Your hair knows what you eat and how much your haircut costs

Millimeter by millimeter, your hair is building a record of your diet. As hair strands are built from amino acids that come from your food, they preserve the chemical traces of the protein in that food. It's a strong enough ...

Scientists discover genetic key to efficient crops

(Phys.org)—With projections of 9.5 billion people by 2050, humankind faces the challenge of feeding modern diets to additional mouths while using the same amounts of water, fertilizer and arable land as today.

Will rising carbon dioxide levels really boost plant growth?

Plants have become an unlikely subject of political debate. Many projections suggest that burning fossil fuels and the resulting climate change will make it harder to grow enough food for everyone in the coming decades. But ...

A new molecular family tree of grasses

The evolutionary relationships among grasses—including important crop plants like wheat, rice, corn, and sugarcane—have been clarified in a new molecular study of the grass family tree. Having a clear picture of the relationships ...

High CO2 spurs wetlands to absorb more carbon

(Phys.org) —Under elevated carbon dioxide levels, wetland plants can absorb up to 32 percent more carbon than they do at current levels, according to a 19-year study published in Global Change Biology from the Smithsonian ...

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