Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1157913 Endeavour 2007 5 Pages PDF
Abstract

The small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana is the best-studied model organism in plant biology. More resources are allocated to research on this little weed than to the study of well-known favourites such as worms, fruit flies and mice. Yet, up to the early 1980s plant biologists had every good reason to ignore Arabidopsis: neither did it seem to possess the characteristics of a good model organism, nor did it have any agricultural promise. The sudden prestige acquired by Arabidopsis research thus constitutes a remarkable historical puzzle. What made the mouse cress into the most successful model organism to date?

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Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities History
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