A genetic tweak that makes soya plants 20% more productive

layabouts, and as such easily underestimated. They seem simply to sit there, growing or dying according to the roll of the meteorological dice, the appetites of herbivores, the caprice of pests and the skill (if they are cultivars) of their attendant farmers and gardeners. But their passivity is superficial. On the inside, plants are endlessly active. Their sedentary way of life requires it. They must continually adapt in their biochemical processes to changes from which animals can simply run, swim, slither or fly away. Understanding how plants do this is scientifically fascinating. It also offers the possibility of changing not just the look and size of members of the vegetable kingdom, as humans have been doing for ten millennia, but also their inner workings. The potential such change offers is demonstrated spectacularly by a study published recently in by Stephen Long of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues.