To turn up the heat in chilies, just add water

Biologists have learned in recent years that wild chilies develop their trademark pungency, or heat, as a defense against a fungus that could destroy their seeds. But that doesn't explain why some chilies are hot and others ...

Confirmed: Sunflower domesticated in US, not Mexico

New genetic evidence presented by a team led by Indiana University biology doctoral graduate Benjamin Blackman confirms the eastern United States as the single geographic domestication site of modern sunflowers. Co-authors ...

Rainforest plant developed sonar dish to attract pollinating bats

The researchers discovered that a rainforest vine, pollinated by bats, has evolved dish-shaped leaves with such conspicuous echoes that nectar-feeding bats can find its flowers twice as fast by echolocation. The study is ...

Modeling plant metabolism to optimize oil production

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a computational model for analyzing the metabolic processes in rapeseed plants -- particularly those related ...

Origami in seed capsules

(PhysOrg.com) -- A number of plants disperse their seeds in a rather artistic way: the seed capsules of the ice plant Delosperma nakurense, for instance, unfold lids over the seed compartments in the manner of a movable origami ...

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