A rush to capture history before it fades away
1. United States
Scientists grew plants that can alert growers when exposed to a toxin. One goal of the research is to enable a field of plants to signal the presence of a banned pesticide from a distance by turning red. In its new study, a team successfully engineered this environmental sensor in the lab, and did it without impairing the normal functions of the plant.
In a natural system of stress hormones and receptors, the hormone abscisic acid is produced by a plant and binds to receptors during droughts, which help tell the plant to close its pores to retain more water. Previous research found
