Celebrating Plants and People
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Pollinator Crisis 110 Million Years Ago
Amber from Cretaceous deposits (110-105 my) in Northern Spain has revealed the first ever record of insect pollination. Scientists have discovered in two pieces of amber several specimens of tiny insects covered with pollen grains, revealing the first record of pollen transport and social behavior in this group of animals.
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400million Years Ago, Fungi Decided Vascular Plants
Cooperating with fungi didn't just help the earliest plants spread across a barren, rocky landscape; it also played a decisive role in the rise of more complex plants with roots and leaves that make up most of today's flora.
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There Is No Substitute For Elephants As Seed Dispersers
The progressive disappearance of seed-dispersing animals like elephants and rhinoceroses puts the structural integrity and biodiversity of the tropical forest of South-East Asia at risk. With the help of Spanish researchers, an international team of experts has confirmed that not even herbivores like tapirs can replace them.
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Spice It Up! Black Pepper Fights Fat
A new study provides a long-sought explanation for the beneficial fat-fighting effects of black pepper.
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Birds Garden To Attract Mates
Aside from humans, the spotted bowerbird is the only other animal that grows a plant for purposes other than food
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Flowers Inspire Approach To More Effective Drug Therapy
Their team have developed a “metabolite timetable” that plots how dozens of molecules rise and fall in relation to one another. With this timetable, they could accurately read a person's internal clock with just two blood samples, taken 12 hours apart. It was inspired by flowers.
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Fir Trees May Replace “Whale Vomit” In Perfumes
His lab's discovery of a much more efficient process using the balsam fir gene could mean that production of a plant-based substitute could be both cheaper and more sustainable than ambergris collection.”Certainly you would not have to go back anymore to pick up whale barf off of the beaches
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Plants Create Perfumes To Attract Beneficial Microbes
Maize crops emit chemical signals which attract growth-promoting microbes to live amongst their roots. This is the first chemical signal that has been shown to attract beneficial bacteria to the maize root environment.
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Rare Trees Hover Near Extinction, Lost, Found, Lost-Now Found
Two tree species once feared extinct have been discovered in a threatened coastal forest in the African country of Tanzania. The two species have made reappearances before, but both trees, one a legume, the other a member of the mint family, were thought to have finally been obliterated in recent years.
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Bacteria Stunner: Sewage In, Electricity Out.
A fuel cell powered by naturally occurring bacteria has successfully converted 13 per cent of the energy in sewage to electricity — and cleaned the waste water at the same time. It's hoped genetic engineering could make this much more efficient.