We present Touchology, a series of interactive plants that explore serenity and emotional attachment through meditative touch of plants with interactive audio-visualizations. Our approach focuses on creating various audio-visualizations for tactile interactions with living plants to enhance relationships betweeen the plants and users while evoking their empathy. Touchology was designed to offer...

In this article, a review on bioactive flavonoids that are abundant in medicinal and functional food (dietary) plants has been made, with special reference to antimalarial flavonoid molecules. Flavonoids have been found to exist in plants/plant medicines with a wide structural diversity consisting of numerous polyphenolic compounds and having well defined molecular target specificity. These phy...

The potato/tomato psyllid, Bactericera cockerelli (B. cockerelli), is an important plant pest and the vector of the phloem-limited bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter psyllaurous (solanacearum), which is associated with the zebra chip disease of potatoes. Previously, we reported induction of RNA interference effects in B. cockerelli via in vitro-prepared dsRNA/siRNAs after intrathoracic injection...

Rice blast is one of the most destructive diseases affecting rice worldwide. The adoption of host resistance has proven to be the most economical and effective approach to control rice blast. In recent years, sequence-specific nucleases (SSNs) have been demonstrated to be powerful tools for the improvement of crops via gene-specific genome editing, and CRISPR/Cas9 is thought to be the most effe...

In a non-model staple crop like wheat (Triticum aestivumI L.), functional validation of potential drought stress responsive genes identified in Arabidopsis could provide gene targets for breeding. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) of genes of interest can overcome the inherent problems of polyploidy and limited transformation potential that hamper functional validation studies in wheat. In th...

RNA silencing refers to diverse mechanisms that control gene expression at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels which can also be used in parasitic pathogens of plants that Broomrapes (Orobanche/Phelipanche spp.) are holoparasitic plants that subsist on the roots of a variety of agricultural crops and cause severe negative effects on the yield and yield quality of those crops. Effect...

Background: Flubendiamide, comparatively a new pesticide designed to eradicate lepidopteran insect pests is known to have low risk to birds, mammals, fish, algae, honey bees, non-target arthropods, earthworms, soil macro- and micro-organisms, non-target plants as well as sewage treatment organisms; however, the risk assessment for aquatic invertebrates from metabolite could not be finalized wit...

Exogenous application of RNA molecules is a potent method to trigger interference (RNAi) in plants transgene-free manner. So far, all exogenous RNAi (exo-RNAi) applications have aimed mRNA degradation given target. However, the issue concomitant epigenetic changes was never addressed. Here, we report for first time that high-pressure spraying dsRNAs can de novo methylation promoter sequences pl...