Three 2,000-year-old cobs in Honduras show that people brought corn varieties back to Mesoamerica, possibly sparking productivity and shaping civilization. Some 9,000 years ago, corn…
The bedrock beneath our feet has a reputation as an inhospitable place. In contrast, soil is known to be teeming with life – from microbes…
The display of a smartphone reacts to finger pressure. The carnivorous Venus flytrap, on the other hand, even notices when a lightweight like a fly…
Banyan trees are fig trees that begin their life as an epiphyte. The most noticeable feature of banyan Ficus species is their extraordinary aerial roots,…
First complete global extinction risk assessment reveals bleak future for keystone species. An estimated 31% of the world’s oak species are threatened with extinction according…
Carbon is one of the main building blocks for life on Earth. It’s abundant in our planet’s atmosphere, where it’s found in the form of…
You might have observed plants competing for sunlight — the way they stretch upwards and outwards to block each other’s access to the sun’s rays…
Chemical compounds in foods or beverages like green tea, muscadine grapes, and dark chocolate can bind to and block the function of a particular enzyme,…
A favorite healthy snack, almonds are a staple on grocery store shelves worldwide. More than 80% of these almonds are grown in California. As permanent…
Leipzig could mean for the future of plant taxonomy what Greenwich meant for world time until 1972: it could become the reference city for correct…
Researchers investigating the heritage of thousands of rice varieties have identified just two distinct maternal lineages, a discovery that could help address the issue of…
A plant used in traditional Chinese medicine has evolved to become less visible to humans, new research shows. Scientists found that Fritillaria delavayi plants, which…
Genes that give plant nucleus its shape discovered, also regulate copper tolerance. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have identified how the architecture of the…
Carbon dioxide fuels photosynthesis, the process by which plants generate their food in the form of carbohydrates. The atmosphere’s carbon dioxide levels are rapidly increasing,…
The capacity of the Amazon forest to store carbon in a changing climate will ultimately be determined by how fast trees die – and what…
The era of COVID-19 and the need to constantly wash one’s hands and sanitize things have brought microbes to new levels of scrutiny, particularly for…
Large-diameter trees make up 3% of total stems, but account for 42% of total carbon storage in Pacific Northwest forest ecosystems. Older, large-diameter trees have…
Plants are able to keep growing indefinitely because they have tissues made of meristems — plant stem cells — which have the unique ability to…