Plant Pests and Plant Pathology
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This week, Plant Pests and Plant Pathology - we find out what happens when plants get ill, how to understand and prevent the spread of plant disease, and how they can call up an insect army to defend them if they’re attacked. We also find out why some horse chestnut trees are going brown before their time, and meet the pesky critter responsible! Plus, a new technique to cleanly edit out and correct errors in the DNA code, how the plague bacterium hasn't changed in 600 years, and why children, but not chimps, choose to work together.
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A study published in PLoS One that shows that having a lower percentage of protein in the diet can lead to more snacking behaviour and more perceived hunger.
An antibacterial protein secreted in the small intestine creates a tiny “no man’s land” between the wall of the intestine and the bacteria that live inside the gut. Breakdown of this physical buffer could lead to Inflammatory Bowel Disease and other chronic problems...
A new technique to repair errors in DNA while leaving no trace has been reported in the journal Nature. The researchers have corrected an error that leads to an untreatable liver disease, and this technique could eventually lead to treatments for an extremely wide range of gene...
Researchers have for the first time mapped the genome of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that caused the Black Death - the plague between 1347 and 1351 that killed up to 30 million people - 50% of the population of Europe at the time.
Children are more likely to seek assistance in a task than chimpanzees, suggesting that a motivation to work together could be part of what makes us “human”...
We find out why Vitamin D can keep Tuberculosis at bay, how muscles can be mimicked with nanotubes, how prosthetic can be controlled using brain signals and another reason to eat your greens...
Rob Marrs explains how 'thug' species could be more damaging to our environment than invasive plant species...
Chris Gilligan explains how mathematical models can be used to monitor the spread of plant disease...
Emily Seward takes you on a trip to find leaf miners...and they appear to be everywhere.
John Pickett discusses how plants can recruit insects to keep other pests at bay...
Modelling the disease spread sounds incredible. Are scientists also modelling potential pathogen mutation to stay ahead of the game in terms of cultivar diversity?
While on safari in Africa, we saw plants that are favoured by elephants but which they can only eat for fifteen minutes before the plant and all those around it produce tannins to make itself inedible. Is this a common strategy?
Do plants that undergo stress produce protective substances that are beneficial to a human diet?
Can we actually catch a disease from a diseased plant?
Hi Chris.
A question and an observation.
The question may be one for Helen and concerns a fruiting Cherry tree that attracts ants. It came from Tescos and is clearly a graft onto a root stock so unfortunately I don't have a species. The behaviour I observe is as follows...
Can we prevent leaf miners in Tomato Plants?
Do you think we would ever see a situation where we use something like the parasitoid wasp attracting pheromones in some kind of spray that you could spray on your plants at home?
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Are any scientists involved in developing plant-life to survive on Mars as suggested by Carl Sagan in Part 5 of Cosmos?
Is it true that when an orchid gets a virus I should destroy the plant to prevent infection of other plants?
If it takes a very massive star collapsing to form a black hole, and Hawking's radiation eats it away, then why doesn't it blow up after enough matter is eaten away?
I was listening to one of your previous Naked Astronomy shows and they stated that eventually the black hole wi...
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