plant genetics Archives | ��ϳԹ��Դ

David Jackson elected Fellow of the Royal Society

Samuel Diamond — Wed, 27 May 2026 09:00:18 +0000

��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) Professor David Jackson has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Having the letters FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) tacked onto the end of one’s name is among the very highest honors a scientist can achieve. It’s a mark of elite distinction. Other Fellows of the Royal...

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Secrets of evolution found in ancient plant DNA

Samuel Diamond — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:00:13 +0000

You’ve heard of deep space, but what about deep time? Today’s geneticists and evolutionary biologists can extend their investigations further back in time than ever imagined. Still, many mysteries remain. One has vexed biologists for decades. In both plants and animals, gene sequences and functions are often conserved across species over hundreds of millions of...

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CRISPR primes goldenberry for fruit bowl fame

Margaret Osborne — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 12:30:59 +0000

Since the dawn of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, our ancestors have saved seeds from the tastiest, largest, and most resilient crops to plant in the following season. Today, most fruits and vegetables we buy are the result of hundreds to thousands of years of selective breeding. Now, ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) plant biologists...

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AI offers ‘roadmap’ to plant genetics

Margaret Osborne — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:30:47 +0000

As global temperatures rise, ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) scientists work to grow stronger, more resilient crops. Yet, this process is challenging. Plants often have several related genes that control desirable traits, such as size or drought resistance. Finding genes with overlapping functions, or “redundant genes,” is a near-impossible scavenger hunt. “Most of the time,...

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Uplands Farm: Grounds for discovery

Jennifer Michalowski — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:30:53 +0000

At first glance, Uplands Farm—12 carefully tended acres about a mile east of the ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) campus—resembles farms you might have seen before. Orderly rows of corn dominate the fields, sharing space with sorghum, eggplants, and other crops. Three greenhouses shelter young plants, extending the growing season so they can flourish in...

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You’ve never seen corn like this before

Margaret Osborne — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:30:56 +0000

Plant stem cells are crucial for the world’s food supply, animal feed, and fuel production. They lay the foundation for how plants grow. Yet, much about these mysterious building blocks remains unknown. Previous analyses have failed to locate many of the important genes that regulate how these cells function. Now, for the first time, Cold...

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Branching out: Tomato genes point to new medicines

Samuel Diamond — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:00:49 +0000

Picture juicy red tomatoes on the vine. What do you see? Some tomato varieties have straight vines. Others are branched. The question is why. New research from ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) provides the strongest evidence to date that the answer lies in what are called cryptic mutations. The findings have implications for agriculture and...

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At the Lab: Science for lovers

Communications Department — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 11:30:27 +0000

��ϳԹ��Դ Professor Zach Lippman’s research in plant prickles resulted in one of CSHL’s most publicized discoveries of 2024. It also gets at the very heart of what motivates basic bioscience research here At the Lab. You’ve read about it in The New York Times and seen it on CNN. Now, hear all...

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The food and fuel that farms itself

Nick Wurm — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:00:41 +0000

AI generated voice with Rob Martienssen’s and Evan Ernst’s actual voices Under the right conditions, duckweed essentially farms itself. Wastewater, ponds, puddles, swamps—you name it. If there’s enough sunlight and carbon dioxide, the aquatic plant can grow freely. But that’s not all that makes it intriguing. Packed inside duckweed’s tiny fronds is enormous potential as...

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CSHL and global collaborators map Solanum pan-genome

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000

AI generated voice with Zachary Lippman’s actual voice About 75 percent of the world’s food comes from 12 plants. Scientists estimate up to 30,000 species are edible. Not only does this bottleneck jeopardize our food supply if a major crop is impacted by drought or disease—it also limits our choices at the grocery store. For...

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CRISPR manipulates plants’ flower powers

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:00:49 +0000

AI generated voice with Zachary Lippman’s actual voice Humans have appreciated the beauty of flowers for centuries. Yet, flowers aren’t just aesthetically pleasing. They also play a crucial role in plant reproduction. In all plants, a well-studied gene with a curious name, Unusual Floral Organs (UFO), orchestrates the flowering process. UFO expression hinges on another...

