Scientists knew neochrome was odd before they started rooting around in its family tree. A union of independent proteins — red-sensing phytochrome and blue-sensing phototropin — the super-protein combines two already-great pieces into one fantastic whole that helps plants grow toward dim, filtered light.
It defies belief, but a 180 million year old fern fossil unearthed in Sweden is so exquisitely preserved that it is possible to see its cells dividing.
No tree is an island, and no place is this truer than the forest
This is a guest post from a member of the iGEM competition team from Imperial College London. They recently won the iGEM regional championships and will be going to Boston in November to compete for the Worldwide Championships.
Once the province of high society, orchids have found their way into households worldwide, but so has a plant-killing batch of viruses plaguing nurseries
Plants do not just laze about, soaking up rays. They shift around, hunt, eat, attack--and defend themselves
Marine life seems to create a reflective sunshade above the Southern Ocean
Rebuilding plants into bionic superpowered energy photosynthesizers—we have the nanotechnology
A new cutting-edge computer simulation of clot formation could improve treatments for stroke and heart attacks
Aerial views of the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant from March 12 to March 17 show signs of the chaotic sequence of events ranging from explosions to fires
Fifteen years ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) acknowledged that a rare plant called the Georgia aster (Symphyotrichum georgianum) deserved and needed protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
A few months ago, scientists revealed that some plucky mosses in Canada managed to do something long thought impossible: survive a 400-year close encounter with the business end of a glacier, and live to sprout another day.
When HIV jumped from chimpanzees to humans sometime in the early 1900′s, it crossed a gulf spanning several million years of evolution.
The tropical plant Genlisea is a tiny, homely rosette of simple green leaves. If you dig up its roots, you will find what look like an unremarkable bunch long, pale underground roots.
As demand for freshwater soars, planetary supplies are becoming unpredictable. Existing technologies could avert a global water crisis, but they must be implemented soon
Scientists are struggling to get a grasp on the huge volumes of water flowing through the world's oceans
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In a video, noted scientists debate the connections between ancient climate changes and the emergence of modern human traits.
People who lack the gardening bug often regard flowers like fashion models: pretty but boring. Jens Petersen, the man who gave us the groundbreaking photographs of fungi in “The Kingdom of Fungi”, which I reviewed here in March, has a new book of photographs (still available only in Danish, unfortunately, and called Blomsterliv — “Flower [...]
A massive new study of Japan’s native plants reveals an extinction crisis in the making. The study examined 1,618 threatened Japanese vascular plant species, most of which can be only be found in extremely limited ranges and many of which already face shrinking populations.
This is why we can’t have nice species: Last week one of the world’s rarest plants was stolen from public display in London at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
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