Botany

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David Attenborough Finds Living Fossil Tree Romantic, Not Devastating

May 12, 2005

England’s famous Kew Royal Botanical Gardens is getting a Wollemi Pine, and David Attenborough, naturalist and evolution popularist, is proud of it. This “living fossil” was thought extinct for 200 million years, but was found alive and well a few years ago in Australia (see 12/15/2000 entry). Grinning like a kid at Christmas, […]

Botany

Weeds Hold Promise for Miracle Drugs

May 3, 2005

We’d like weeds if we knew them better, says John Roach for National Geographic News, especially if we realized they may contain wonder drugs. “It’s often said that plants hidden in the tangle of the Amazonian rain forest may harbor an undiscovered cancer cure,” he writes; “John Richard Stepp thinks the same can be said […]

Botany

Selecting Corn Oil Genes Produces More Corn Oil, but What Else?

February 4, 2005

Breeders have been trying to squeeze more corn oil out of corn for over a century, one of the longest-running scientific experiments ever. They have made pretty dramatic gains in yield, from 5% to 20%, in 100 generations, says William G. Hill in Science.1 Now also, geneticists have the tools to look for which genes […]

Botany

Lowly Plant Inspires Waterproof Glass

January 18, 2005

By adopting the lotus position, the glass in your windshield may become so water-repellant you won’t need windshield wipers. That’s what an Ohio State press release says: “Ohio State University engineers are designing super-slick, water-repellent surfaces that mimic the texture of lotus leaves.” The leaves of the lotus, or water lily, are covered with microscopic […]

Botany

Fungi Supply Plant Communities With Underground Nutrient Pipeline

June 17, 2004

Dig up a cubic yard of soil, and you may have disturbed 12,000 miles of an extensive network of passageways that supply plant roots with carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

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