#bti: nat

[beyond-the-isle]

I'll probably drop these as I continue working on them but for now- the most specialest boy (read: nearing middle aged man)

probably early-mid 40s by this point in his life (or just late 30s, life changing disasters and dealing with gods ages a man)

long exposure to Quetzal gives him draconic eyes with a hint of gold, also getting ring marks

has Judgement and Sacred Fire scars

due to being an idiot over the course of the main blog, he sustained leg injuries and has a cane to get around (also has a therapy mon to aid in movement on bad days, a Medicham-Alakazam)

dad to three kids, acts as a dad for several others

[sciencespies]

Hornwort genomes could lead to crop improvement

https://sciencespies.com/biology/hornwort-genomes-could-lead-to-crop-improvement/

Hornwort genomes could lead to crop improvement

Researchers sequenced the genomes of three hornworts, including this Anthoceros agrestis. These ancient plants hold evolutionary secrets that could help crops grow more efficiently with less fertilizer. Credit: Eftychis Frangedakis

Some 500 million years ago—when our continents were likely connected in a single land mass and most life existed underwater—hornworts were one of the first groups of plants to colonize land. But biologists have never understood much about the genetics of these ancient plants, which have very unique biology.

Fay-Wei Li from the Boyce Thompson Institute, Péter Szövényi from the University of Zurich and researchers from across the globe sequenced the genomes of three hornworts, illuminating the dawn of land plants. The group also discovered genes that likely underpin the plants’ special methods of acquiring carbon and nitrogen.

The findings could lead to the development of crops that produce higher yields with the use of less synthetic fertilizer.

“We know life is basically built by carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus—those are key to increasing agricultural yields,” said Li, BTI faculty member and a corresponding author of the paper. “If we can unlock hornworts’ secrets, then we might be able to transfer those traits to agriculturally important plants.”

The results were published in the journal Nature Plants on March 13.

The research team began the project in 2011, said Szövényi, a researcher at the University of Zurich and the other corresponding author of the paper. “It took us three years to figure out how hornworts can be grown and pushed through their sexual life cycle under laboratory conditions, and another three years to properly assemble and annotate their genomes.”

One of the researchers’ goals was to find genes that play a role in hornworts’ method of concentrating carbon dioxide inside chloroplasts, which boosts the plants’ ability to make sugar. Hornworts are unique among land plants in this capability, but some species of algae share the trait. The team thus compared the hornwort genomes with those of algae and found one gene, LCIB, that is shared by the two groups of plants but not with other land plants.

BTI faculty member Fay-Wei Li collects a specimen of the hornwort Anthoceros agrestis in a cornfield in Homer, NY. Credit: Boyce Thompson Institute

“If this carbon-concentrating mechanism could be installed in crop plants, then they could grow larger with the same amount of fertilizer,” said Li, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of plant biology at Cornell University.

The group also identified 40 genes that may promote the hornworts’ source of nitrogen, which comes from a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria. “That’s a really unique function,” Li said. “Very few plants can do this.”

If crop plants could be developed to have a similar symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria, then farmers could use less nitrogen fertilizer, said Li. Such a reduction in fertilizer could benefit the environment because excess agricultural nitrogen frequently enters waterways, where it can cause deadly algal blooms.

Li plans to further study these genes as part of a recent EDGE grant from the National Science Foundation, which seeks to develop technologies for determining the functions of hornwort genes. “Once we have the genetic tools then we will be able to investigate the roles of these genes in hornworts’ unconventional ways of sourcing carbon and nitrogen,” Li said.

The research also shed light on the evolution of early land plants. Hornworts, liverworts and mosses were among the first plants to colonize land, but how the three groups were related had not been clear.

“In terms of the relationship of land plants, there has been a huge debate of where hornworts sit,” Li said. “Here, we have strong evidence that hornworts, liverworts and mosses are all more closely related to each other than they are to vascular plants. We also show that liverworts and mosses are more closely related to each other than to hornworts.”

“The data we generated fill a really important gap in how we try to understand the evolution of land plants,” added Li.

