(Nanowerk Spotlight) Humanity's efforts to modify food plants is as old as farming itself, some 10,000 years. Before genetic engineering became possible, farmers have used simple selection inter- and ...

As the human population continues to explode, the need for efficient crop growth also expands. While there have been great strides in plant genetics and modification, there is still much to be learned ...

Climate change and an accelerated population growth impose a major threat to crop production around the world. In order to ensure food availability and minimise the environmental impact associated ...

Increasingly, global food production is being threatened by the effects of climate change. As floods, droughts, and extreme heat waves become more common, crops need to be able to adapt faster than ...

Scientists have been tinkering with Mother Nature again. Botanical genetic engineers obviously never saw the margarine ad that cautioned, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Here are just a few ...

Scientists have developed a toolbox of transcriptional regulators for plants and show that they can be used to construct synthetic genetic circuits that predictably modify root growth. Their work is ...

"It's really important to look across the plant kingdom because plants have solved so many problems already. Why not read their genomes like a book and try to understand it and solve the problems ...

Bigger, tastier tomatoes and eggplants could soon grace our dinner plates thanks to Johns Hopkins scientists who have discovered genes that control how large the fruits will grow. The research—led by ...

"Because oil production utilizes central metabolic pathways, we know that engineering plants to produce more oil ultimately impacts other pathways—creating constraints on carbon supply," said Thelen, ...