Listen carefully, and a plant may tell you it’s thirsty. Dry tomato and tobacco plants emit distinct ultrasonic clicks, scientists report March 30 in Cell. The noises sound something like…
Category: Plants
Judge Deals Another Blow to Tejon Ranchcorp Project
Site of proposed Centennial project wildflowers; Image: Richard Dickey L.A. County Ordered to Set Aside Approvals for Risky Sprawl Development March 28, 2023, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. – A judge has…
Chia seedlings verify Alan Turing’s ideas about patterns in nature
LAS VEGAS – Chia seeds sprouted in trays have experimentally confirmed a mathematical model proposed by computer scientist and polymath Alan Turing decades ago. The model describes how patterns might…
Dry farming could help agriculture in the western U.S. amid climate change
In the parking lot behind a grocery store in Portland, Ore., last September, several hundred tomato aficionados gathered on a sunny, breezy day for Tomato Fest. While many attendees devoured…
Plant/animal hybrid proteins could help crops fend off diseases
A new biological mashup just dropped. “Pikobodies,” bioengineered immune system proteins that are part plant and part animal, could help flora better fend off diseases, researchers report in the March…
The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago
The oldest known fossils of pollen-laden insects are of earwig-like ground-dwellers that lived in what is now Russia about 280 million years ago, researchers report. Their finding pushes back the…
Chemical signals from fungi tell bark beetles which trees to infest
Fungi may help some tree-killer beetles turn a tree’s natural defense system against itself. The Eurasian spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) has massacred millions of conifers in forests across Europe.…
A rare rabbit plays an important ecological role by spreading seeds
A crucial link in the life cycle of one parasitic plant may be found in a surprising place — the bellies of the descendants of an ancient line of rabbits.…
Reflections on the U.N. Global Biodiversity Conference
A CNPS COP15 Update CNPS staff in Montreal for the United Nations 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15). Pictured left to right: CNPS IPA…
Threatened by Mining, A Tiny Daisy Needs Your Help
By Maria Jesus For many botanists and plant lovers, our sense of place is inextricably linked to the plants that grow there. It’s difficult to imagine the Northern California coast…
