Celebrating Plants and People
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Coffee Evolved Caffeine Independent Of Tea Or Cacao
Caffeine evolved long before sleep-deprived humans became addicted to it, probably to defend the coffee plant against predators and for other benefits. For example, coffee leaves contain the highest levels of caffeine of any part of the plant, and when they fall on the soil they stop other plants from growing nearby.
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Martian Soil Suitable For Farming
We report on the first large-scale controlled experiment to investigate the possibility of growing plants in Mars and moon soil simulants. The results show that plants are able to germinate and grow on both Martian and moon soil simulant for a period of 50 days without any addition of nutrients.
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Trees That Harbor Fungus Dangerous To Humans Revealed By Student
We had a good idea that the fungus was going to be associated with trees, We just didn’t know what trees.
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Office Plants Proven To Improve Office Productivity And More
“The ‘lean’ philosophy has been influential across a wide range of organisational domains. Our research questions this widespread conviction that less is more. Sometimes less is just less”.
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Biochar: Good For The Climate But Bad For Plants?
The positive impacts of biochar were coupled with negative findings for a suite of genes that are known to determine the ability of a plant to withstand attack from pests and pathogens. These defence genes were consistently reduced following biochar application to the soil,
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What Can You Teach A Plant? And Will It Remember?
This study offers proof that plants not only learn from experience, but remember what they have learned over relatively long periods.
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Modern Forests Yield Secrets of Paleocene Ancestors
The authors show that venation density, like plant metabolism (i.e., transpiration and photosynthesis), is higher in the leaves located in the forest canopy and decreases in leaves at lower levels. Furthermore, they found that leaves from the forest floor, which are the closest analog to fossil floras, preserve this pattern.
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Biologist Climbs High to Prove Hypothesis About Trees
Compared to the human circulatory system, this system is so much more complicated,
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Australian Orchids Pollinated By Sex Crazed Gnats
This study confirms for the first time that highly specific pollination by fungus gnats is achieved by sexual deception in Pterostylis. It is predicted that sexual deception will be widespread in the genus, although the diversity of floral forms suggests that other mechanisms may also operate.
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Peru Maps Its Forest Carbon Sinks: Where Conservation Meets Economics
Asner believes that the high-resolution carbon maps he is producing can play a crucial role in changing the economic dynamic in tropical countries. If you know how much carbon is locked up in your forests and vegetation — in Peru’s case, his report estimates the amount at 6.92 billion metric tons — you can better place a value on it. And choose conservation over development.