News tagged with land plants

Related topics: plants

Trees evolved camouflage defense against long extinct predator: First evidence of camouflage defense in plants

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many animal species such as snakes, insects and fish have evolved camouflage defences to deter attack from their predators. However research published in New Phytologist has discovered that t ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 22, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (14) | comments 30

First plants caused ice ages: research

New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. Led by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, the study is published today (February 1, 2012) in Nature Geoscience.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (12) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

U.S. announces desert 'solar energy zones'

The Obama administration on Thursday announced its plan for solar energy development, directing large-scale industrial projects to 285,000 acres of desert in the Western U.S. while opening 20 million acres of the Mojave for ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Oct 28, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (12) | comments 9

Deep-sea algae may be 'living fossils'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers in the US and Belgium say two types of deep-sea seaweed may be representatives of ancient forms of algae previously unrecognized.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 19, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Ancestors of land plants revealed

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

created Apr 18, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Billion-year revision of plant evolution timeline may stem from discovery of lignin in seaweed

Land plants' ability to sprout upward through the air, unsupported except by their own woody tissues, has long been considered one of the characteristics separating them from aquatic plants, which rely on water to support ...

Biology /

created Jan 27, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 0

Italian engineer invents floating solar panels

Rays of the winter sun bounce off gleaming mirrors on the tiny lake of Colignola in Italy, where engineers have built a cost-effective prototype for floating, rotating solar panels.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Feb 22, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 6

Ancient plant-fungal partnerships reveal how the world became green

Prehistoric plants grown in state-of-the-art growth chambers recreating environmental conditions from more than 400 million years ago have shown scientists from the University of Sheffield how soil dwelling fungi played a ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Study shows how ancient plants and soil fungi turned the Earth green

A new breakthrough by scientists at the University of Sheffield has shed light on how the Earth's first plants began to colonise the land over 470 million years ago by forming a partnership with soil fungi.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 02, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Not just for the birds: Man-made noise has ripple effects on plants, too

A growing body of research shows that birds and other animals change their behavior in response to manmade noise, such as the din of traffic or the hum of machinery. But human clamor doesn't just affect animals. ...

Biology / Ecology

created Mar 20, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Reforestation's cooling influence -- a result of farmer's past choices

Decisions by farmers to plant on productive land with little snow enhances the potential for reforestation to counteract global warming, concludes new research from Carnegie's Julia Pongratz and Ken Caldeira. Previous research ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 26, 2011 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Dry conditions spurred advanced photosynthesis

The need to conserve water played a vital role in driving plants to evolve a specialised form of photosynthesis, scientists have shown.

Biology / Evolution

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Not just 'woody weeds' - spreading shrubs have silver lining

The global spread of native trees and shrubs into open grazing land and abandoned farms can bring unexpected environmental and economic benefits, a major new international study has found.

Biology / Ecology

created Jun 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

How algae could change your world (or at least your car)

Will we soon be fueling our cars, applying cosmetics and eating food - all made from algae? That's the rather science-fiction-y premise of the new cluster of companies (many of them based in San Diego, home of the San ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

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

New gene discovered: Sheds light on the evolution of life on Earth

A chance discovery of a genetic mutation in wild barley that grows in Israel's Judean Desert, in the course of a doctoral study at the University of Haifa, has led to an international study deciphering evolution of life on ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0