Plants
- Plants
Analyze This: Plants sound off when they’re in trouble
When dry or cut, tomato and tobacco plants make sounds too high for humans to hear. Such sounds could provide a way to snoop on crops.
- Plants
Mimosa plant ‘muscles’ fold tickled leaves fast
A mimosa plant uses special cells to close leaflets when bumped and then reopen them — again and again.
By Susan Milius - Archaeology
Carvings on Australia’s boab trees reveal a people’s lost history
Archaeologists and an Aboriginal family are working together to find and document a First Nations group’s lost ties to the land.
By Freda Kreier - Chemistry
Scientists Say: Rubisco
Rubisco is a key protein in the process of photosynthesis, which feeds plants — and, in turn, us.
- Chemistry
Explainer: All about carbon dioxide
Animals and other life on Earth exhale carbon dioxide, which plants use for photosynthesis. But too much of this gas can perturb Earth’s climate.
By Trisha Muro - Plants
Why dandelions are so good at widely spreading their seeds
Individual seeds on a dandelion release most easily in response to winds from a specific direction. As the wind shifts, this scatters the seeds widely.
- Plants
Scientists Say: Fruit
Some foods usually called vegetables — such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers — are actually fruits.
- Animals
Several mammals use a South American tree as their pharmacy
Researchers in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest stumbled onto something very strange. They watched as animals “doctored” themselves with products from a tree.
- Plants
No sun? No prob! A new process might soon grow plants in the dark
Teamwork makes green-work! Collaborating scientists came up with an electrifying farming trick that could make sunlight optional.
- Plants
This pitcher plant lures insects into underground deathtraps
Scientists didn’t expect the carnivorous, eggplant-shaped pitchers to be sturdy enough to grow embedded in the soil.
By Meghan Rosen - Plants
Catnip’s insect-repelling powers grow as Puss chews on it
Damaging the leaves boosts the plant’s chemical defenses — and their appeal to cats.
By Anil Oza - Space
The first plants ever grown in moon dirt have sprouted
This tiny garden shows farming on the moon may be difficult, although not impossible.