Clean and green—a moss that removes lead from water

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have demonstrated that that moss can be a green alternative for decontaminating polluted water and soil. Published in PLOS ONE, the study shows ...

Less chewing the cud, more greening the fuel

Plant biomass contains considerable calorific value but most of it makes up robust cell walls, an unappetising evolutionary advantage that helped grasses to survive foragers and prosper for more than 60 million years.

How plants form their seeds

Vegetable, fruit, or grain – the majority of our food results from plant reproduction. Researchers at UZH have now discovered the key to how plants regulate pollen growth and seed formation. In addition to seed formation, ...

Microbial resident enables beetles to feed on a leafy diet

An international team including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology has described a bacterium residing in a species of leaf beetles which has an unexpected feature: it provides the beetle with the ...

Why plants form sprouts in the dark

A signal from the cell wall decides that, in the dark, seeds grow into long yellow sprouts, instead of turning green and forming leaves. The signal that switches on the darkness programme in seedling development has not hitherto ...

Using neutrons to study how resistant bacteria evolve

The discovery of penicillin almost 90 years ago ushered in the age of modern antibiotics, but the growth of antibiotic resistance means bacterial infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis are becoming more difficult to treat.

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