Plants
- Plants
Bits of bacterial DNA naturally lurk inside sweet potatoes
Samples of cultivated sweet potatoes worldwide carry DNA from Agrobacterium cousin of bacterium used for GMOs.
- Plants
From lemons to kumquats, roots of citrus variety dug up
Citrus fruits’ lineage is traced through chloroplast DNA, revealing both maternal and paternal heritage.
- Plants
Plants suck in nicotine from nearby smokers
Peppermint plants can build up nicotine from tobacco dropped on their soil or smoked indoors.
- Plants
Plant growth patterns changing on much of Earth’s surface
More than half of Earth’s land surface has seen major changes in factors such as leaf-on date and how much vegetation grows in a season.
- Plants
Tropical plant knows whose bill is in its flowers
A rainforest plant avoids inbreeding by accepting pollen only from hummingbird species that must travel to reach it.
- Plants
Beetle RNA makes crops a noxious meal
When beetles munch plants bearing their RNA, genes the bugs need to survive are turned off.
- Plants
Fairly bad pitcher traps triumph in the end
Carnivorous pitcher plant traps rarely catch much, but their lackadaisical hunting turns out not to be so lame after all.
- Plants
Huge, hollow baobab trees are actually multiple fused stems
The trunk of an African baobab tree can grow to be many meters in diameter but hollow inside. The shape, researchers say, occurs when several stems fuse together.
- Plants
Isaac Newton’s theory of how water defies gravity in plants
A passage in one of Isaac Newton’s journals reveals that he may have theorized basic plant hydrodynamics long before botanists.
- Plants
Plant chemical weaponry may offer ammunition for pesticides
Chemicals produced by two plant species disrupt insect hormone pathways and could be developed in to efficient, safe pesticides.
- Plants
Tricky pitcher plants lure ants into a false sense of security
Carnivorous pitcher plants exploit social lives of ants as scouts escape and inadvertently lead nest mates to death trap.
- Genetics
The year in genomes
From the tiny Antarctic midge to the towering loblolly pine, scientists this year cracked open a variety of genetic instruction manuals to learn about some of Earth’s most diverse inhabitants.
