For more than 30 years, scientists, farmers and industry have puzzled over what you are looking at now... cellulose. It's the most abundant polymer on earth, the ingredient in plants that makes cotton tough, trees strong and prevents crops from falling over in storms. And now scientists have discovered how.

Cellulose is the framework of all plant cells; it holds them together and makes plants stronger.

But until now, scientists haven't been able to find out how the plant manufactures it.

They knew that if they could discover how plants made the cellulose, they could artificially produce it.

Then scientists at the ANU Research School of Biological Sciences working for the Co-operative Research Centre for Plant Science found the gene that synthesizes the enzyme responsible for cellulose production, and the search was over.

For the first time, we can change the properties of cellulose, one of the most important raw materials. The challenge now is to use that ability to produce more valuable fibres, perhaps even to produce new sorts of materials from plants.

The list of what they can do with this discovery is virtually endless.

The cellulose in plantation trees may be altered to make better paper. Corn and wheat to prevent them being knocked over in wind and hail. It could help grow crops of cotton with fibres that are stronger, and even put more fibre in the food we eat.