Tricking plants to see the light may control most important twitch on earth
Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - 12:30
in Biology & Nature
Copious corn growing in tiny backyard plots? Roses blooming in December? Thanks to technology, these things may soon be possible. And now, new findings out of a genetics professor’s lab promise to advance that technology even further. For the first time, researchers have revealed the structure of the plant phytochrome, a critical molecule that detects the light that tells plants when to germinate, grow, make food, flower and even age.