Beware the jumping cholla, Cylindropuntia fulgida. This shrubby, branching cactus will—if provoked by touching—anchor its splayed spines in the flesh of the offender. The barbed spines grip so tightly that a segment of ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 20, 2018
1
161
During rare desert rainfalls, cacti waste no time sopping up and storing a storm's precious precipitation. Inspired by this natural phenomenon, scientists report in a study appearing ACS Macro Letters that they have developed ...
Materials Science
Apr 11, 2018
0
27
Farm-grown fish are an important source of food with significant and worldwide societal and economic benefits, but the fish that come from these recirculating systems can have unpleasant tastes and odors. To clean contaminated ...
Materials Science
Mar 13, 2016
1
4519
Thirty-one percent of cactus species are threatened with extinction, according to the first comprehensive, global assessment of the species group by IUCN and partners, published today in the journal Nature Plants. This places ...
Ecology
Oct 5, 2015
0
60
(Phys.org)—Researchers studying Drosophila pachea, a species of fruit fly that lives only in the Sonoran desert, have discovered why it is that the fly is wholly dependent on a single cactus species. It's due, they write ...
The cactus, stalwart of the desert, has quite a story to tell about the evolution of plant communities found the world over.
Evolution
May 3, 2011
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0
As much of the world prepares for hotter and drier growing seasons as the result of climate change, a research team led by University of Nevada, Reno researchers has identified several varieties of cactus pear that are particularly ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 21, 2024
0
0
Locally grown produce fills Australian shops, but almost all of these species were imported, as native as cane toads. Icons of Australian agriculture, like the Big Banana and Big Pineapple, proudly display the regions' crops, ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 26, 2024
0
17
A giant Saguaro cactus that had lived for some 200 years was toppled by heavy rain in the southwestern US state of Arizona.
Ecology
Aug 30, 2022
0
8
A sweat-collecting patch has been developed using the principle based on how the cactus spines attract water.
Materials Science
Nov 4, 2021
0
10
