Plant Cuttings
When is a fibre not a fibre?
Answer: When it is ‘resistant starch’.
Plant Cuttings
Dragons, coconuts and skyscrapers…
Botanists aren’t always genetic engineers. This week Nigel Chaffey finds some have branched out into civil engineering.
Plant Cuttings
Can kelp help halt human hubris?
If we hope kelp is going to mitigate climate change, then we might need to think again about over-fishing and kelp harvesting.
Reviews
Botany in the 317 years-long century…
The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century. Yota Batsaki, Sarah Burke Cahalan and Anatole Tchikine (Editors). Dumbarton Oaks, 2016. Notwithstanding the importance of botany
Plant Cuttings
Iridoplasts, out of the shadows at last
Why can you find colourful plants, where they’re hardest to see? Iridoplasts, an overlooked plastid, improve photosynthesis and look great while doing it.
Plant Cuttings
Gone but not forgotten…
Looking back to the annus horribilis that was 2016 we might reflect on the loss of so many icons of the world of music, e.g.
Plant Cuttings
Super silk and mine-detectors
Modern materials get solve long-standing problems, when they get a helping hand from plants.
Plant Cuttings
Latin name or scientific name, where do you stand?
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, said Shakespeare – who clearly hadn’t met any botanists.
Plant Cuttings
Toxin-tainted submarine snow
Human pollution of the seas is turning a gentle rain of food in the marine abyss into something nastier.
![Peter Barlow, a true Renaissance man [14th August, 1942 – 26th January, 2017]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/eb/2eeb2fa9-78ad-4718-9c6b-8b5b05545bf6/content/images/size/w600/botany-one/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ed-peter.jpg)
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Peter Barlow, a true Renaissance man [14th August, 1942 – 26th January, 2017]
Recently, my good friend and long-time colleague Dr Peter Barlow passed away. Peter was one of the true ‘greats’ of botany and his contributions to
Plant Cuttings
The lachrymatory tale of the barnacle and the bacterium
For Valentine’s Day Nigel Chaffey finds a tale of an unlikely couple who have set up home together, though it ends in tears.
Plant Cuttings
Tree rings stop cell division in plants
This week Nigel Chaffey finds he has a vision problem that needs more than a trip to the optician.