Serpentine plants survive harsh soils thanks to borrowed genes

Scientists from the John Innes Centre have analysed the genomes of plants that grow in harsh, serpentine soils to find out how they survive in such conditions. It appears that they have used two strategies: adapting to their ...

Presence of serpentine on Vesta suggests exogenic origin

(Phys.org) —Rocks are silent storytellers: because each mineral is created only under certain conditions, they provide insight into the evolution of the body on which they are found. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute ...

First life may have arisen above serpentine rock, researchers say

(PhysOrg.com) -- About 3.8 billion years ago, Earth was teeming with unicellular life. A little more than 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth was a ball of vaporous rock. And somewhere in between, the first organisms spontaneously ...

The benefits of stress ... in plants

Chronic stress in humans has been implicated in heart disease, weight gain, and diabetes, among a host of other health problems. Extreme environments, a source of chronic stress, present a challenge even for the hardiest ...