Celebrating Plants and People
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Can Plants Be Bio-engineered To Detect Human Illness?
So dogs can smell sick plants, but what can the plants smell? Well, quite a lot. In fact, we’ve known for years that plants are extremely sensitive to tiny amounts of a whole range of volatile chemicals in the air. That’s how plants talk to each other, passing on messages about the presence of herbivores, for example, so if we want to exploit that ability, all we need do is engineer plants to detect things we’re interested in. (Click on title for full story.)
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Should Wood Be Grown In Labs To Save Forests?
Still in its early stages, the idea is akin in some ways to cultured meat — an opportunity to streamline the production of biomaterials. The team demonstrated the concept by growing structures made of wood-like cells from an initial sample of cells extracted from zinnia leaves. (Click on title for full story)
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Why Cats Love Catnip (It’s All About Bugs)
The characteristic response of cats to nepetalactol via the μ-opioid system provides an important example of chemical pest defense using plant metabolites in nonhuman mammals. (Click on title for full story)
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A Wrinkle In Time: How Wrinkled Leaves Deter Plant Pests
“We were surprised by the way such wrinkles developed on plant leaves, and the significant effect they had on insect attachment at different growth stages (Click on ttle for full story.)
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Flower That Confounded Darwin Also Outsmarts Bees
Darwin was mystified by such flowers, lamenting in a letter that he had “wasted enormous effort over them, and cannot yet get a glimpse of the meaning of the parts.” (Click on title for full story.)
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I Can See Clearly Now: Transparent Wood May One Day Replace Glass
Switching to transparent wood could prove to be cost efficient as well. It is approximately five times more thermally efficient than glass, cutting energy costs. It is made from a sustainable, renewable resource with low carbon emissions. It’s also compatible with existing industrial processing equipment, making the transition into manufacturing an easy prospect. (Click on title for full story.)
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Chinese Medicinal Herb Shown To Be Pancreatic Cancer Fighter
A compound derived from the thunder god vine — an herb used in China for centuries to treat joint pain, swelling and fever — is able to kill cancer cells and potentially improve clinical outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer. (Click on title for full story.)
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L-DOPA Enriched Tomato May Be A Boon To Parkinson’s Disease Sufferers
This novel use of tomato plants as a natural source of L-DOPA also offers benefits for people who suffer adverse effects – including nausea and behavioural complications – of chemically synthesised L-DOPA . (Click on title for full story.)
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Hiding In Plain Sight: Caterpillars Chemically Resemble Plants To Evade Ant Predators
Some caterpillars are chemically very similar to the plants on which they live and feed and that this helps them hide from ants. However, there are chemically different species that have developed a strategy of coexistence through the production of a caloric reward for the ants. (Click on title for full story.)
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How Plastic Threatens Coastal Mangrove Defenses
We’ve seen roots stuck inside plastic bags. Trying to find a way out, they just grow in circles. Eventually trees that cannot outgrow the plastic die.’ (Click on title for full story.)