Plants
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Research
The evolution of flowering plants
‘Time tree’ shows delayed diversification of families.
Around 140 million years ago, flowering plants first burst into life on Earth, heralding the birth of what have becom...
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Climate trouble in the tropics
It may become too hot for plants to germinate.
Tropical plants close to the equator are most at risk from climate change because it will likely become too hot for m...
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Common proteins and different genes
Studies examine what makes things what they are.
Earth's species have more in common than previously believed, but tomatoes are really quite different. That’s the ...
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The role of plants in a warmer, drier world
Water cycling calculations show old models were off.
Scientists have highlighted an important missing piece in climate models by unravelling the role of plants in the Ear...
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How invasive species wreak climatic havoc
They turnover more carbon by making new friends.
When non-native plants invade an ecosystem, their interactions with new insects and microorganisms accelerate carbon ...
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Tree diversity not just in rainforests
Other unique lineages need protecting.
Rainforests get the headlines, but other forests also are home to thousands of unique and important tree species, new...
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How plants help make their kids stronger
Research suggests we can intervene without GM.
Inactivating a single gene can induce a form of "stress memory" in plants that is then inherited by some progeny, mak...
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Fossil captures plants in transition
A new old species from an important time
Scientists have discovered an ancient plant species they say provides another piece in the evolutionary jigsaw. Th...
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Tree rings tell of water and climate change
Scientists compile a global water-use efficiency database.
By unlocking the secrets of tree rings, scientists have created a global database of trees’ water-use efficiency, whi...
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Plants grow brightly with mushrooms
Scientists say DNA creates sustainable light.
It’s feasible to create plants that produce sustainable luminescence that we can see, scientists suggest. Cred...
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A medieval mystery solved
Scientists now understand things old and blue.
This is the fruit of the medicinal herb Chrozophora tinctorial and a lot of effort has been made to understand its ma...
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Old trees do the heavy carbon lifting
Rainforest study points way for regeneration and management.
When it comes to storing carbon, an increasingly vital function of rainforests for the health and survival of the pla...