{"id":229256,"date":"2026-01-18T10:16:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/breakthrough-lets-scientists-watch-plants-breathe-in-real-time"},"modified":"2026-01-18T10:16:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:16:38","slug":"breakthrough-lets-scientists-watch-plants-breathe-in-real-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/breakthrough-lets-scientists-watch-plants-breathe-in-real-time","title":{"rendered":"Breakthrough lets scientists watch plants breathe in real time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/breakthrough-lets-scientists-watch-plants-breathe-in-real-time.webp\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have long understood that plants take in air through tiny openings on their leaves known as stomata. These microscopic pores act like adjustable valves, letting carbon dioxide enter the leaf for photosynthesis while allowing water vapor to escape into the air. Until now, closely tracking this balancing act as it happens has been extremely difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have now created a powerful new system that makes this possible. Their study, published in the journal <em>Plant Physiology<\/em>, introduces a tool called \u201cStomata In-Sight.\u201d It overcomes a major obstacle in plant science by allowing scientists to observe the minute movements of stomata while also measuring, at the same time, how much gas the leaf is exchanging with the atmosphere under carefully controlled conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have long understood that plants take in air through tiny openings on their leaves known as stomata. These microscopic pores act like adjustable valves, letting carbon dioxide enter the leaf for photosynthesis while allowing water vapor to escape into the air. Until now, closely tracking this balancing act as it happens has been extremely [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}