Australia
A team of Australian scientists has discovered a gene in a “magical” tobacco plant that will open the door for space-based food production, especially during deeper space human missions, including to Mars.
Professor Peter Waterhouse, a plant geneticist at the Queensland University of Technology, discovered the gene in the ancient Australian native tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana – known as Pitjuri to indigenous Australian aboriginal tribes. “This plant is the ‘laboratory rat’ of the molecular plant world. We think of it as a magical plant with amazing properties,” he said in a university statement.
“We have discovered that it is the plant equivalent of the nude mouse used in medical research,” added lead researcher Julia Bally. “What we found may have a big impact on future plant biotechnology research.”
The team found that this particular plant has survived in its current form in the wild for around 750,000 years. The plant has lost its “immune system” and has done that to focus its energies on being able to germinate and grow quickly, rapidly flower, and set seed after even a small amount of rainfall.
The plant has worked out how to fight drought -- its number one predator -- in order to survive through generations. Scientists could use this discovery to investigate other niche or sterile growing environments where plants were protected from disease -- and space was an intriguing option.
The findings also have implications for future genetic research on Earth.