Celebrating Plants and People
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Climate Change Makes Poison Ivy More Dangerous.
A rise in carbon dioxide both fueled the growth of the weed and increased the potency of urushiol, the oil at the root of the rash. Poison oak and poison sumac also contain urushiol, and all three can cause the blistering rash. Airborne sap-coated soot can also get into the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory system, according to the National Park Service.
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Bees Need Not Apply. Native Azalea Depends On Butterflies For Best Pollination.
A researcher has found that in the case of the flame azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum), all pollinators are not created equal. In fact, due to the flower’s unique reproductive structure, butterflies – and specifically, their wings – are the key to pollination.
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Your Daily Cuppa May Save Your Life. The Health Benefits Of Earl Grey Tea
Drinking Earl Grey tea could help guard against heart disease, it has emerged, after a study found that bergamot extract – a key ingredient in the hot drink – is just as effective as statins at controlling cholesterol.
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Bees Read Flowers’ Electric Fields. Really.
Bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren’t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They’re also electric billboards.
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Chimpanzees Use Leafy Sponges To Steal Alcoholic Sap From Humans
Lacking natural containers, Bossou chimpanzees use leaf tools to access fermented palm sap that has been tapped by people, and show no evidence of being able to obtain sap without human affordance.
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When Forests Pollute
The commercial tree plantations don’t have young growth. At first, new trees and competing plants were cleared out, and the canopies of older trees make it less likely that new growth will come in. What these plantations have, then, is a build-up of nitrogen in the topsoil, which, when it rains, gets washed into local streams.
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Do Some Plants Harbor Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria IN Their Leaves?
The bacteria in today’s story don’t dwell ON the leaves, but INSIDE the leaves.
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The Overlooked Last Refuge For Meadow Species
Most of our farmland is now hostile to many of our wild plants and other wildlife due to the loss of wild flower meadows and the use of herbicides and fertilisers. The roadside verges are often the last refuge for wild flowers and the wildlife there depends on them.
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Braving Killer Crocodiles To Bring Back Spectacular New Waterlily Species
A perilous expedition in northwestern Australia that had researchers wading through lakes, ponds and creeks stalked by meat-eating crocodiles has ended with the discovery of a stunning new species of waterlily.
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How Many Tropical Tree Species Risk Extinction Before We Can Even Discover Their Existence?
Scientists have raised the estimated number of tropical tree species to at least 40,000 to 53,000. Many tropical tree species risk extinction because of their rarity and restriction to small geographic areas, reaffirming the need for comprehensive, pan-tropical conservation efforts.