Cells manage a wide range of functions in their tiny package — growing, moving, housekeeping, and so on — and most of those functions require energy. But how do cells get this energy in the first ...

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has discovered a new way to make yeast cells more ...

For the first time, high-resolution time-lapse videos of tiny bits of living plants show how they assemble their protective cell walls, researchers report March 21 in Science Advances. The image ...

Optimal packing problems have inspired mathematicians for centuries. Biophysicists now add a layer to the question: How do ...

Find out how asparagus and vanilla orchids demonstrate the importance of cell walls in plant survival and adaptability.

Plant cells are surrounded by an intricately structured protective coat called the cell wall. It’s built of cellulose microfibrils intertwined with polysaccharides like hemicellulose or pectin. We ...

Plants adapt their water consumption to environmental conditions by counting and calculating environmental stimuli with their guard cells. Plants control their water consumption via adjustable pores ...

Directed evolution is a laboratory technique that mimics natural selection and allows scientists to evolve genes and the proteins they encode. Traditionally, this technique has been used in microbes, ...

Lignins—the complex molecules that make plants sturdy and allow them to grow tall—are not as random as once thought. A new ...