Celebrating Plants and People
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If They Drink Lots Of Plant Sap It Has To Go Somewhere (Cover Your Eyes!)
No animal, it seemed, was capable of tapping into this nutritious but elusive resource – imagine trying catching beer cans flying with the speed of 60 miles/hour.
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Coconut Oil Might Save Your Teeth
Scientists found that coconut oil which had been treated with enzymes stopped the growth of Streptococcus bacteria – a major cause of tooth decay.
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When Insects Attack, Plants Call For Help
Gravid butterflies were repelled by volatiles from plants induced by cabbage white butterfly eggs, probably as a means of avoiding competition, whereas both parasitic wasp species were attracted.
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Thank Ants for South African Floral Diversity
Ants helped create a biodiversity hotspot in the Cape region of South Africa, scientists believe.
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Plants Teach MIT Researchers How To Build Things
From an engineer’s perspective, plants such as palm trees, bamboo, maples and even potatoes are examples of precise engineering on a microscopic scale. Like wooden beams reinforcing a house, cell walls make up the structural supports of all plants. Depending on how the cell walls are arranged, and what they are made of, a plant […]
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No Plant Is An Island: Even Mosses Employ Pollinators
Mosses can use chemical cues to recruit small creatures to help with fertilization, via a process similar to pollination in flowering plants.
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With Mastodons Extinct, Seed Thieves Become Seed Dispersers
Thieving rodents helped the black palm tree survive by taking over the seed-spreading role of the mighty mastodon and other extinct elephant-like creatures that are thought to have eaten these large seeds.
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Climate Change Is Re-Designing Trees
If your plan for escaping climate change is to hide in the shade of a tree, you might be out of luck. It turns out the leaves of some plants are shrinking in response to the warmer weather.
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Native Plants Adapt To Invasives And Hold Their Own
Taken together, the findings suggest that the native and invasive species could reach equilibrium over a long period of time.
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New World Order: Savannas Become Forests
A new study shows that rising concentrations of CO2 are shifting the odds to favour trees over grasses, suggesting that large regions of Africa's savannas may be forests by the end of this century.