Plants lack an adaptive immune system, so Jiorgos Kourelis and Clémence Marchal in the Kamoun lab had the ambitious idea to piggyback mammalian adaptive immunity and produce made-to-order plant immune receptors called Pikobodies. FIRST PUBLISHED: 03.03.23. Mia Cerfonteyn, The Sainsbury Laboratory. Plants have highly effective immune systems which allow them…

After realizing that ChatGPT has finally learned that Phytophthora and other oomycetes are not fungi, making peace with it became easier. Back in December, we had a serious issue at hand. ChatGPT thought that oomycetes are fungi. But progress has been made, and ChatGPT has learned to give…

The Norwich Science Festival is an annual celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that takes place in Norwich, UK. The festival aims to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds to engage with science and to learn more about the latest research and discoveries. …

A number of this blog’s posts were selected as Featured Snippets by Google and Bing, and they typically offered accurate answers to the queries. Will chatbot search engines be as good? The AI chatbot wars The emergence of ChatGPT and the intense chatbot competition between OpenAI / Microsoft vs. Google…

I have a special relationship with the bacterium Xanthomonas. …

I didn’t start the year with the energy and drive I had hoped for. I found it hard getting out of bed in the early morning darkness. …

These are fictional exchanges between a Professor and a student who didn’t include controls in their experiment. Which is your favorite? This is a good start. 2. This is better. It’s not okay to forget about controls.

The first month of the year is when people often make resolutions to improve their life. But for academics, January is Dedlanuary: the month of deadlines. January is the month where we take pledges, the famous new year resolutions. This tradition recently expanded to an industrial scale in the UK…

According to Proffunguy, a regular contributor to Urban Dictionary, a joeke is a joke told by Joe—a legendary character known for delivering ambiguous jokes with (hopefully) humorous puns. Here is a joeke straight from the Dictionary: “Do you know where the fish keep their money? In the riverbank, of course.” …