from a Pharaonic tomb reveals that New Kingdom Egyptians were cultivating domesticated watermelon | bioRxiv
        • Genome Sequencing of up to 6,000-Year-Old Citrullus Seeds Reveals Use of a Bitter-Fleshed Species Prior to Watermelon Domestication | Molecular Biology and Evolution | Oxford Academic
        • A bitter mystery: Sequencing the world’s oldest plant genome | Kew
        • Plants rooted in rocks | Nature Geoscience
        • Composition of continental crust altered by the emergence of land plants | Nature Geoscience
        • Forest vulnerability to drought controlled by bedrock composition | Nature Geoscience
        • The role of colour patterns for the recognition of flowers by bees | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
        • Bees use patterns — not just colors — to find flowers — ScienceDaily 
        • How Many Ants Live on Earth? Scientists Came Up With an Answer : ScienceAlert 
        • Fascinating Study Gives a Unique Glimpse Into How Dogs See The World : ScienceAlert
        • All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

          Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

          Until next time!

          Support Us!

          1 hr 8 min
        • We are mosses

          If we could choose, we’d be mosses growing on opposite sides of the same tree.

          • The ‘majestic’ Singapore orchid named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II | Deccan Herald 
          • Angela Merkel – Epiphyllum.online – The Epric Foundation
          • Ferns Are Super Weird – And Their Genomes Are Even More Chaotic Than We Thought : ScienceAlert
          • Inselberg – Wikipedia
          • Inselberg vegetation and the biodiversity of granite outcrops
          • President Biden Announces Intent to Appoint Dr. Renee Wegrzyn as Inaugural Director of Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) – The White House 
          • Renee Wegrzyn – Wikipedia
          • High plant diversity is often found in the smallest of areas — ScienceDaily
          • A thirsty secret (the episode we talked about the first cocoa paper) 
          • Collection of native Theobroma cacao L. accessions from the Ecuadorian Amazon highlights a hotspot of cocoa diversity 
          • Variability and genetic determinants of cocoa aromas in trees native to South Ecuadorian Amazonia
          • Common weed may be ‘super plant’ that holds key to drought-resistant crops — ScienceDaily
          • Genetically Modified Purple Tomatoes Will Be Popping Up On US Plates By Next Spring | IFLScience
          • Learning to Love G.M.O.s – The New York Times 
          • Roundup and glyphosate’s impact on GABA to elicit extended proconvulsant behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans | Scientific Reports
          • Correlated retrograde and developmental regulons implicate multiple retrograde signals as coordinators of chloroplast development in maize
          • Conifer communication is complex and can be altered by air pollution
          • Humans And Cockatoos Are Embroiled in an Escalating ‘Arms Race’ in Australia : ScienceAlert
          • An arms race over food waste: Sydney cockatoos are still opening kerb-side bins, despite our best efforts to stop them

          All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

          Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

          Until next time!

          Support Us!

          1 hr 3 min
        • Big British Cheese 1

          Would you trust us if we spoke badly about cheese? This, and other science facts in our newest plant science show for you!

          • WELCOME BACK! (our story about the great mistletoe)
          FAVOURITE PLANT(S)
          • A seed‐like proteome in oil‐rich tubers – Niemeyer – The Plant Journal – Wiley Online Library
          • Cyperus esculentus – Wikipedia
          • Cyperus rotundus – Wikipedia
          • Amborella – Wikipedia
          PAPER(S) of the Week
          • The colonisation of land was a likely driving force for the evolution of mitochondrial retrograde signalling in plants
          • The GENOMES UNCOUPLED1 protein has an ancient, highly conserved role but not in retrograde signalling
          • The forgotten organelle – Plants and Pipettes
          • Self-pollinating plant shows rapid loss of genetic variation — ScienceDaily 
          • Spatially patterned hydrogen peroxide orchestrates stomatal development in Arabidopsis | Nature Communications
          • How death’s-head hawkmoths manage to fly straight in the dark | Science News

          All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

          Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

          Until next time!

          Support Us!

          57 min
        • It’s not you, it’s us

          Sometimes, technology makes our lives better. On other occasions, it makes it much harder. This week was one of those times, the recording equipment failed on us. We still did a fun show full of cool plant science, it just doesn’t sound as nice. Sorry!

          • Indigofera tinctoria – Wikipedia
          • Isatis tinctoria – Wikipedia
          • Indigo dye – Wikipedia 
          • Eliza Lucas – Wikipedia 
          • South Carolina Gardener, Botanist, & Agriculturalist Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
          • The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection 
          • Phytotelma – Wikipedia
          • Aquatic islands in the sky: 100 years of research on water‐filled tree holes – Petermann – 2022 – Ecology and Evolution – Wiley Online Library
          • Facts Are No Longer Convincing. Research Suggests You Should Say This Instead
          • Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts | PNAS  
          • Flower shape and size impact bees’ chances of catching gut parasites | Science News
          • Effect of water availability on volatile‐mediated communication between potato plants in response to insect herbivory – Vázquez‐González – Functional Ecology – Wiley Online Library 
          • An oxygen-sensing mechanism for angiosperm adaptation to altitude | Nature
          • The US Navy Put Cameras on Dolphins And The Results Are Wild : ScienceAlert

          All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

          Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

          Until next time!

          Support Us!

          50 min
        • A thirsty secret

          We’re back from our holidays and we brought a big bag of plant facts from the last couple of weeks of plant science!

          • Pollinators of the sea: A discovery of animal-mediated fertilization in seaweed | Science
          • Improving photosynthesis and crop productivity by accelerating recovery from photoprotection | Science
          • Uwe Sonnewald on Twitter about the paper
          • Rethinking the retraction process | Science
          • GMO chestnuts could save tree populations
          • Ancient plastid genomes solve the tree species mystery of the imperial wood “Nanmu” in the Forbidden City, the largest existing wooden palace complex in the world
          • Nanmu – Wikipedia
          • Collection of native Theobroma cacao L. accessions from the Ecuadorian Amazon highlights a hotspot of cocoa diversity
          • 15 years of experiments have overturned a major assumption about how thirsty plants actually are
          • Humidity gradients in the air spaces of leaves | Nature Plants
          • Toward Targeted Invasive Predator Control: Developing pH-Responsive Subcutaneous Implants for Native Mammals | ACS Applied Polymer Materials
          • Poison Peas and the Australian Arms Race – Plants and Pipettes

          All views are our own. If you want to comment or correct anything we said, leave a comment under this post or reach out to us via twitter, facebook or instagram.

          Our opening and closing music is Caravana by Phillip Gross

          Until next time!

          Support Us!

          1 hr 5 min

        About Plants and Pipettes

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        The Molecular Plant Research Podcast