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The thistle tortoise beetle feeds on thistle leaves. However, the beetle is only able to digest the plant cell walls because of a symbiont bacteria that compensates for the lack of digestive enzymes.

Munich-based researchers deciphered the complex genome sequence of goatgras. The original qualities of this wheat-ancestor could improve targeted breeding of the modern, cultivated plant.

When the green algae come close to Pseudomonas protegens bacteria, the bacteria release orfamid A, a lipopeptide that causes the algae to lose their flagella and inhibits their growth.

The western corn rootworm is a devastating pest of maize plants, which originates from Central America but has spread throughout Europe. It uses the defensive toxins of the plant to ward off enemies of itself.

Mussels are developing their shells early in life: between their first and second day they form a calcified shell, which equals the weight of the rest of their body. If the pH levels in the water are too low they cannot form the shell.

The nova-Institute surveyed 224 biorefineries across Europe and categorized them according to the biomass used and their end products. The different categories are clustered depending on available raw material.

At the end of the GreenUp Invest event in Berlin two winners were chosen: Munich-based Hawa Dawa who develop a high-resolution air quality map (2nd from left), and Scandinavian Polylabs, who produce biobased plastic (2nd from right).

A new DNA origami technique by Hendrik Dietz and colleagues allows for the self-organisation of „gear-wheels“ from V-shaped building blocks. In a next step, these gears form tubes with a size comparable to virus capsids or organelles.

Researchers introduced the metabolic pathway of astaxanthin into the model plant tobacco. Subsequently they used horizontal gene transfer between the model plant and the tree tobacco, resulting in an orange-colored tree tobacco plant (left)

Researcher at the University Mannheim and BRAIN AG develop new 3D skin models in order to provide better tests for cosmetics. Picture: 3D spheroids aged 7 days; red: basal cell layer; green: differentiated epidermal layer.

Students are invited to submit their artistic visions of the future of bioeconomy in an art competition for the global bioeconomy summit taking place in April in Berlin.

Plants can choose the best strategy to receive sufficient light – depending on the surrounding growth. Here: The plant Potentilla reptans is growing under simulated sparse vegetation.

Fraunhofer researchers develop paintings and varnishes based on potato starch.