News tagged with crop species

Papuan weevil has screw-in legs

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research has found that humans were not the first species to invent the nut and bolt mechanism for screwing one thing to another: weevils do the same to attach their legs to their bodies ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 01, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 15 | with audio podcast report

When ants attack: Researchers recreate chemicals that trigger aggression

(PhysOrg.com) -- Experiments led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated that normally friendly ants can turn against each other by exploiting the chemical cues they use ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 27, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

NY researchers breeding rare native ladybugs

(AP) -- A year after they launched a nationwide search for dwindling native ladybugs, New York researchers are breeding colonies of them from insects found by citizen scientists in Oregon and Colorado.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 04, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Is this the beginning of the end of plant breeding?

No human is a clone of their parents but the same cannot be said for other living things. While your DNA is a combination of half your mother and half your father, other species do things differently. The advantage of clonal ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jun 09, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 0

New insect birth control strategy zaps cotton pests

Using pests as part of an insect birth control program helps to get rid of them, UA researchers find. A new approach that combines the planting of pest-resistant cotton and releasing large numbers of sterile ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Nov 07, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New plant species gives insights into evolution

A new University of Florida study shows when two flowering plants are crossed to produce a new hybrid, the new species' genes are reset, allowing for greater genetic variation.

Biology / Evolution

created Mar 17, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Foreign insects, diseases got into US

(AP) -- Dozens of foreign insects and plant diseases slipped undetected into the United States in the years after 9/11, when authorities were so focused on preventing another attack that they overlooked a ...

Biology / Ecology

created Oct 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

New bacteria toxins against resistant insect pests

Toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria (Bt toxins) are used in organic and conventional farming to manage pest insects. Sprayed as pesticides or produced in genetically modified plants, Bt toxins, us ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Plant buffers can slow runoff of veterinary antibiotics

Field tests by University of Missouri scientists have backed up laboratory research indicating that buffer strips of grass and other plants can reduce the amount of herbicide and veterinary antibiotics in surface runoff from ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 22, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Scientists show that plants have measure of the shortest day

(PhysOrg.com) -- It is not only people who feel the effects of short winter days - new research by the University of Edinburgh and the University of Warwick has shed light on how plants calculate their own winter solstice. ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 23, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Weeds are vital to the existence of farmland species, study finds

Weeds, which are widely deemed as a nuisance plant, are vital to the existence of many farmland species according to a new University of Hull study published in the journal Biological Conservation today.

Biology / Ecology

created Sep 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Does hotter mean healthier?

Phytophthora blight, caused by Phytophthora capsici, is a major plant disease that affects many crop species worldwide, including chile peppers in New Mexico. Farmers' observations suggested that Phytophthora capsici c ...

Biology /

created Feb 03, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Protecting wild species may require growing more food on less land: study

In parts of the world still rich in biodiversity, separating natural habitats from high-yielding farmland could be a more effective way to conserve wild species than trying to grow crops and conserve nature on the same land, ...

Biology / Ecology

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity 2.3 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

If only the weeds would keep their genes to themselves

Family can be a blessing and a curse, and never more so than in the case of crop plants and their wild relatives. These wild and weedy relatives harbor unique and beneficial genes that may no longer be found in their cultivated ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Boon to plant science

In both plant and animal cells, protein activity is often regulated by phosphorylation, by which a phosphate group is added to one or more sites on a protein. A team led by Ken Shirasu of RIKEN Plant Science ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Aug 30, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0