Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased from 280 ppm (parts per million, mole fraction basis) in preindustrial times to 370 ppm today. As concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases rise, global temperature is anticipated to increase. Elevated CO2 will improve crop yields due to increased photosynthesis. However, at above-optimum temperatures for reproductive growth pr...

The domestication of new crops would promote agricultural diversity and could provide a solution to many of the problems associated with intensive agriculture. We suggest here that genome editing can be used as a new tool by breeders to accelerate the domestication of semi-domesticated or even wild plants, building a more varied foundation for the sustainable provision of food and fodder in the...

Phalaenopsis orchids are among the most valuable potted flowering crops commercially produced throughout the world because of their long flower life and ease of crop scheduling to meet specific market dates. During commercial production, Phalaenopsis are usually grown at an air temperature > or =28 degrees C to inhibit flower initiation, and a cooler night than day temperature regimen (e.g. 25/...

Endophytic nitrogen-fixing bacteria have been isolated from graminaceous plants such as maize, rice, and sugarcane. They are thought to promote plant growth, not only by fixing nitrogen, but also by the production of plant hormones. The molecular mechanisms involved in this interaction are not yet clear. In this work, the identification of a receptor-like kinase (RLK), named SHR5, which may par...

We derive the Green-Schwarz action on AdS 5 × S 5 using an alternate version of the coset superspace construction. By Wick rotations and Lie algebra identifications we bring the coset to GL(4|4)/(Sp(4) ⊗ GL(1)) 2 , which allows us to represent the conformal transformations on unconstrained matrices. The derivation is more streamlined even for the bosonic sector, and conformal symmetry is manife...

Does GM work? Is GM technology too imprecise? Are GM genes more unstable than resident genes? Is it necessary to produce many transgenic plants to obtain an acceptable one? Could GM derived food be more toxic, more carcinogenic, or nutritionally less adequate when compared to other foods? And what is the potential for GM technology to produce foods with enhanced nutritional content or reduced t...

Agricultural land use results in direct biodiversity decline through loss of natural habitat, but may also cause indirect cross-habitat effects on conservation areas. We conducted three landscape-scale field studies on 67 sites to test the hypothesis that mass flowering of oilseed rape (Brassica napus) results in a transient dilution of bees in crop fields, and in increased competition between ...

The designation “new crop” may be applied to virtually any useful plant that in some respect is new. The following categories of newness (which are not all mutually exclusive) are economically important in discussing new crops: (1) gathering new wild crops from nature; (2) cultivating an undomesticated plant not previously grown; (3) domesticating (changing genetically) an undomesticated plant;...

We derive the Green-Schwarz action on AdS 5 × S 5 using an alternate version of the coset superspace construction. By Wick rotations and Lie algebra identifications we bring the coset to GL(4|4)/(Sp(4) ⊗ GL(1)) 2 , which allows us to represent the conformal transformations on unconstrained matrices. The derivation is more streamlined even for the bosonic sector, and conformal symmetry is manife...

The presence of melatonin in plants is universal. Evidence has confirmed that a major portion of the melatonin is synthesized by plants themselves even though a homologue of the classic arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT) has not been identified as yet in plants. Thus, the serotonin N-acetylating enzyme in plants may differ greatly from the animal AANAT with regard to sequence and struct...