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
The idea is for authors who have recently published Open Access papers to tell the story behind the paper: what sorts of experiences and experiments led up to the new discovery and how we navigated through the publication process.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 12:35 PM • 2 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
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
Merry Mou won first place in the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 12:59 PM • 4 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: Art and science
As far back as I can remember I loved to read and I loved the wilderness. In fact my favorite times were reading in the wilderness, preferably in a tree near our mountain cabin, high enough where my brothers could not reach me with stones or snowballs.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 10:29 PM • 1 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
Category: Stewart Brand
Ronald and Adamchak are not alone in their call for a more nuanced understanding of GM crops. Their work has inspired books by a varied clutch of professionals: an environmentalist, a historian and a journalist. The books -- Stewart Brand's "Whole Earth Discipline," James McWilliams' "Just Food" and Michael Specter's "Denialism" -- take advocates and critics of genetic engineering to task for what has become a polarized and dumbed-down debate.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 7:44 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bangladesh
The Daily Star of Dhaka reports today that flood-tolerant rice will soon be officially released in Bangladesh. The flood-tolerant rice varieties (called Sub1- rice) can help farmers, many who live on less than $1/day, dramatically increase yield during floods....
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 3:08 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orac 02.14.2012
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
Jason Rosenhouse 02.12.2012
Orac 01.26.2012
MarkH 02.14.2012