Explore further

Plants are given a new family tree

More information: Li, F., et al. Anthoceros genomes illuminate the origin of land plants and the unique biology of hornworts. Nat. Plants 6, 259–272 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0618-2

Provided by Boyce Thompson Institute

Citation: Hornwort genomes could lead to crop improvement (2020, March 13) retrieved 15 March 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-03-hornwort-genomes-crop.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

#Biology

[beyond-the-isle]

woke: Mateo is a jirachi kid

bespoke: he's a wish from Pluto/a baby jirachi that crash landed on the island, who has never granted wishes before and doesn't know that there are Rules ™️, of which Melchior/the leader of the magi is like WHAT

[beyond-the-isle]

Y'all would not believe the SPEED in which I started getting brainworms about Briar's potential role in the dlc, I'm manifesting a lot of things here

potential prelude of sorts to what would've led up to this post

[beyond-the-isle]

Came across this older file, in my feelings about these two and all they go through and what the future holds

Nat's definitely got some appearance changes in comparison to this, but the one thing that remains consistent is just how damn nice Gabe's leader outfit looks

things change for better or for worse, but the dynamic between these two is forever cemented

[beyond-the-isle]

I remembered I doodled this a while back and I still think and laugh on it

Nat, at the peak of his divorced-dad era and trying not to helicopter his kids all while also unintentionally adopting who is basically Hunter from TOH and the worst kid to ever grace his presence from his sheer stupidity

It’s like his own version of the mystery gang but the eldest is a 19-20 year old who just got deprogrammed out of a cult and has mental zoomies over tornadoes and other destructive weather, someone come help Nat please

[beyond-the-isle]

Congrats Nat for getting the worst side of literally every region by the ripe age of 30-40 years

[beyond-the-isle]

It's so amusing to me that the island's development happens all within the lifetime of the main cast-Pokemon world is full of fantastical creatures so who's to say whole regions can't have the means of becoming functional government bodies in the span of some 50 odd years

So you end up an academy student and get this quirky little man coming to teach you about mythology for the semester and go "y'know what a nice guy", not realizing this little man has seen horrors beyond comprehension such as a giant blood noodle, being bound to another noodle for the rest of his life, getting sent to the past and fighting god (and somehow getting away with it), getting stuck in Area Zero-

This guy is also the current sitting Chief Executive in the bigger scheme of things and it's just

Local Island Leader Witnesses Lifetimes of Horrors Found Chilling Outside Playing Dominoes, Accidentally Spills a Piragua on Himself

[beyond-the-isle]

Thinking about what regions get along with Tano in the future and which ones are a lil frayed, so far the relations are looking like

Best Relation: Sinnoh (Celestica Peoples), Alola, Sevii Islands, Orange Islands, Pasio, Lental

Decent Relation: Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Paldea, Almia, Oblivia, Aeos

Indifferent: Kalos, Orre, Fiore

Poor Relation: Sekiei (Kanto-Johto), Galar

[beyond-the-isle]

Hello!!

As some of you might now know, this is a sideblog dedicated to the extended timeline beyond the storyline of my main askblog, @asktheisle 

You’ll come to find me just writing at random, sometimes uploading haphazard doodles and the occasional finished piece that doesn’t really go anywhere else

You’re all also welcome to ask about things and about characters, I guess the easiest would be about where they end up when everything is said and done. But really it’s free grounds to ask whatever you want 

WARNING: Due to the nature of this blog, you’re gonna come across potential spoilers for the story! Just a warning in case you want to be completely blind to the happenings of the storyline, but I’ll be doing my best to not spoil anything that’s integral to the blog’s storyline

I encourage interaction on this blog! Asks, replies, reblog chains, it’s all welcome. I love “yes, and-”ing, so by all means!

The tagging system will be pretty similar to the main blog’s, such as:

Character tag: “bti:” followed by their name (ex: bti: nat, bti: luxu, etc)

Graphics: “bti: images”- for posts that are just for logos, maps, scenery, things of the sort

Worldbuilding: “bti: build”- for things that are already established worldbuilding bits, stuff I’ve already worked and tinkered with for the most part

Rambles: “bti: rambles”- me just spewing nonsense and potentially in process of working on