Scientists grow date palm plants from 2,000-year-old seeds

Methuselah, Adam, Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith and Hannah—all sat dormant in Judea since biblical times. Now scientists have resurrected them in the hopes of better understanding their vanished lineage.

Exploring the history of the apple from its wild origins

Recent archaeological finds of ancient preserved apple seeds across Europe and West Asia combined with historical, paleontological, and recently published genetic data are presenting a fascinating new narrative for one of ...

Chemicals in smoke help plants grow sturdier, study shows

When fires rage through forests, they often char acres upon acres of plant life and scar a landscape for years to come. Some plants have learned to use this destructive force to their advantage -- moving into competitors' ...

Plants 'talk' to plants to help them grow

Having a neighborly chat improves seed germination, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology. Even when other known means of communication, such as contact, chemical and light-mediated signals, are ...

New insights into the earliest events of seed germination

Plant seeds may strike the casual observer as unspectacular—but they have properties that are nothing short of superpowers. In a dry state they can store their energy for years and then suddenly release it for germination ...

African killifish becomes fastest maturing vertebrate on record

Annual killifish are known to live their lives at one of two speeds: "pause" or "fast-forward." For most of the year, the tiny freshwater fish persist as diapausing embryos buried in sediments across the African savannah, ...

Solving the mystery of how plants survive near Chernobyl

Twenty-two years after the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident in the Ukraine — the worst in history — scientists are reporting insights into the mystery of how plants have managed to adapt and survive in the radioactive ...

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