Time-lapse reveals the hidden dance of roots

Duke researchers have been studying something that happens too slowly for our eyes to see. A team in biologist Philip Benfey's lab wanted to see how plant roots burrow into the soil. So they set up a camera on rice seeds ...

Feedback loop behind spiral patterns in plants uncovered?

This flower-like image shows a plant that is not developing quite right. It comes from a study in which scientists at EMBL and the University of Sydney unearthed the molecular feedback loop that creates the spiral pattern ...

Sunflowers move by the clock

It's summertime, and the fields of Yolo County are filled with ranks of sunflowers, dutifully watching the rising sun. At the nearby University of California, Davis, plant biologists have now discovered how sunflowers use ...

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. How this was ...

How plants put down roots

In the beginning is the fertilized egg cell. Following numerous cell divisions, it then develops into a complex organism with different organs and tissues. The largely unexplained process whereby the cells simply "know" the ...

Plant hormone auxin triggers a genetic switch

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the development of organisms, a particular event repeatedly occurs: a signal appears temporarily, but the processes it triggers must be maintained – for example, when the fate of cells in the ...

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