Plants do sums to get through the night, researchers show

(Phys.org) —New research shows that to prevent starvation at night, plants perform accurate arithmetic division. The calculation allows them to use up their starch reserves at a constant rate so that they run out almost ...

Climate: Removing CO2 from the air no longer optional

The burning question going into the Glasgow climate summit is whether major economies can, by 2050, reduce emissions enough to deliver a carbon neutral world in which humanity no longer adds planet-warming gases to the atmosphere.

Densest array of carbon nanotubes grown to date

Carbon nanotubes' outstanding mechanical, electrical and thermal properties make them an alluring material to electronics manufacturers. However, until recently scientists believed that growing the high density of tiny graphene ...

Engineers find a way to protect microbes from extreme conditions

Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have ...

Plant flowering in low-nitrogen soils: A mechanism revealed

Scientists from Japan, Europe and the USA have described a pathway leading to the accelerated flowering of plants in low-nitrogen soils. These findings could eventually lead to increases in agricultural production.

Geometry, skull growth and brain mechanics

Professor Alain Goriely is Professor of Mathematical modelling at Oxford University's Mathematical Institute and founder of the International Brain Mechanics and Trauma Lab (IBMTL). He talks to ScienceBlog about the key ...

Toward customizable timber, grown in a lab

Each year, the world loses about 10 million hectares of forest—an area about the size of Iceland—because of deforestation. At that rate, some scientists predict the world's forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years.

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