Author: zooplantman
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What Makes "Great" Plant Hunters Great
More than 50% of the world's plant species have been discovered by 2% of plant collectors, scientists have found.
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Did Your Fresh Cut Flowers Destroy Endangered Species?
One of the reasons why florists like this leaf so much is because once you have cut it, it stays green for 30-40 days.
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Unforeseen Consequences of Human Noise: Plants Can’t Reproduce
A US team found that industrial noise disrupted the behaviour of animals that pollinate plants and disperse seeds. This, they suggest, could be slowly transforming our landscape, especially by changing the dispersal of slow-growing trees.
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A New Way To "Light Up:" Tobacco As Biofuel!
The leaves would then be crushed, and the fuel extracted and separated. The scientists estimate that about 1000 acres of tobacco could yield more than one million gallons of fuel.
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Oldest Living Organism Is A Plant Under The Sea
Given the plant's annual growth rate the team calculated that the Formentera meadow must be between 80,000 and 200,000 years old, making it the oldest living organism on Earth.
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Old Cultures Point The Way To The Ecological Future
Humans are frequently blamed for deforestation and the destruction of environments, yet there are also examples of peoples and cultures around the world that have learned to manage and conserve the precious resources around them.
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Making Solar Panels From Plant Waste
Within a few years, people in remote villages in the developing world may be able to make their own solar panels, at low cost, using otherwise worthless agricultural waste as their raw material.
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Flowers Use Sophisticated Signals To Attract Pollinators
Using modern optical methods such as spectroscopy with high spatial resolution we have been able to study the optical function of surface structures on plant petals and discover something new about how they give rise to structural colour in flowering plants.
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Palm Biodiesel As Polluting As Oil
So palm oil and soy bean biodiesel is just a touch less polluting than fuel from tar sands: that's pretty damning. Maize and sugar do better than crude oil but still cause significant carbon emissions.
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Ancient Giant Trees No Match For Modern Threats
Long-term studies in Amazonia, Africa and central America show that while these botanical behemoths may have adapted successfully to centuries of storms, pests and short-term climatic extremes, they are counterintuitively more vulnerable than other trees to today's threats.