Celebrating Plants and People
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Flowers Solving Crime
If pollen can play a crucial part in solving a case like this, why isn’t it used more often?
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South Africa’s Iconic Plants Victims Of Climate Change
Proteas such as the king protea, which measures 12 inches across and is the national flower of South Africa, are under fire. Researchers conducting a study of proteas near Cape Town estimate that the plants’ abundance will decrease by more than 60 percent by 2050. Some protea species will become extinct. Others already have.
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Did Ferns Succeed By Taking Another Plant’s Genes?
The most significant horizontal transfer yet discovered in plants,
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What One Invasive Weed Can Do: Garlic Mustard vs. Indian Pipe
Mounting evidence for negative effects of invasive plant phytochemicals on native mycorrhizal associations outside the Alliaria study system suggests that parasitism disruption has the potential to foster consequences beyond the specific example described here.
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The Natural GMO: An example of a naturally transgenic food crop
This finding draws attention to the importance of plant–microbe interactions, and given that this crop has been eaten for millennia, it may change the paradigm governing the “unnatural” status of transgenic crops.
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Looking Underground At Plants, Scientists Get An Unexpected Surprise
In nature, plants growing in infertile land all use almost exactly the same above-ground strategy: they produce very tough leaves that survive for several years. However, up until now the contrasting diversity of what they were doing underground with their roots was unknown
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Plants Use Cups Of Rain To Deter Seed Thieves
Our observations revealed that neither nectar robbers nor legitimate pollinators discriminated between water-drained flowers and intact controls. However, seed predation significantly increased in drained flowers, suggesting that water-filled bracts help protect the flowers from seed herbivores.
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Can Community Managed Forests Save Biodiversity And Alleviate Poverty in Nepal?
Climate change, deforestation and land grabbing don’t only threaten Nepal’s rich biodiversity, but the economic wellbeing of millions of its citizens. Could community-managed forests hold the key?
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Jurassic Era Seed Grows But Requires Jurassic Atmosphere
The present atmospheric conditions on Earth do not permit these once extinct species to live out of an artificial context. It is still a mystery to modern science how such species could attain such gigantic proportions compared to their modern relatives.
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Our Hunger For Rubber Tires Is Exterminating Wildlife
The tyre industry consumes 70% of all natural rubber grown, and rising demand for vehicle and aeroplane tyres is behind the recent expansion of plantations. But the impact of this is a loss of tropical biodiversity