Ingenious Seed Bomb "Designed by Evolution"
July 13, 2012
Red hot peppers! Can evolution "design" anything, especially a chemical bomb a plant uses to be sure its seeds get spread properly?
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Maple to the Rescue
July 11, 2012
The SWAT team surrounds the compound. An officer tosses a maple seed into an open window and checks the readout on his computer. The team bursts in and, surprising the terrorists, rescues the hostages safely.
Explanatory Filter in Action: Fairy Circles in Africa
June 30, 2012
The old "crop circle" craze fanned the curiosity of many, till humans were filmed making them. Now, scientists have a different circle mystery, and they're stumped.
Evolution Worked Magic in Plants
June 29, 2012
Some evolutionary papers are filled with verbs like arose, emerged, and originated. Do these convey scientific understanding, or are they veils concealing ignorance? Is it like saying "abracadabra" to say something "arose" by evolution? A recent paper about sophisticated metabolic enzymes in plants is a case in point.
Pitcher Plant Inspires R&D Award
June 21, 2012
The R&D 100 award, previously given for inventions like the fax machine and automated teller machine, has been given this year for a biologically-inspired design that could revolutionize society in many ways.
Ready, Aim, Flower
May 26, 2012
How does a plant know the time to flower? A new study describes a process involving genes, sunlight sensors, switches, clocks, feedback loops and messages.
Follow the Leader: Plants and Animals
May 7, 2012
Need solutions to engineering problems? Look no further than the plants and animals around you. That's what more and more scientists are doing.
Is This Plant Really 30,000 Years Old?
February 20, 2012
A plant said to be 30,000 years old has been brought to life in Russia. A team resurrected a fruit from a rodent burrow in Siberian permafrost, getting it to grow into a whole plant that produces viable seeds. This is now the oldest age claim, by an order of magnitude, for plant material made to live again. Other scientists are startled that plant material could remain viable for so long, since cells have to repair their DNA continually. Other botany news bring different problems to evolutionary theory.
Living Surprises, Living Hopes
January 21, 2012
Here are ten recent discoveries about plants and animals that are surprising and inspiring. Some of them may lead to technologies that can improve our own lives.
Science Grab Bag
January 13, 2012
Here's a random assortment of things floating around in the science news media – some fascinating, some informative, some disgusting. We’ll let the readers decide which is which. Since it’s Friday the 13th, a day to enjoy like any other day, we’ll give you a baker’s dozen to sample.
Nature Does It Right
January 4, 2012
Scientists and engineers continue to find well-designed features in living things that are worth imitating.
Biomimetics for Your Christmas Wish List
December 8, 2011
Biomimetics (the imitation of nature) continues to promise cool gadgets and useful materials that will someday yield prized gifts under the tree. Some of them might even save your life.
Methuselah Seed Now a Tree
December 4, 2011
The world’s oldest viable seed is now a tree 8 feet tall. The Methuselah palm, discovered in the 1960s as a seed at the Judean fortress of Masada, sprouted in 2005 under controlled conditions. It is the oldest seed verified by radiocarbon dating to be 2,000 years old – from the time the Romans were besieging the mountain fortress built by Herod the Great.
Fungi Shed Light on Deep Biological Mysteries
November 20, 2011
Fungi are among the least studied and least understood organisms. Elevated from plants to their own kingdom in 1969, they are extremely diverse yet difficult to observe, since many species cannot be grown in the lab. The gaps in our knowledge of the fungi are being filled by new efforts to catalog them, but one of the most interesting findings may come from analysis of their genomes. A new study shows that introns (intragenic regions) are more dynamic than previously thought.
Your Copper Pipes
November 8, 2011
Each of us is part metal. Our bodies contain iron, copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese, vanadium, molybdenum, selenium, and even nickel like the coins in our pockets or purses. Unlike the other common elements of life (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus), our metals are not synthesized and recycled, but must be imported and handled with care. Copper is a good example of a biological metal that performs multiple useful functions – that is, unless something goes wrong with the machinery handling it.