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News tagged with botany

Is rainfall a greater threat to China's agriculture than warming?

New research into the impact of climate change on Chinese cereal crops has found rainfall has a greater impact than rising temperature. The research, published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 04, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Analyzing complex plant genomes with the newest next-generation DNA sequencing techniques

Genomes are catalogs of hereditary information that determine whether an organism becomes a plant, animal, fungus or microbe, and whether the organism is adapted to its surroundings. Determining the sequence ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Feb 27, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Carnivorous plant traps worms with sticky leaves

Plants eat the darndest things. Scientists have discovered a small flowering plant living in the sandy soils of Brazil that traps nematodes, or roundworms, with sticky underground leaves -- and gobbles them ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 09, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

For certain orchids, relatives more important than pollinators in shaping floral attractants

Bees, bats, and moths all follow their noses in search of food from flowers. Plants that rely on such animals for pollination often produce particular chemical scents that attract specific pollinators. However, ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The Murcian flower has been 'revived' after 100 years

The species of legume known as 'Tallante's chickpea', which has not been seen for nearly a century, has finally been studied in detail. The species is thought to be in critical danger of extinction given that ...

Biology / Ecology

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Do long-lived crops differ from annual crops in their genetic response to human domestication?

Most of what we have come to think of as our daily fruits, vegetables, and grains were domesticated from wild ancestors. Over hundreds and thousands of years, humans have selected and bred plants for traits ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Sep 27, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Waging war on invasive plant species: Effects of invasives persist even after removal

(PhysOrg.com) -- Invasive species cost an estimated $1.4 trillion annually in their environmental and economic impacts worldwide and are second only to habitat loss as a threat to biodiversity. As scientists ...

Biology / Ecology

created Aug 10, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Genetic evidence clears Ben Franklin (w/ Video)

The DNA evidence is in, and Ben Franklin didn't do it. Genetic tests on more than 1,000 Chinese tallow trees from the United States and China show the famed U.S. statesman did not import the tallow trees ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Popular fungicides failing, may cause hard choices for apple growers

Orchard growers have started finding that some of the most commonly used fungicides are no longer effective at controlling apple scab, according to a Purdue University study.

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 12, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Orchids and fungi: An unexpected case of symbiosis

The majority of orchids are found in habitats where light may be a limiting factor. In such habitats it is not surprising that many achlorophyllous (lacking chlorophyll), as well as green, orchids depend on ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Botanists unearth old headlines while unwrapping plant samples

Students unwrapping plant samples got a bit of history mixed in with botany recently, when they unearthed headlines from old newspapers dating as far back as 1950.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 22, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Salivating over wheat plants may net Hessian flies big meal or death

The interaction between a Hessian fly's saliva and the wheat plant it is attacking may be the key to whether the pest eats like a king or dies like a starving pauper, according to a study done at Purdue University.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Storing seeds for a rainy day -- or in this case, a fire

As mountain pine beetles march across the forests of western North America, these insects may kill millions of pine trees during a single outbreak. A rise in overall temperatures over the past several years has increased ...

Biology / Ecology

created May 31, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

When plants spin off new species

(PhysOrg.com) -- Contrary to what most people may think, the speciation rates of plants are not linked to the first development of a novel physical trait or mechanism. New international research shows that ...

Biology / Evolution

created May 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Chinese primrose rediscovered

A botanist at one of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partners, the Kunming Institute of Botany, has rediscovered two populations of a primrose which was thought to be extinct in the wild.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 05, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Botany

Botany, plant science(s), or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines including structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, chemical properties, and evolutionary relationships among taxonomic groups. Botany began with early human efforts to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making it one of the oldest branches of science. Today botanists study over 550,000 species of living organisms.

The term "botany" comes from Greek βοτάνη, meaning "pasture, grass, fodder", perhaps via the idea of a livestock keeper needing to know which plants are safe for livestock to eat.

For more information about Botany, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.