Getting hit by lightning is not usually a good thing. But one tropical tree species seems to harness heaven’s wrath. Not only do the trees survive lightning strikes, but their…
Category: News
Watch live plant cells build their cell walls
Imaging wall-less plant cells every six minutes for 24 hours revealed how the cells build their protective barriers.
A nearly century-old dead date palm tree helped solve an ancestry mystery
What the island nation of Cape Verde cherishes as its own distinctive kind of date palm is getting an ancestry reveal. The Cape Verde date palm (Phoenix atlantica), native to…
Some trees are coping with extreme heat surprisingly well
Ecologist Akhil Javad felt the thrill of fieldwork quickly fade when he was faced with the prospect of scaling trees over five times his height. But for some of the…
A bacteria-based Band-Aid helps plants heal their wounds
Got a plant with a boo-boo? Try a plant Band-Aid. A pure form of cellulose produced by bacteria can act as a plant bandage, researchers report, significantly boosting healing and…
Carnivorous plants eat faster with a fungal friend
Insects have plenty to beware when it comes to carnivorous plants. Add an acid-loving fungus to that list of dangers. Sundew plants have tentacle-like leaves that curl around and entrap…
Bird nests made with a toxic fungus seem to fend off attacking ants
When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several…
Projectile pollen helps this flower edge out reproductive competition
Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can…
This tentacled, parasitic ‘fairy lantern’ plant is new to science
In the weird world of chlorophyll-free “fairy lantern” plants, there’s a new species to admire. Fairy lanterns (Thismia) are a type of mysterious, parasitic herb that look like something from…
The largest known genome belongs to a tiny fern
Big things can sometimes come in small packages. A small fern has broken the record for the largest genome yet known, researchers report May 31 in iScience. The plant’s full…
