Arabidopsis is universally acknowledged as the model for dicotyledonous crop plants. Furthermore, some of the information gleaned from this small plant can be used to aid work on monocotyledonous crops. Here we provide an overview of the current state of knowledge and resources for the study of this important model plant, with comments on future prospects in the field from Professor Pamela Gree...

The use of biocatalysts for the industrial synthesis of chemicals has been attracting much attention as an environment-friendly synthetic method. Microbial cells play a leading role in 'chemo-enzymatic synthesis' because of their great diversity. Several microbes with unique catalytic abilities have been found through intensive screening and put to practical use. Besides, advanced molecular bio...

Multicellular organisms appear to have arisen from unicells numerous times. Multicellular cyanobacteria arose early in the history of life on Earth. Multicellular forms have since arisen independently in each of the kingdoms and several times in some phyla. If the step from unicellular to multicellular life was taken early and frequently, the selective advantage of multicellularity may be large...

This article was to have been written by Kees Weijer, an outstanding pioneer in Dictyostelium research. It was (and is) to celebrate J.T. Bonner's and Weijer's contributions to the field and those of the other great pioneers. Unfortunately, Weijer was unable to write his article, due to ill health and since I have some knowledge of this field, I took it over. The article summarises some main re...

The creation of the domestic dog and its many breeds has been an ongoing experiment in the rapid evolution of form and function. Now, advances in genomics have made Canis familiaris genetically tractable and poised to offer insights into evolution, development, and behavior.

Ever since the discovery of virus in beginning of 20th century, infections caused by these organisms have captured attention of researchers. The evolution of viruses is still a controversy, even same for their categorization in either living or non-living. It is clear that besides many controversies virus remains challenging to treat as well as to control in some extent. Though vaccines are ava...

the degree and nature of man's understanding of the organism and the methods which the biologist has appied to its study have varied with the period at which he has lived. since man himself is an organism and since thinking involves introspection, it is probably safe to say that his interest in the organism may have been one of his first concerns certainly the first phase of study was an o...