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Magazine
In the Oct. 13 SN: 2018’s scientists to watch, superconductors heat up, the world’s oldest drawing, a sneaky superbug slayer, Ceres’ ice volcanoes, the birth of a neutron star, kidney stones close-up and more.
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News
Plants engineered to always be on alert don’t grow well
10/22/2018 - 16:09 Agriculture, Plants, Molecular EvolutionA tiny weed that slithers up through sidewalk cracks is helping scientists understand the sacrifices that plants make to protect themselves from pests.
Most plants combat insects and other herbivores by sending out bitter chemicals through their leaves. Now by studying thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), a commonly found member of the mustard family, researchers found that energy spent...
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Science Visualized
Dandelion seeds create a bizarre whirlpool in the air to fly
10/17/2018 - 13:00 Biophysics, PlantsWhen you’re essentially a little ball of floof, flying is hard.
To ride the wind, dandelion seeds stir up a weird type of whirlpool in the air directly above them. The newly discovered way of moving through the air, described October 17 in Nature, resolves a long-standing question about how the seeds stay aloft.
Dandelion seed flight is not unlike the flight of Mary Poppins:...
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50 years ago, a 550-year-old seed sprouted
10/10/2018 - 07:00 Plants, Archaeology550-year-old seed sprouts —
A seed of the South America herb achira (Canna sp.), taken from an ancient Indian necklace, has germinated, and the young plant is growing well.… Carbon-14 dating of bones at the site sets the seeds’ age at about 550 years.… The plant from the old seed appeared to have a disturbed gravity orientation, but is still growing fairly normally. — Science News...
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News
Lemur study suggests why some fruits smell so fruity
10/03/2018 - 14:12 Evolution, Plants, AnimalsIt’s a lovely notion, but tricky to prove. Still, lemurs sniffing around wild fruits in Madagascar are bolstering the idea that animal noses contributed to the evolution of aromas of fruity ripeness.
The idea sounds simple, says evolutionary ecologist Omer Nevo of the University of Ulm in Germany. Plants can use mouth-watering scents to lure animals to eat fruits, and thus spread around...
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News
Gene editing can speed up plant domestication
10/01/2018 - 11:00 Plants, Genetics, Molecular EvolutionGene editing can speed up plant domestication, taming wild vines, bushes and grasses and turning them into new crops.
Editing just two genes in ground cherries (Physalis pruinosa) produced plants that yielded more and bigger fruit, researchers report October 1 in Nature Plants. Those edits mimic changes that occurred in tomato plants during domestication, bringing the sweet tomato...
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Reviews & Previews
Smart plants can teach us a thing or two
09/18/2018 - 07:00 Plants, Evolution, BiophysicsThe Revolutionary Genius of PlantsStefano MancusoAtria Books, $30
More than 200 years ago, French botanist René Desfontaines instructed a student to monitor the behavior of Mimosa pudica plants as he drove them around Paris in a carriage. Mimosa pudica quickly closes its leaves when touched — presumably as a defense mechanism. Desfontaines was interested in the plants’ response to...
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Feature
How plant microbes could feed the world and save endangered species
09/06/2018 - 11:00 Agriculture, Plants, MicrobesOne fine Hawaiian day in 2015, Geoff Zahn and Anthony Amend set off on an eight-hour hike. They climbed a jungle mountain on the island of Oahu, swatting mosquitoes and skirting wallows of wild pigs. The two headed to the site where a patch of critically endangered Phyllostegia kaalaensis had been planted a few months earlier. What they found was dispiriting.
“All the plants were gone,”...
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News in Brief
How the poppy got its pain-relieving powers
08/30/2018 - 14:00 Evolution, Plants, ChemistryA draft of the poppy’s genetic instruction book is providing clues to how the plant evolved to produce molecules such as morphine.
Scientists pieced together the genome of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). Then, they identified a cluster of 15 close-together genes that help the plant synthesize a group of chemically related compounds that includes powerful painkillers like morphine...
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News
The most ancient African baobabs are dying and no one knows why
06/18/2018 - 07:00 PlantsThe last 13 years have been terrible for ancient African baobab trees.
Nine of the 13 oldest either lost trunks or died altogether after having lived for longer than a millennium, researchers report June 11 in Nature Plants. But just what the demise means for the iconic species is up for debate.
“Whilst we are saddened about the death and collapse [of the old trees], current...
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News
A caterpillar outwits corn defenses by gorging on fattening ‘junk’ food
05/22/2018 - 07:00 Animals, Plants, EcologyHere’s the story of a caterpillar that foils gruesome violence orchestrated by corn.
No, that’s not backward. Plants often look helpless to a human, but they fight with smells and other invisible chemistry. A growing body of evidence, for example, shows that plants under attack can waft out scents that attract help, such as tiny wasps that deal a lingering death to leaf-chewing...