Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Eureka

How it feels when an experiment isn't working - and then Eureka!

Video of a Night Blooming Cereus, taken by Dr. Paul. While this is one post that has little to do with space biology, it is an interesting example of terrestrial plant biology. However, it does connect with why we work with plant in space... we are primarily interested in how plants perceive and respond to their environment, and what molecular tools they use in the process. How do Arabidopsis roots know which direction to grow in the absence of gravity in the spaceflight environment? How does the night-blooming Epiphyllum Hookeri know to wait until around 10:00pm to open to attract its favorite pollinators? Both plants signals cued by light to help guide patterns of growth and development in interesting environments.