This layman’s introduction to plant-plant communication in Quanta on-line magazine is interesting both in relation to the phenomena studied and how science works. Nowadays that plants communicate with each other is widely accepted, but several types of communication are still controversial and not all available evidence is as strong as one would wish. Consequently, it is a very exciting field and time to do research about plant-plant interactions, including communication!
Category Archives: Science news
“Reproducible research” is a hot question
I have long been interested in the question of reproducible research and as a manuscript author, reviewer and more recently, editor, have attempted to make sure that no key information was missing and that methods were described in full detail and, of course, valid.
Although the problem has always existed, I think that in recent years papers and reports with badly described methods have become more frequent. I think that there are many reasons for this: 1) the pressure to publish quickly and frequently as a condition for career advance, 2) the overload on reviewers work’ and the pressure from journals to get manuscript reviews submitted within a few days’ time, 3) the stricter and stricter rules of journals about maximum number of “free” pages, and 4) the practice by some journals of publishing methods at the end of the papers or in smaller typeface, implying that methods are not important for most readers, and irrelevant for understanding the results described (which is a false premise).
Leaf mimicry in a climber
Check out this paper colleagues, as far as I know it is the first report of leaf mimicry:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214002693