Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Mixed mating populations have higher fitness than outcrossing populations for tens to hundreds of generations following colonization, suggesting a consistent early advantage to mixed mating populations in responding to selection . The magnitude of this fitness advantage each generation is slight, but it has biologically important consequences for colonization success by decreasing the time to…

Vaccinium corymbosum was selected due to its unique root anatomy and morphology and its reported limited ability to redistribute water. It was hypothesized that root tissue rehydration at night would be delayed, especially in the distal root orders because of their greater hydraulic constraints .The experiment was conducted in November 2005 in a greenhouse at…

Because they are more difficult to grow they’re considered all but obsolete in today’s produce world. And because the fruit deteriorates rapidly in cold storage, the older varieties are a mere remembrance fading in the rear view mirror—a tribute to a time when there was a fierce loyalty to varietal brand names. New school peach and…

The seed color of BB is determined mainly by the presence of anthocyanins, and condensed tannins . As one of the main flavonoid groups found in BB, anthocyanins have been shown to determine the color of the seed coats, but also demonstrated to be biologically active and have potential health properties . BB have been…

This may be because breeding and management actions are generally assumed to outweigh any natural conditions that could result in alternate bearing at farm-, region- or nationwide scales. Similarly, agricultural research on yield and alternate bearing rarely integrates insights from masting literature. Such insights include the possibility that factors which increase yield in one year…

The transcript abundance of 129 members from the berries was determined to be above background noise levels on the microarray . The expression profiles of the 92 significantly affected AP2/ERF superfamily members were separated into six distinct clusters by hierarchical clustering and indicated that this superfamily had a complex response during berry ripening . The…

The combined approach achieved higher pectin degradation than ultrasound or acid individually. In the meantime, no significant differences were found between using CA and nitric acid under ultrasound. Zhang et al., concluded the same findings when comparing the combined extraction with CA and hydrochloric acid. Since CA is a common food-grade ingredient that increases polyphenol stability…

Bacteria from many genera, including Alcaligenes, Agrobacterium, Azospirillum, Azotobacter, Arthrobacter, Bacillus, Bradyrhizobium, Burkholderia, Caulobacter, Chromobacterium, Enterobacter, Erwinia, Flavobacterium, Herbaspirillum, Klebsiella, Mesorhizobium, Micrococcus, Pseudomonas, Rhizobium, Rhodococcus, and Serratia, can enhance plant growth . PGPRs can be divided intosymbiotic bacteria and free-living rhizobacteria based on their interaction with plants. Symbiotic bacteria live within plant tissues and exchange…

One of the most promising aspects of herbarium-based phenological data is the potential to expand our taxonomic and geographic sampling of phenological research. For example, thevast collections of specimens from species-rich tropical and subtropical biomes could be used to greatly enhance phenological research in these regions where field based phenological data, especially on the timescale of recent…

The A2 clade II consisted of isolates with unique genotypes collected only in Southern California. Interestingly, the authors in this study included isolates from P. cinnamomi previously identified as belonging to the A2 type 1 and A2 type 2 described by Dobrowolski et al. , however these isolates clustered within the A2 clade I group,…