It looks like rice's own defense, but this fungal trick turns a lifesaving response into a crop-killing weapon‎

For about half the global population, rice is the staple food. Yet every year, a fungal disease—rice blast—destroys harvests that could feed 60 million people. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have uncovered how the pathogen outsmarts the rice plant's defense system. The findings, published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, open up new possibilities for making rice more resilient, directly benefiting global food security.