'Mining' for metals using Nature's machines

Researchers in the University' s Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) aim to develop ways to extract platinum group metals (PGM) discarded during mine processing which ...

How plants make cocaine

Cocaine is one of the most commonly used (and abused) drugs, but we have almost no modern information on how plants produce this complex alkaloid. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, ...

Can modern-day plants trace their New Zealand ancestry?

One hundred million years ago the earth looked very different from how it does today. Continents were joining and breaking apart, dinosaurs were roaming the earth, and flowering plants were becoming more widespread.

How the daisy got its spots... and why

Dark spots on flower petals are common across many angiosperm plant families and occur on flowers such as some lilies, orchids, and daisies. Much research has been done on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms for ...

page 9 from 10