Getting to the root of the rhizosphere

Getting to the root of the rhizosphere

Author: PNAS August 31, 2026 Duration: 6:10

Getting to the root of the rhizosphere

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, researchers describe methods for illuminating interactions between plants and microbes in the rhizosphere.

In this episode, we cover:
•[00:00] Introduction
•[00:35] Molly Hanlon describes a relatively inexpensive technique for rapidly imaging plant anatomy along the root axis.
•[01:47] Oumeng Zhang explains a microscopy technique for imaging 3D microbial interactions with improved speed and reduced phototoxicity compared to traditional methods.
•[03:07] Reinaldo Alcalde describes the results of his and Oumeng's approach.
•[04:08] Victoria Orphan used synthetic cryolite to create a transparent, soil-like scaffold, allowing belowground microbial processes to be visualized.
•[05:31] Final thoughts and conclusion.

About Our Guests:
Molly Hanlon 
Senior Research Scientist
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Oumeng Zhang
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University

Reinaldo Alcalde
Senior Postdoctoral Scholar
California Institute of Technology

Victoria Orphan
James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology
California Institute of Technology

View related content here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2643651525001566
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2403122121
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/5/pgaf118/8114130

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Tune into PNAS Science Sessions for a direct line to the people shaping modern science. Produced by PNAS, this podcast offers more than just summaries of published research; it’s where you hear the candid, often personal stories behind the headlines. Each episode features concise conversations with the researchers themselves-from emerging voices to established Academy members-alongside the policymakers whose decisions are informed by this work. You’ll get a genuine sense of the questions that drive these experts, the unexpected hurdles they face in their labs and field studies, and why their findings matter right now. The scope is deliberately wide, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of science itself, covering discoveries that range from microscopic processes to planetary-scale phenomena. This isn't about dry lectures, but about capturing the human endeavor of investigation. For anyone curious about how science actually unfolds and wants to understand the context of breakthroughs as they happen, this podcast serves as an essential, engaging resource. It connects the dots between a published paper in a prestigious journal and the real-world implications that ripple out from it.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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