Hidden in a South Korean mountain tunnel designed to withstand a nuclear blast, the seeds of nearly 5,000 wild plant species are stored for safekeeping against climate change, natural disaster and war.
Plants & Animals
Jun 1, 2021
0
4
Flowering plants (angiosperms) dominate most terrestrial ecosystems, providing the bulk of human food. However, their origin has been a mystery since the earliest days of evolutionary thought.
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2021
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187
Just as humans receive the first members of their microbiomes from their mothers, seeds may harbor some of the first microorganisms plants encounter. While these initial microbes could become influential players in the plants' ...
Biotechnology
Apr 27, 2021
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11
Though noise may change moment by moment for humans, it has a more lasting effect on trees and plants.
Ecology
Apr 13, 2021
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873
This was the moment of truth. We'd spent countless hours meticulously sterilizing seeds (1,710, to be specific), filling the lab with a cacophony of rattling as we shook them in bleach. We'd built a fungus city: great tower-blocks ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 22, 2021
1
6
Spectacular fossil plants preserved within a volcanic ash fall in China have shed light on an evolutionary race 300 million years ago, which was eventually won by the seed-bearing plants that dominate so much of the Earth ...
Evolution
Mar 8, 2021
4
383
Your morning cereal or oatmeal. The bread on your sandwich. The corn chips for your snack, and the cookies for dessert. Not one would be possible with the humblest of ingredients: the seed.
Plants & Animals
Feb 17, 2021
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3
Researchers have developed a new technique to protect rice seeds against fungal infections that can ruin up to half of all rice crops in the world. The biocontrol method, which involves inoculation of flowers with a different ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 4, 2021
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11
Scientists have been pondering if the microbiome of plants is due to nature or nurture. Research at Stockholm University, published in Environmental Microbiology, showed that oak acorns contain a large diversity of microbes, ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 21, 2021
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9
Imagine the texture of a plant. Many may come to mind—the smooth rubberiness of many tropical houseplants, the impossibly soft lamb's ear, the sharp spines of cacti, or the roughness of tree bark. But stickiness, in the ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 21, 2021
0
5
