Plants

Agriculture

How to grow your own science experiment

Does fertilizer help plants grow better? You might expect it to, but how can you know? This experiment will help you test it yourself.

Animals

Please do not touch the Australian stinging tree

Stinging-tree leaves look soft and inviting, but one touch delivers agony. Structurally, the plant's painful chemical looks a lot like spider venom.

Chemistry

Explainer: How photosynthesis works

Plants can take in light, water and carbon dioxide, and send out sugar and oxygen. Here’s how it works.

Physics

Here’s how giant pumpkins get so big

Cinderella took a ride in a pumpkin coach. Though real pumpkins do get big enough, here’s why their ride would be uncomfortable at best.

Climate

The faster trees grow, the younger they die

As climate change spurs forest tree growth, it also shortens trees’ lives. That results in a quicker release of climate-warming carbon back into the atmosphere.

Ecosystems

‘Vampire’ parasite challenges the definition of a plant

Langsdorffia are stripped down to their essentials. Lacking green leaves for photosynthesis, they steal energy and nutrients from other plants.

Agriculture

Scientists Say: Carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are molecules with carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Animals break down these chemicals in food to get energy.

Earth

On an Alaskan glacier, little green moss balls roll in herds

Oval balls of moss, nicknamed ‘glacier mice,’ roll across some glaciers. A new study explores the mysteries behind their herd-like motion.

Animals

Bumblebees may bite leaves to spur plant blooming

In a pollen shortage, some bees nick holes in tomato leaves. This can speed up flowering and pollen production by weeks.

Materials Science

Silk-based microneedles may help treat diseased plants

Engineers have invented silk microneedles to inject medicines into plants. One day farmers might use drones to dart their sick plants with meds from the air.

Chemistry

Ancient recipes helped scientists resurrect a long-lost blue hue

Led by medieval texts, scientists hunted down a plant and used its fruit to make a blue watercolor with mysterious origins.

Agriculture

Let’s learn about trees

These long-lived woody plants provide shade for people, homes for animals — and help protect the planet against climate change.