Plants
Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms
Ultraviolet cameras captured faint electrical flashes from leaves and branches as storm charges built up in the atmosphere.
Plants
More Stories in Plants
- Plants
Plants packed close enough to touch are more resilient to stress
Signals transmitted via leaves can warn neighboring plants of stressful events, making the group collectively more resilient than plants in isolation.
- Plants
In a new kind of plant trickery, this yam fools birds with fake berries
Black-bulb yam’s mimicry tricks birds into spreading its berrylike clones. The plant's novel strategy helps it spread without seeds or sexual reproduction.
- Animals
An all-female wasp is rapidly spreading across North America’s elms
The elm zigzag sawfly has spread to 15 states in five years. Now it's attacking the tree that cities planted to replace Dutch elm disease victims.
- Climate
Hidden tree bark microbes munch on important climate gases
Trees are known for absorbing CO2. But microbes in their bark also absorb other climate-active gases, methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide.
- Plants
Moss spores survived in space for 9 months
The moss species Physcomitrium patens is the latest organism to survive an extended stay in the vacuum and radiation of space.
- Plants
A special shape shift helps a shrub thrive in blistering heat
A microscope reveals an algae-like adaptation that might future-proof crop photosynthesis in extreme heat.
- Plants
This flower smells like injured ants — and flies can’t resist it
A type of Japanese dogbane releases a scent identical to wounded ants’ distress signal, drawing in scavenging flies that unwittingly pollinate it.
- Life
A rice weevil frozen in flight won the 2025 Nikon Small World photo contest
From fluorescent ferns to sprawling neurons, this year’s winning photos reveal the structures and artistry of life seen through a microscope.
- Paleontology
These ancient bumblebees were found with their pollen source
Insects have long pollinated plants, but evidence of ancient pairing is rare. Fossils now show bees and linden trees goes back 24 million years.
