{"id":3669,"date":"2012-02-10T09:17:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T22:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=3669"},"modified":"2012-03-21T10:12:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T23:12:54","slug":"bulls-eye-the-strange-case-of-the-dwarf-corn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/bulls-eye-the-strange-case-of-the-dwarf-corn\/","title":{"rendered":"Bull&#8217;s-Eye: The strange case of the dwarf corn"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3671\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 605px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/cornok.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3671\" title=\"cornok\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/cornok.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"390\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brassinosteroids are plant hormones that share structural similarities with animal steroids. Animal steroids are related to sex determination. Image: Purdue\/B. Schulz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Natural mutations could lead to better crops.<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at Purdue University are trying to change the architecture of some plants. Burkhard Schulz, an assistant professor of horticulture and landscape, experimented with maize (<em>Zea mays<\/em>). He removed the brassinosteroids, a natural plant hormone that regulates growth, and \u2014 just as he expected \u2014 the plant became a dwarf. But there was a second effect that Schulz didn&#8217;t anticipate. By removing the natural steroids from the plant, it couldn&#8217;t develop male organs and, therefore, grew kernels where the tassels should be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This would be the perfect mutation for hybrid seed production,&#8221;\u009d Schulz mentioned at Purdue&#8217;s newsroom. The researcher and his team will continue to manipulate plant in order to improve their quality.<\/p>\n<h5>Sources: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/research\/2011\/111130SchulzSteroids.html\">Purdue<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/index.jsp\">National Science Foundation<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Natural mutations could lead to better crops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,101,92,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazing-images","category-bulls-eye","category-nutrition","category-science"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3669"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4382,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669\/revisions\/4382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}