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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

WA Research Could Help Crops Endure Climate Change

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Friday, May 29, 2020   

SPOKANE, Wash. - Researchers at Washington State University may have found a way to help crops adapt to a warming climate.

Phytologist Karen Sanguinet - an assistant professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at WSU - is studying a protein that she says could help plants move water more efficiently within their own system of veins in harsh climates.

As droughts become more prevalent under climate change, she says a plant's ability to make the most of available water resources will be crucial.

"One of the biggest issues facing society today is understanding how climate change is going to affect our food supply," says Sanguinet.

Sanguinet and her colleague have found promising results with the protein known as 'MAP-20.' Their studies have found the protein is crucial to the structure in plants that enables water movement.

Sanguinet says in dry times, air bubbles can get into the vessels of a plant that transport water, causing pockets that can block water, like a traffic jam. These air pockets can spread to other vessels through tiny structures known as pits.

She explains that expression of the MAP-20 gene leads to smaller pits, resulting in fewer air pockets.

"If you can manipulate the size and thickness of this pit membrane," says Sanguinet, "you can alter water movement and have better water transport and plants better able to tolerate periods of drought."

WSU biologist and Associate Professor in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Andrei Smertenko is Sanguinet's colleague in this research. He says scientists need to do even more research to prepare for a warming planet because right now, humans' toolbox for adapting to new, hotter conditions is limited.

"We need to engineer a set of tools that would be applicable to improving performance of plants under different environments," says Smertenko.

Next, the WSU researchers want to focus on how the MAP-20 gene affects other species of plants beyond the grasses they have been studying. They envision their research as potentially being useful for the future of agriculture.


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Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

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