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No Two Plants

Caroline Cosgrove — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 12:30:06 +0000

No Two Plants was made as part of the 2024 Symbiosis initiative presented at the Science New Wave Festival XVII and supported by the Simons Foundation." data-description="" />Every year on February 11, we celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science, honoring women and girls’ contributions to a field long dominated by men. Among these trailblazers is Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, whose groundbreaking work at ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) reshaped our understanding of genetics. For the filmmaking competition Symbiosis, CSHL...

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Corn’s ancient ancestors are calling

Jen A. Miller — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 12:30:17 +0000

AI generated voice with Rob Martienssen’s and Thomas Gingeras’s actual voices The domestication of maize is one of the greatest examples of humankind’s impact on evolution. Early farmers’ pre-industrial plant breeding choices turned corn from a nearly inedible crop into the major global food source it is today. Now, ��ϳԹ��Դ Professors Rob...

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Plants have a backup plan

Nick Wurm — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 11:30:08 +0000

Arabidopsis, seen here, have two options to ensure accurate chromosome division—a molecule called DDM1 and a process known as RNAi. If Arabidopsis loses one of these, it’s fine. But if it loses both, it’s in trouble." data-description="" />Tending a garden is hard work. Imagine it from the plants’ perspective. Each relies on fine-tuned genetic processes to pass down accurate copies of chromosomes to future generations. These processes sometimes involve billions of moving parts. Even the tiniest disruption can have a cascading effect. So, for plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, it’s good to have...

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At the Lab Episode 25: How maize became corn

Communications Department — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 11:30:36 +0000

The journey from maize to corn isn’t just about going from farm to table. It starts with an evolutionary event that has puzzled plant biologists for decades. This week At the Lab, CSHL Professor, HHMI Investigator, and Genetics Society Medal recipient Rob Martienssen unravels a 4,000-year-old mystery in just over three minutes.

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One Experiment: The devil in the greenhouse

Nick Wurm — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:30:47 +0000

Solanum atropurpureum, seen here. Image: Blaine Fitzgerald, Lippman lab" data-description="" />Tomatoes and potatoes have a lot of relatives. Their nightshade genus includes over 1,500 distinct species. But not all are as friendly as those beloved staple foods. Lurking amongst them is a prickly purple devil with a supervillainous moniker. Its name? Malevolence. Some plants just hate us. Malevolence is covered in sharp, 1-to-1.5-inch-long barbs—the largest...

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Corn’s ‘missing link’

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:00:25 +0000

Teosinte Pollen Drive (TPD) is a selfish genetic system in maize-teosinte hybrids, which allows only pollen with both toxin and antidote to survive. Here, we see the pollen-producing part of the maize-teosinte hybrid. Image: Jon Cahn/Martienssen lab" data-description="" />��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) has begun to unravel a mystery millennia in the making. Our story begins 9,000 years ago. It was then that maize was first domesticated in the Mexican lowlands. Some 5,000 years later, the crop crossed with a species from the Mexican highlands called teosinte mexicana. This resulted in cold adaptability....

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Every rose has its thorns … or does it?

Margaret Osborne — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 18:00:23 +0000

According to Greek mythology, red roses first appeared when Aphrodite pricked her foot on a thorn, spilling blood on a white rose. Since then, roses’ thorns have captured the imaginations of countless poets and forlorn lovers. But they aren’t the only plants with these dangerous protrusions, technically called prickles. Prickles have evolved independently in species...

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Humans of Banbury: Interview with Cranos Williams

Jenna Jacobs — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:24:34 +0000

During the Banbury Center’s October 2023 meeting, “The Future of Plant-Environment Interactions: Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing Climate,” I had the opportunity to meet Cranos Williams, M.S., Ph.D. Professor Williams is the Goodnight Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Analytics at North Carolina State University, with primary and secondary appointments in electrical and computer engineering, and...

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At the Lab Episode 1: The tomato of tomorrow

Marc Persad — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 10:00:37 +0000

Picture a tiny silo of tasty tomatoes growing in a dense urban environment. Now imagine that same setup … in outer space! It all starts At the Lab. For our premiere episode, we visit the lab of ��ϳԹ��Դ Professor & HHMI Investigator Zachary Lippman to catch a glimpse at the future of...

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plant genetics Archives | ���ϳԹ���Դ