Category: Amazing Plants

If leaf shape is a functional response of plants to changes in the environment, then understanding its adaptive value — and how to molecularly manipulate it — will prove to be invaluable in breeding the next generation of crops and sustainably maintaining biodiversity and crop yield in future climates. (Click on title for full story.)

The picture that is starting to emerge is that during the first half of Earth’s history the majority of life forms were probably capable of photosynthesis. (Click on title for full story.)

We now know that the first inhabitants of South America in their long voyages carried A. ipaensis to the land of A. duranensis 10,000 years ago. Once in the same area, bees pollinized the peanut plant flowers, allowing the birth of the hybrid that our South American ancestors ate and that eventually led to the modern peanut, Arachia hypogaea. It’s a fascinating story. (Click on title for full story.)

The fossils show that wildfires raged through the earliest pine forests and probably shaped the evolution of this important tree (click on title for full story.)

Two years ago one of Dr. Ong’s colleagues was walking through what was once a thriving tropical rain forest, north of Manila, that had since suffered heavy deforestation. When he looked down, after tripping over some decaying leaves, he uncovered the strange flower. (Click on title or image for full story.)

The team argues that plants are making a trade-off. While being epigenetically primed against previously experienced stress can be beneficial, it also comes with costs. You could have an organism that’s spending way too much energy transcribing genes that really aren’t necessary at a specific time, (Click on title or image for full story.)

Trees, regardless of their diameter, height, or elastic properties, don’t tend to break until wind speeds reach about 42 m/s (94 mph). This seemingly odd convergence has actually been observed by several historical scientists, including Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci, both of whom suggested that a mathematical law could explain the resistance of wooden beams under stress. Now, using data from a new experiment, scientists say they have found that law. (Click on title or image for full story.)

Prof Poinar is a renowned entomologist and most of these specimens were insects. But after nearly 30 years working on the bugs, his eye settled on the flowers. They were remarkably complete – unlike most plant fossils found in amber, which are usually just fragments. (Click on title or image for full story.)