Celebrating Plants and People
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The Extinction Crisis Is Hitting Plant Species The Hardest
he total of 571 extinct plant species is four times higher than the official listing kept by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, the team reports today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Even so, it is probably still an underestimate, as less is known about the status of plants in Africa and South America than on other continents. Many of these species may vanish, too; a major review of the status of global biodiversity recently estimated than more than a million species (including 14% of plant and animal diversity) are threatened with extinction. (Click on title for full story)
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You Think You Have Trouble Knowing When To Water Your Plants? Ask An Astronaut.
So far, the plants in the experiments have drowned and dried up, so future success depends on hitting the Goldilocks just-right equilibrium. (Click on title for full story.)
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Do Forests Need Such A Great Variety Of Bird Species?
Fruit-eating birds, or frugivores, vary in their appearance and numbers. In this study, the researchers observed small birds like bulbuls, and larger ones like hornbills, which eat a variety of fruits from different trees. As the size of the birds varies, the size of fruits they eat also differ. Hence, the researchers not only observed which bird was eating what fruit but also how they were eating it. (Click on title for full story.)
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Pressing Questions In Plant Science: Can Plants Get Jet Lag? Does It Get Worse For Them With Age?
This technique will allow researchers to detect differences between circadian rhythms in crops currently being grown for food and help them work out if the rhythm fits the environment in which it is being grown. Crops grown on the equator may need different rhythms to plants grown near the poles because of differences in day-length. Plants with circadian clocks in sync with the natural environment are healthier and produce higher yields. (Click on title for full story.)
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A Tale Of Seven Centuries In The Life Of A Tree
For many human generations, a larch stood in the Goms valley, in the Swiss canton of Valais, until it had to be felled in 1987 for safety reasons. All that this tree lived through in 700 years is written down in its tree rings. (Click on title for full story.)
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Climate Change Favors Non-Native Plants
The findings suggest important differences in how native and non-native plant species’ respond to climate change. Because other studies have shown that species which failed to shift their flowering times over the past century were more likely to decline in abundance or go extinct, native species may be more susceptible to climate change than non-natives species. (Click on title for full story.)
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Have Chemists Unlocked The Secret Of Kratom’s Pain-Relieving Effects?
The team says that the results shed light on some of the seemingly contradictory reports on kratom, but more studies are still needed to see whether their findings in mice extend to humans. (Click on title for full story.)
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Rose Petals Inspire New Affordable Water Purification Technology
Although not about roses per se, “The Black Tulip” by Alexandre Dumas gave her the idea to try using a flower-like shape, and she discovered the rose to be ideal. Its structure allowed more direct sunlight to hit the photothermic material – with more internal reflections – than other floral shapes and also provided enlarged surface area for water vapor to dissipate from the material. (Click on title for full story.)
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The Long Twisted Path Tiny Wild Apples Took To Become The Popular Fruit We Know
Ultimately, the apple in your kitchen appears to owe its existence to extinct megafaunal browsers and Silk Road merchants. (Click on title for full story.)
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Humans Have Been Cooking And Eating Vegetables As Long As We Have Been Humans
“Our results showed that these small ashy hearths were used for cooking food and starchy roots and tubers were clearly part of their diet, from the earliest levels at around 120,000 years ago through to 65,000 years ago,” (Click on title for full story.)