(PhysOrg.com) -- Research by Dr Nigel Raine, Senior Lecturer in Animal Behaviour at Royal Holloway, University of London has revealed how a special plant-ant relationship thrives on give and take for mutual ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Jan 04, 2010 5 / 5 (11) 0 |

(PhysOrg.com) -- Charles Darwin and many other scientists have long been puzzled by the evolution of orchids, the largest and most diverse family of flowering plants on Earth. Now genetic sequencing is giving ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Nov 19, 2009 4.8 / 5 (10) 4

Astronauts' meals have come a long way from the freeze-dried powders and semi-liquid pastes of decades ago: now US scientists want to grow vegetables in mini-greenhouses on the Moon.

Space & Earth - Space Exploration

Apr 15, 2009 4.3 / 5 (11) 1

Using the meticulous phenological records of two iconic American naturalists, Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, scientists have demonstrated that native plants in the eastern United States are flowering ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Jan 16, 2013 3.9 / 5 (12) 5 |

A description of a 95-million-year-old amber deposit—the first major discovery of its kind from the African continent—is adding new fungus, insects, spiders, nematodes, and even bacteria to an ecosystem ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Apr 05, 2010 4.5 / 5 (10) 0 |

The world is a cooler, wetter place because of flowering plants, according to new climate simulation results published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect is especially pronounced in the ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Jun 16, 2010 5 / 5 (9) 0 |

To Charles Darwin it was an 'abominable mystery' and it is a question which has continued to vex evolutionists to this day: when did flowering plants evolve and how did they come to dominate plant life on earth? Today a study ...

Biology - Evolution

Dec 01, 2009 4.4 / 5 (10) 1

It was previously thought that land plants evolved from stonewort-like algae. However, new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that the closest relatives to land plants ...

Biology - Evolution

Apr 18, 2011 4.9 / 5 (9) 12 |

The sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is a symbol of spiritual purity and longevity. Its seeds can survive up to 1,300 years, its petals and leaves repel grime and water, and its flowers generate heat to att ...

Biology - Biotechnology

May 10, 2013 4.4 / 5 (10) 1 |

(PhysOrg.com) -- Charles Darwin described the sudden origin of flowering plants about 130 million years ago as an abominable mystery, one that scientists have yet to solve.

Biology - Evolution

May 18, 2009 4.3 / 5 (10) 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists in New Zealand has found the local disappearance of pollinating birds over a hundred years ago is having a detrimental effect on the species they pollinated.

Biology - Ecology

Feb 07, 2011 4.8 / 5 (9) 0 |

A team of scientists, including several from the Smithsonian Institution, discovered that leaves of flowering plants in the world's first rainforests had more veins per unit area than leaves ever had before. ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

May 03, 2011 4.8 / 5 (9) 0 |

(PhysOrg.com) -- An unexpected discovery made by Macquarie University PhD student Sargent Bray about the origin and nature of chemical compounds contained in ancient amber has changed our understanding of ...

Biology - Plants & Animals

Oct 02, 2009 4.6 / 5 (9) 0

Dartmouth plant biologist C. Robertson (Rob) McClung is not your typical clock-watcher. His clocks are internal, biological, and operate in circadian rhythms—cycles based on a 24-hour period. Living organisms ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Nov 16, 2012 4.6 / 5 (9) 8

What, in nature, drives the incredible diversity of flowers? This question has sparked debate since Darwin described flower diversification as an 'abominable mystery.' The answer has become a lot clearer, ...

Biology - Evolution

Sep 16, 2010 4 / 5 (10) 5 |