(Phys.org)—The 'brightest' thing in nature, the Pollia condensata fruit, does not get its blue colour from pigment but instead uses structural colour – a method of reflecting light of particular wavelengths- new research ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 10, 2012
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According to the United Nations, 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services, the majority of whom live in developing nations.
Materials Science
Jun 15, 2018
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A team of climate scientists from France, Russia and Germany has found that ancient viruses dormant for tens of thousands of years in permafrost can infect modern amoeba when they are revived. For their study, reported on ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Many trees disperse their seeds by releasing "helicopters," those single-winged seeds that are also called "samaras." As these seeds fall to the ground, their wing causes them to swirl and spin in a process ...
Make some room in the garden, you storied three sisters: the winter squash, climbing beans and the vegetable we know as corn. Grown together, newly examined "lost crops" could have produced enough seed to feed as many indigenous ...
Ecology
Dec 23, 2019
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725
A small green shoot is growing on the moon in an out-of-this-world first after a cotton seed germinated on board a Chinese lunar lander, scientists said Tuesday.
Space Exploration
Jan 15, 2019
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China was preparing to launch a ground-breaking mission early Saturday to soft-land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russia, the European ...
Space Exploration
Dec 7, 2018
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577
Recent observations have shown that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of each galaxy. However, what is the origin of these supermassive black holes? It is still a mystery today. An international research team ...
Astronomy
Mar 11, 2021
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On a recent afternoon, a small group of students gathered around a large table in one of the rooms at the Stanford Archaeology Center.
Archaeology
Feb 8, 2017
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Scientists have pinpointed the lowest temperature at which simple life can live and grow.
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 21, 2013
3
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A seed ( /ˈsiːd/ (help·info)), referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant. The formation of the seed completes the process of reproduction in seed plants (started with the development of flowers and pollination), with the embryo developed from the zygote and the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule.
Seeds have been an important development in the reproduction and spread of flowering plants, relative to more primitive plants like mosses, ferns and liverworts, which do not have seeds and use other means to propagate themselves. This can be seen by the success of seed plants (both gymnosperms and angiosperms) in dominating biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands both in hot and cold climates.
The term seed also has a general meaning that predates the above — anything that can be sown i.e. "seed" potatoes, "seeds" of corn or sunflower "seeds". In the case of sunflower and corn "seeds", what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or hull, and the potato is a tuber.
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