Now on ScienceBlogs: Oldest Human-Made Object in Space
On this web log I explore topics related to genetics, food and farming.
Pamela Ronald is Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of
California, Davis, where she studies the role that genes play in a
plant's response to its environment. Her laboratory has genetically
engineered rice for resistance to diseases and flooding,
both of which are serious problems of rice crops in Asia and Africa. Ronald is co-author with her husband, an organic farmer, of "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food".
Ronald interviews, lectures and profiles
Article, The New Organic in The Boston Globe
Article, Making Rice Disease-Resistant in Scientific American
Ronald speaking schedule
Category: biofortified
what I learned that day, 33 years ago, would trigger a grand curiosity about the natural world and draw me into the greatest scientific puzzle of my career
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 4:06 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
Nothing more fun than making discoveries in nature and then seeing them used for the public good
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 1:09 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
The discovery of a role for fly Toll and mouse TLR4 in immunity provided a structural link between receptors utilized by animals and those used by plants (eg. Rice XA21, flax L6 and tobacco N) to detect infection.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 12:22 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
In a feat worthy of the Turing cryptographers, some plants have evolved a cypher-breaking detection system, called the XA21 receptor, that intercept the Ax21 bacterial code and use this information to trigger a robust immune response, preventing disease.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 5:00 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofuels
The ability to identify key genes that control simple or complex traits in rice has important biological, agricultural, and economic consequences. RiceNet offers an attractive and potentially rapid route for focusing crop engineering efforts on the small sets of genes that are deemed most likely to affect the traits of interest.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 2:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
Two great scientists, who have changed the way we view the immune response of plants and animals have been awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 2:00 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
No investigation without wonder, no observation without joy, no understanding without humility
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 8:01 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: genetics and society
If evolution is depicted as a tree, and extant species as terminal leaves on that tree, it is clear that we have examined only a few of those leaves, gaining only a fragmentary impression of what is and what once was.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 6:07 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agricultual policy
'HoneySweet' plum which is highly resistant to Plum pox virus has been deregulated by APHIS and cleared by FDA. EPA registration is the final regulatory process for 'HoneySweet' plum in the U.S. The proposed registration is now open for public comment.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 4:52 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agricultual policy
"There ain't a damn thing I can do unless I want to research on fat kids, and I have two of my own at home and sure don't want to look at someone else's."
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 3:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
denialism blog 02.14.2012
respectful insolence 02.14.2012
uncertain principles 02.13.2012
confessions of a science librarian 02.13.2012
starts with a bang! 02.13.2012
