Editorials

Medical science has acknowledged that research resources are not always directed where they will be most effective. Is it time that we paid similar attention to blind spots within the plant sciences?

Plants are often the subjects of paintings but their involvement in literature and drama is rarely centre stage. With the inauguration of a new literary festival it is time for a reassessment of the plant kingdom's dramatic potential.

Scientific and technological advances can only be achieved through careful experimentation, but what has been discovered often overshadows how the discovery was made. However, there are a variety of mechanisms, old and new, for the sharing of practical expertise.

Images of ‘real’ scientists are rare in everyday society, and those of scientists who are also women are doubly so. Could a female scientist on something as commonplace as a banknote help?

The involvement of online discussion sites in the identification of errors, anomalies and worse in the published literature continues to demonstrate the usefulness of post-publication review. It also highlights the ambiguous power of anonymity.

The subject of extinction and de-extinction are much in the news at the moment, but discussions tend to focus on the loss or resurrection of charismatic animals like tigers or tyrannosaurs. Where is the talk of the plant species that have been lost and that might be worth bringing back?

Botany underpins the modern world, not only agriculture but medicine, material science, chemistry and much more. Yet it has been belittled to the point where even the name botany is out of favour; too outdated for a modern science. Thankfully botanical researchers continue to look forward, not back.

The majority of biological research is concentrated on a handful of species for valid practical reasons. But it is important that such pragmatism does not distort our view of life's complexity.

Synthetic biology could be seen as a natural development of traditional biotechnology and applied genetics. However, the exuberant culture that it has embraced should ensure it has a very bright future.

Plant research projects are increasingly producing large systematic collections of phenotype data. But how can it be stored so that others can easily use it and that proper credit goes to the creators of the data?

People have learned much from being fed, clothed, sheltered and medicated by plants over millennia. Such traditional knowledge can yield practical discoveries and an understanding of our societies.

For more than a decade political stalemate has enforced a de facto ban on the exploitation of genetic modification technologies by European agriculture. It is to be hoped that a recent compromise by the European Parliament will allow reasoned decision-making to proceed.