Plants
- Agriculture
A taste of the chocolate genome
Competing teams have announced the impending completion of the cacao DNA sequence.
- Health & Medicine
Gloves may head off ‘garden’ variety pneumonia
Compost feels so good, sifting through a gardener’s fingers. Unfortunately, data are showing, this soil amendment can host a germ responsible for Legionnaire’s disease, a potentially serious form of pneumonia.
-
- Plants
Most energy drinks lag in added health benefits
Many caffeinated tonics lack natural antioxidants and other beneficial compounds found in coffee, yerba maté and other plant-based drinks.
- Plants
Chlorophyll gets an ‘f’
New variety of photosynthetic pigment is the first to be discovered in 60 years
- Plants
Explosions, mushroom clouds — all good for short moss
BLOG: Sphagnum reproduces with a bang that compensates for life so close to the ground.
- Earth
Ivy nanoparticles promise sunblocks and other green products
I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with English ivy that’s been devolving towards hate-hate. But a new paper may temper my antipathy. Apparently this backyard bully also offers a kinder, gentler alternative to the potentially toxic metal-based nanoparticles used in today’s sunscreens.
- Plants
Bees face ‘unprecedented’ pesticide exposures at home and afield
Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plaque that has a name — colony collapse disorder – but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. It found “unprecedented levels” of mite-killing chemicals and crop pesticides in hives across the United States and parts of Canada.
- Plants
Chemists pin down poppy’s tricks for making morphine
Scientists have figured out two of the final key steps in the chain of chemical reactions that the opium poppy uses to synthesize morphine, suggesting possible signaling strategies for new ways of making the drug and its cousin painkillers.
- Plants
Losing life’s variety
2010 is the deadline set for reversing declines in biodiversity, but little has been accomplished.
- Ecosystems
Impatiens plants are more patient with siblings
Streamside wildflower holds back on leaf competition when roots meet close kin
- Animals
Ants in the pants drive away birds
Yellow crazy ants can get so annoying that birds don’t eat their normal fruits, a new study finds.
