News tagged with plant biology

New release of Web-based resource resolves confusion over plant names

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet -- but it might confound scientists interested in understanding the chemical components of its fragrance or discovering where its ancestors grew in the wild.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Let the sun shine and the plants will follow

Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance scientist and artist extraordinaire, in the 15th century was the first to record his observation that some plants appeared to follow the Sun, and he was not the last. ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 30, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Researchers uncover how plant skin is assembled

(Phys.org) -- For the first time, scientists have identified how a plant's skin is assembled.

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists uncover a photosynthetic puzzle

(Phys.org) -- Quantum physics and plant biology seem like two branches of science that could not be more different, but surprisingly they may in fact be intimately tied.

Physics / General Physics

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0

The gene that boosts sugar beet yields

A European team of researchers has discovered a gene with the potential to increase sugar beet yields. Presented in the journal Current Biology, the findings of the study show how the long-sought bolting gene B ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 22, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

How plants chill out

Plants elongate their stems when grown at high temperature to facilitate the cooling of their leaves, according to new research from the University of Bristol published today in Current Biology. Understanding why plants alter ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Gaseous emissions from dinosaurs may have warmed prehistoric earth

Sauropod dinosaurs could in principle have produced enough of the greenhouse gas methane to warm the climate many millions of years ago, at a time when the Earth was warm and wet. That's according to calculations ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 07, 2012 | popularity 2.6 / 5 (15) | comments 252 | with audio podcast

Are genes our destiny? 'Hidden' code in DNA evolves more rapidly than genetic code, scientists discover

A "hidden" code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Sep 16, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (27) | comments 26 | with audio podcast

Some mammals used highly complex teeth to compete with dinosaurs: study

Conventional wisdom holds that during the Mesozoic Era, mammals were small creatures that held on at life's edges. But at least one mammal group, rodent-like creatures called multituberculates, actually flourished ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 14, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

With secondhand gene, 'freaky mouse' defeats common poison

Over millennia, mice have thrived despite humanity's efforts to keep them at bay. A Rice University scientist argues some mice have found two ways to achieve a single goal -- resistance to common poison.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Being small has its advantages, if you are a leaf

(PhysOrg.com) -- The size of leaves can vary by a factor of 1,000 across plant species, but until now, the reason why has remained a mystery. A new study by an international team of scientists led by UCLA ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 06, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Estimate of flowering plant species to be cut by 600,000

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from the UK, US and elsewhere have been carrying out a comprehensive assessment of flowering plants and adjusting the estimate of their total number. The new estimate is that there ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 23, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 4 | with audio podcast report

Why do plant roots grow down and not up?

(PhysOrg.com) -- It is essential for roots to grow down so they can explore the soil and maximise their water uptake. But how they know that is a question that has fascinated scientists since Darwin. Now scientists ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Mar 08, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

New mathematical model explains how hosts survive parasite attacks

In nature, how do host species survive parasite attacks? This has not been well understood, until now. A new mathematical model shows that when a host and its parasite each have multiple traits governing their ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 04, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Birds cultivate decorative plants to attract mates

An international team of scientists has uncovered the first evidence of a non-human species cultivating plants for use other than as food. Instead, bowerbirds propagate fruits used as decorations in their ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Botany

Botany, plant science(s), phytology, or plant biology is a branch of biology and is the scientific study of plant life and development. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines that study plants, algae, and fungi including: structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, chemical properties, and evolutionary relationships between the different groups. Botany began with tribal efforts to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making botany one of the oldest sciences. From this ancient interest in plants, the scope of botany has increased to include the study of over 550,000 species of living organisms.

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.

Related topics: genes , plants