plants

Stories 41 - 60 | << Prev   Next >>

Female Ferns Can Turn Their Neighbors Male

Plants communicate via pheromone

(Newser) - If you're a Japanese climbing fern, your sex may be up to those living around you. That's thanks to communication between the plants involving a pheromone called gibberellin, Vox reports. Early-maturing plants, which tend to become female, start developing the pheromone, but they don't finish. Instead, these...

Beef: Meat Industry&#39;s Worst Eco-Offender
Beef: Meat Industry's
Worst Eco-Offender
STUDY SAYS
Jul 22, 2014 9:37 AM CDT

Beef: Meat Industry's Worst Eco-Offender

Raising cattle takes up 160 times as much land as plants, study finds

(Newser) - Think drive-thru cheeseburgers are cheap? Think again. What may be light on the wallet is heavy on the planet, according to a new study on the environmental costs per calorie of beef, pork, poultry, dairy, and eggs—which, combined, make up 96% of the calories Americans get via animal sources....

Mysterious Mounds Attributed to New Source

Theory about soil, erosion may not be sexy, but it's convincing

(Newser) - The mystery of the mounds lives on. A mere six months after researchers said computer modeling proved pocket gophers , over the course of several hundred years of scurrying and burrowing, formed the bizarre-patterned earthen "Mima mounds" in Washington state, a new team of researchers claims that plants are in...

It's a Blob. It's Green Sherbet. No...

The weird Llareta plant grows in Chile's Atacama Desert

(Newser) - Hikers in the Andes Mountains could mistake it for a green blob. Or melting lime sherbet. But what seems like a weird, lumpy thing is really Llareta, a plant of the Apiaceae family that's related to fennel, carrots, and parsley, NPR reports. Two neat factoids: It's actually firm,...

Newly Found Plant Eats Nickel
 Newly Found Plant Eats Nickel 
May 12, 2014 10:13 AM CDT

Newly Found Plant Eats Nickel

It has big potential in green technology

(Newser) - A newly discovered plant from the Philippines has an unusual appetite—for nickel. In a press release on the find, researchers explain Rinorea niccolifera is a nickel hyperaccumulator, meaning it can absorb up to 18,000 parts per million of the metal in its leaves. That's a "normally...

Plants Can Do Arithmetic: Study
 Plants Can Do Arithmetic: Study 
in case you missed it
Jun 29, 2013 7:50 AM CDT

Plants Can Do Arithmetic: Study

Leaves can calculate exactly how much starch a plant will need each night

(Newser) - How do plants survive without starving through the night when there's no sunlight to nourish them? Simple arithmetic. A study by UK scientists to be published in the journal eLife found that plants precisely calculate and adjust the amount of starch to store and consume overnight, to make sure...

Upside to Drought: Gorgeous Fall Leaves

Less water leads to less chlorophyll and more colors

(Newser) - The lack of rain this year could elicit a dazzling side effect in the fall: exceptionally colorful leaves. That's because below-average rainfall in the Northeast may cause trees to shut down production of a chemical called chlorophyll earlier than usual. Without it, various pigments like carotenes and xanthophyll (yellow...

Red Tomatoes Explained: Blame Meteor
 Why Are Tomatoes Red? 
 Blame Meteor 
in case you missed it
Jun 16, 2012 1:20 PM CDT

Why Are Tomatoes Red? Blame Meteor

Dinosaur-killing impact forced the tomato into big changes, say scientists

(Newser) - Why are tomatoes red? The same reason dinosaurs were killed off, say scientists. The massive meteorite that struck Earth 60 to 70 million years ago created extremely harsh conditions that forced the evolution of the tomato into its current red and edible form, reports Phys.org . Researchers discovered this connection...

Farming's Future: No More Plows?

'No-till' agriculture is eco-friendly and rising in popularity

(Newser) - A transformation in farming may be under way, one that leaves plows in the dust. It's called "no-till" farming, and the AFP (via Raw Story ) catches up with the growing trend in Indiana. The idea is that a plow—or on a smaller scale, a garden shovel—...

