Credit: Marco Gallio, Marcus C. Stensmyr. https://news.northwestern.edu
Here are some of the most interesting research papers to have appeared in top science journals last week.
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Multipurpose herb
Catnip (
Nepeta cataria), a garden herb known for its hallucinogenic effects on domestic cats, is also used to ward off insects, especially mosquitoes. A new study has now decoded how the plant does this. The researchers found that Catnip and its active ingredient Nepetalactone activates an irritant receptor called TRPA1.
One particular type of rice plant grown in Zhejiang,China was found to be resistant to the plant pathogen
Burkholderia plantarii. But how and why? Researchers who studied the seed of the plant found that a bacteria called
Sphingomonas meloni that lived inside the seed helped the plant gain this resistance. The bacteria produce an acid called anthranilic acid which inhibits the pathogen thus saving the crop.
Pocket-sized DNA sequencer
Minion device. Credit: https://nanoporetech.com/
Weighing just 450gm and measuring 14cm, Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ MinION device has helped sequence DNA on the go. Now, using special molecular tags, a team from the University of British Columbia has reduced the error rate to less than 0.005%. “A beautiful thing about this method is that it is applicable to any gene of interest that can be amplified.it can be very useful in any field where the combination of high-accuracy and long-range genomic information is valuable, such as cancer re