Genes: Out of

the laboratory,

into the news.

Sharon Schmickle

Media Fellowship Program

Biosciences for Farming in Africa

October-November 2012

Opening by connecting

“Shopping for food: we all do it, whether at

the supermarket, or from traditional

neighborhood shops, or in a market. It’s the

modern equivalent of what our ancestors

would have done in long-gone hunter-

gatherer days.”

--Noel Kingsbury, opening lines in the

introduction of Hybrid: The History and

Science of Plant Breeding

Please come with me

Open a door

Extend a hand

Lead the way

Speak to your audience

A story about crops might speak to:

Farmers

Policy makers

Business leaders

Consumers

All of the above

Typical press release

An international team of researchers,

including a University of Minnesota scientist,

has developed an integrated physical,

genetic and functional sequence assembly

of the barley genome, one of the world’s

most important and genetically complex

cereal crops. Results are published in

today’s issue of Nature.

--University of Minnesota, 17 October 2012

Translation No food is more basic than the lowly bean. From the campfire cuisine of the American cowboys to modern kitchens around the world, plants in the family known as legumes have sustained billions of people since the Stone Age.

Thus, the nutritional power packed into your next bowl of beans is well known. The mystery has been the genetic code that directs the growth of these valuable plants from seed to mature pod.

Now, the University of Minnesota is leading an international effort to crack that code. -- Sharon Schmickle, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Typical journal article Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a major crop plant and a model system for fruit development. Solanum is one of the largest angiosperm genera1 and includes annual and perennial plants from diverse habitats. Here we present a high-quality genome sequence of domesticated tomato, a draft sequence of its closest wild relative, Solanumpimpinellifolium2, and compare them to each other and to the potato genome (Solanumtuberosum). The two tomato genomes show only 0.6% nucleotide divergence and signs of recent admixture, but show more than 8% divergence from potato, with nine large and several smaller inversions. --Nature, 31 May 2012

Translation What is your idea of a dream tomato? Women selling the juicy globes in the markets, no doubt, would wish for a slow-spoiling variety so that today’s leftovers would sell tomorrow. Buyers, of course, would want luscious flavor. Growers would hope for fortification against yield-stealing pests.

The day when all of those wishes could come true has been advanced by news published online in the journal Nature: tomato’s genome has been decoded. Now that scientists have the full genetic code of a common tomato, they have an unprecedented view of some 35,000 genes that make the tomato what it is.

-- Sharon Schmickle, B4FA web site

Another approach: tell a story RUSSIA'S greatest plant scientists died of starvation rather than eat their collection. . . . By 1941, the Soviet Union had established an enormous gene bank of plants containing 187,000 varieties at the Institute of Plant Industry in Leningrad (now St Petersburg). When the city was blockaded by the Germans, so important was the collection some of the scientists gave their lives to save it. By January and February of 1942, temperatures had fallen to record lows of minus 36-40 degrees. Workers, numb with cold and emaciated from hunger, struggled to save the collection while bombs pounded nearby. And as the citizens of Leningrad began to starve, so did the plant scientists. . . . Around them were collections of peas, rice, corn and wheat. --The Economist, 6 August 2010

Try extending your own hand

Form teams

Identify the audience for your article

Craft a top that speaks to the audience

Share your creation

Now what?

Your invitation was accepted.

Now you must deliver the full story with

Accuracy

Clarity

Fairness

Thank

You