Introducing our new Botanical Pills

Even though plants constitute 80% of the biomass on planet Earth, the green world is generally underrepresented in science education programs at all levels – from primary school to university degrees. That’s why Botany One science writers and editors often wonder whether their blog posts need a “supplement” to better explain basic (or complex) botanical concepts to help fully understand the scientific background of a research project or the results of an academic article.

So we’re launching a new blog series Botanical Pills, a digital resource for (non-academic) plant lovers aimed at filling knowledge gaps in plant science.

Botanical Pills are composed of a text with some examples and links to related bibliography to deepen the theme, accompanied by a cheat sheet with brief annotations and visuals for quick reference. We have started with “Arabidopsis thaliana – the botanist’s lab rat” [PDF]to introduce the most used model organism in plant research and continued with “Plants under pressure” [PDF] to briefly review how plants sense and respond to environmental stressors. We are planning more botanical pills on plant evolution, specialised plant structures (e.g., flower and seed) and plant-specific processes (e.g., C₃ and C₄ photosynthesis). If you are interested in a specific topic, please let us know by dropping a message (comment box below).