inheritance, but the phenomenon observed (reversion of mutant copies of the HOTHEAD gene to a wild-type state) was later suggested to be an artifact because the mutants show increased outcrossing due to organ fusion. Lifecycle The plant's small size and rapid lifecycle are also advantageous for research. Having specialized as a spring ephemeral, it has been used to found several laboratory strains that take about 6 weeks from germination to mature seed. The small size of the plant is convenient for cultivation in a small space, and it produces many seeds. Further, the selfing nature of this plant assists genetic experiments. Also, as an individual plant can produce several thousand seeds, each of the above criteria leads to A. thaliana being valued as a genetic model organism. Cellular biology Arabidopsis is often the model for study of SNAREs in plants. This has shown SNAREs to be heavily involved in vesicle trafficking. Zheng et al. 1999 found an Arabidopsis SNARE called is probably essential to Golgi-vacuole trafficking. This is still a wide open field and plant SNAREs' role in trafficking remains understudied. DNA repair The DNA of plants is vulnerable to ultraviolet light, and DNA repair mechanisms have evolved to avoid or repair genome damage caused by UV. Kaiser et al. showed that in A. thaliana cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) induced by UV light can be repaired by expression of CPD photolyase. Germination in lunar regolith On May 12, 2022, NASA announced that specimens of Arabidopsis thaliana had been successfully germinated and grown in samples of lunar regolith. While the plants successfully germinated and grew into seedlings, they were not as robust as specimens that had been grown in volcanic ash as a control group, although the experiments also found some variation in the plants grown in regolith based on the location the samples were taken from, as A. thaliana grown in regolith gathered during Apollo 12 & Apollo 17 were more robust than those grown in samples taken during Apollo 11. Development Flower development A. thaliana has been extensively studied as a model for flower development. The developing flower has four basic organs - sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels (which go on to form pistils). These organs are arranged in a series of whorls, four sepals on the outer whorl, followed by four petals inside this, six stamens, and a central carpel region. Homeotic mutations in A. thaliana result in