In the first entry of this series I introduced the new research field of ‘plant neurobiology’, one of whose main sites is the Murcia University ‘Minimal Intelligence Lab’ under the direction of cognitive scientist and philosopher Paco Calvo. In that entry, I offered a brief sketch of the topics covered by the field, topics that […]
It is said of philosophers that they are ever less willing to recognise a mistake than the ordinary intellect… sorry, man on the street. Actually, an old joke tells about a university rector saying to other that his favourite department is that of mathematics, for mathematicians only ask for paper, pencils and paper bins; “oh […]
We perceive the world surrounding us through our senses. Thanks to them we can have a pleasant time listening to Claude Debussy or get delighted by the scent of rosemary. We blindly trust them, but are they always truthful? A good answer would be they are accurate most of the time, although it seems nature […]
The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert covering about one quarter of the African continent. The sun is constantly up and makes some spots in the Sahara the hottest and driest on Earth, with average highest temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius and very low, if any, annual rainfall. As fresh water dwindles, most of […]
Plants reproduce sexually to ensure genetic variability and thus, to continuously evolve in a constantly changing environment. In angiosperms, flowers are the sexual organs and most angiosperms are hermaphroditic, this means they have bisexual flowers with both male and female organs (Figure 1). Stamens are the male part of the flower, they are filaments ended […]
In recent years, when I enter into a bakery my decision of which bread to buy is getting more and more complicated because of the high variety of bread available. Bread is “in appearance” a simple product just made out of flour, yeast and water mixed together and baked. Of course, the complexity of bread […]
Plants are sessile organisms, which means they can´t move around. Of course, they have some types of movements like turning towards the sun but the place where the seed germinates the plant will stay during their entire life cycle. Obviously, this fact has important consequences on how plants respond upon variations of their surrounding environment […]
Most famous RNAs are coding or messenger RNAs (mRNAs) which are the ones that ribosomes read to synthesize proteins. However, many other RNAs are transcribed from DNA and are known as non-coding RNAs. Among those, ribosomic RNAs (rRNAs) which are part of the ribosomes and transfer RNAs (tRNAs) which deliver the amino acids to the […]
Everybody has heard about that. They say that plants are able to hear. Who has not ever heard from someone or read somewhere that talking to your plants makes them grow better and to be more splendid than if you treat them like a vegetable? You can believe it or not, but believer or skeptic […]
Every day, each person on the planet consumes 2868 Kcal, 19% of those calories come from the world’s most important crop, rice, closely followed by wheat (F.A.O). In some Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia or Philippines rice represents up to 70% of the daily caloric intake (Figure 1). Many research efforts have been done […]