University of Northern Iowa
Posted in Plant Biotechnology on Apr 26th, 2008
Crop scientists have cloned a gene that controls the shape of tomatoes, a discovery that could help unravel the mystery behind the huge morphological differences among edible fruits and vegetables, as well as provide new insight into mechanisms of plant development.
The gene, dubbed SUN, is only the second ever found to play a significant role [...]
Posted in Plant Biotechnology on Apr 26th, 2008
Genetic modification holds the promise of bringing locally grown food crops to climates where farming has been traditionally difficult. Doing that means optimizing the genetics of crops in some ways without impacting them in others.
A new tool for rice genetics has made that a little bit easier. It allows rice breeders to surgically [...]
Posted in Environmental Biotechnology on Apr 26th, 2008
Some new research indicates that a key component of soybean plant defenses against leaf-eating insects go down as CO2 goes up.
The new study, led by University of Illinoise entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, used the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (Soy FACE) facility at Illinois, an open-air research lab that can expose [...]
Posted in Synthetic Biology on Apr 26th, 2008
Let’s suppose that, knowing nothing about cars, you wanted to learn how they worked. You happen to have a friend who is an auto mechanic, so you ask him to explain cars to you: How do they start? How does burning gasoline make the engine go? How does the force generated by the engine get [...]
Posted in Plant Biotechnology on Apr 23rd, 2008
That genetic engineering may be the most environmentally beneficial technology to have emerged in decades, or possibly centuries, is not immediately obvious. Certainly, at least, it is not obvious to the many U.S. and foreign environmental groups that regard biotechnology as a bête noire. Nor is it necessarily obvious to people who grew up in [...]