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| BOTANISTS DISCOVER NEW CONIFER SPECIES IN VIETNAM |
| An unusual conifer found in a remote area of northern Vietnam has been identified as a genus and species previously unknown to science. The limestone ridges where the tree grows are among the most botanically rich areas in Vietnam, said Daniel Harder, currently director of the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) Arboretum and a co-discoverer of the new species. The discovery is published in the current issue of the journal Novon. |
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| UF EXPERT: ANCIENT FOSSIL SUGGESTS FLOWERS MAY BE UNDERWATER GIFT |
| The world’s oldest known flower never bloomed, but it has opened scientific questioning into whether all of today’s flowering plants had their origins from beneath ancient waters, says a University of Florida researcher. |
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| PLANT WILT LINKED TO IMPOTENCE |
| Research into plants' response to drought has shown there is a chemical link between the process of wilting in plants and impotence in humans. |
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| BIOLOGISTS HOLD NEW TRUTH TO BE SELF-EVIDENT: THAT PLANTS' STEMS AND LEAVES ARE CREATED EQUAL IN PROPORTION TO ROOTS |
| Add this universal truth to biology textbooks: the mass of a plant's leaves and stems is proportionally scaled to that of its roots in a mathematically predictable way, regardless of species or habitat. In other words, biologists can now reasonably estimate how much biomass is underground just by looking at the stems and leaves above ground. |
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| THE EUCALYPT'S SURVIVAL SECRET |
| The eucalypt trees burnt in Australia's recent bushfires are already sprouting again — and one botanist has worked out how they do it.
Dr Geoff Burrows from the Department of Agriculture at Charles Sturt University has discovered that eucalypts regrow in a way unlike any other tree in the world. |
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| INSECT BITES ON PLANTS REDUCE PHOTOSYNTHESIS, IMAGING DEVICE SHOWS |
| When insects feed on plants, they get nourishment and the plant gets damaged. The amount of damage has taken on new light, thanks to a new photosynthesis-measuring device that illuminates and photographs never-before-seen injury extending far beyond an insect’s bite. |
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| STUDY SHOWS HOW PLANT CELLS SPIN COTTON |
| Cotton, paper and wood -- they're all made of the cellulose that plants use for strength and flexibility. But surprisingly, scientists do not know a lot about how plants actually make cellulose. Now research at the University of California, Davis, has shed light on a key step: how fibers get started. |
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| THE GENETICS BEHIND MINIATURE PLANTS |
| How do organisms maintain their size and shape despite varying environmental conditions? Unlike animals, plants are sessile and cannot maintain their internal body temperatures during ambient temperature changes. Thus, plants have evolved complex genetic pathways to maintain normal growth patterns during temperature changes. |
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| PICKY PLANTS: DO THEY 'CHOOSE' THE BEST FUNGAL PARTNER? |
| Every time we make a choice, whether between job offers in two different cities or about what to have for dinner, evaluating the costs and benefits of each option is part of the process. Researchers at the University of Michigan are finding that the ability to actively select one option over another may no longer be reserved for higher animals; in fact, plants may make choices too. |
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| IDENTIFICATION OF GENES MAY TELL HOW PLANTS RECOGNIZE POLLEN |
| Researchers have identified the genes that code for proteins that coat the pollen of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The studies may help scientists understand how plants recognize pollen from their own species. |
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| PLANT GENOME CARRIES SECRETS OF LONG LIFE |
| The Arabodopsis plant is able to survive even without a ferment preventing it from aging. Researchers, who study chromosome ends of Arabidopsis thaliana belonging to the mustards family, discovered the existence of a genome responsible for aging. The said genome has a lot in common with a humans’. Experiments carried out with plants at the genetic level are likely to be crucial for medicine. |
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| A BREAKTHROUGH IN GENETICS. BIOLOGISTS ARE TRANSFORMING LEAVES IN PETALS. |
| Biologists from California University in San-Diego (UCSD) have found a way to genetically transform leaves in petals. This achievement is comparable, in biology level, with a wish of ancient-time alchemists to turn iron into gold. The UCSD’s scientists say that the recent discovery of a new class of flora-related genes and three other genes responsible for a flower growth allows to trigger a mechanism of leaves-to-petals transformation. The discovery will enable to obtain a lot of the same flowers in tropics and a lot of beautiful flowers in the modern-temperate zones in spring and autumn.
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| TREE TRUNKS’ THICKNESS IS NOT INFLUENCED BY MOON ALONE! |
| As recently established, though not strictly proved, the diameter of tree trunks is influenced by lunar attraction. But is it only lunar? After a Swiss researcher, E.Zurcher, together with his colleagues from Italy and France, had discovered recently that the diameter of two-year-old saplings of a common spruce (Picea abies) increased and decreased perpetually during a 24-hour cycle, he came to a conclusion that these variations’ pattern was surprisingly similar to the lunar tide curve (i.e. the gravimetrical curve) specifically calculated for the test location. |
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| PLANTS ADJUST THEMSELVES TO WARMING |
| Scientists have found that during
the last 200 years the number of stomas (pores on the leaf surface) for several
plant species has decreased. The stomas are known to be very responsive to
variations of environment; in particular, they close when the carbon dioxide
content increases. Now it is apparent that the plants also have a long-time
reaction to variations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere. |
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| EVOLUTION OF FLOWERING PLANTS |
| In the last 40 years the features
of early evolution of the flowering, or angiosperm plants have been
substantially updated due to active palaeobotanic studies; however, most
conclusions concerning the changes of the flora in the Cretaceous concerned
local regularities. |
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