32K-Year-Old Plant Brought Back to Life

Arctic plant found by Russian scientists may be oldest ever revived

(Newser) - A flower that last bloomed when saber-toothed cats roamed the Earth is once again alive and growing. Russian scientists say they've dug up remnants of a 32,000-year-old plant from Siberia's frozen wasteland and successfully cloned 36 more of them from its fruit tissue, the New York Times...

Thank Moss for Livable Planet
 Thank Moss 
 for Livable 
 Planet 
study says
Feb 2, 2012 4:11 PM CST

Thank Moss for Livable Planet

Plant may have prompted major shift in ancient climate

(Newser) - About 480 million years ago, the planet was a much hotter place—and we have moss to thank for the habitable Earth we enjoy today, research suggests. Back then, 16 times as much carbon dioxide existed in the atmosphere, scientists think. Some 20 million years later, carbon dioxide levels had...

Pepsi Designs 100% Plant-Based Bottle

Made of renewable materials like corn husks, pine bark

(Newser) - PepsiCo has developed the world's first plastic bottle made of nothing but renewable, plant-based materials, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The bottle is made from corn husks, switch grass, and pine bark; but in the future, Pepsi hopes to use its food byproducts like orange and potato peels. Pepsi will start...

Scientists Slash Number of World's Plants by 600,000

Turns out that many plants have multiple names—some have hundreds

(Newser) - A comprehensive scientific study will trim some 600,000 duplicates from the world’s list of flowering plants, the Guardian reports. After centuries of scientists naming “new” plants that had already been discovered, we currently count the number of plant species at about 1 million—but a more realistic...

IBM Creates Plastic From Plants

(Newser) - IBM has created a form of plastic that is made from plants, the company announced today. Researchers claim that the process can lead to the replacement of petroleum-based plastics that are killing our planet. "This discovery and new approach using organic catalysts could lead to well-defined, biodegradable molecules made...

Aquaponics Gaining Converts Among Gardeners

System of fish and fertilizer is catching on

(Newser) - Aquaponics—the word is a blend of hydroponics and aquaculture, the cultivation of fish—is backyard agriculture using only fish droppings as fertilizer. And it's not for everyone, at least yet. One man’s greenhouse “wouldn’t look out of place on a wayward space station where pioneers have...

Hey, Vegans, Plants Have Feelings, Too
 Hey, Vegans, Plants 
 Have Feelings, Too 
opinion
Dec 22, 2009 1:52 PM CST

Hey, Vegans, Plants Have Feelings, Too

It's time we give them the same due we give animals

(Newser) - It's hip these days to banish meat from the diet, chow down instead on the plant world, and congratulate ourselves for our enlightened morals. But what about the poor plants? They "no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my...

Scientists Find Ancestor to Giant Dinosaurs

It's a link between smaller bipeds and huge quadripeds

(Newser) - Paleontologists in South Africa have found a new dinosaur, a sort of missing link between smaller two-legged creatures that dined on plants and the long-necked carnivorous giants of Jurassic Park. The new species, aardonyx celestae, was 20 feet long and walked on two feet. But crucially, it was able to...

Plant Your Own Beer Garden

  Plant Your Own Beer Garden 
Jul 2, 2009 12:14 PM CDT

Plant Your Own Beer Garden

Even if you don't drink, hop vines can be an attractive garden addition

(Newser) - Sure, anyone can buy a home beer-making kit. But why not go one step further and grow the hops yourself? That’s what Ben Granger, owner of a specialty beer shop, decided to do when he turned to home brewing. “I wanted to know what I was working with,...

Feds Showing More Love for Uglier Endangered Species

(Newser) - When you’re an endangered species jockeying for federal funding, good looks are historically a plus. That may be changing, the Washington Post reports. In the past, researchers note, “there has been a very heavy bias toward ‘charismatic megafauna’—relatively large, well-known birds and mammals.” But...

Plants Warn Each Other: Study
 Plants Warn Each Other: Study 
Jun 22, 2009 7:11 AM CDT

Plants Warn Each Other: Study

(Newser) - They can't quite tweet, but plants have sophisticated means of communication nonetheless, reports the Telegraph . A new study suggests they use complex chemical signals to discuss both predators and pollinators. In one test, sagebrush shrubs whose neighbors had their leaves clipped, as if by grasshoppers, appeared to grow more...

Stories 41 - 60 | << Prev   Next >>