Plants: facts, news, features and articles about our oxygen providers
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Mystery of 'living fossil' tree frozen in time for 66 million years finally solvedThe Wollemi pine was thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago until it was rediscovered by a group of hikers in 1994. Now, scientists have decoded its genome to understand how it's survived — almost unchanged — since the time of the dinosaurs.
By Richard Pallardy Published
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'Once again, innovation and proliferation ended with catastrophe': The environmental disaster of plants taking over the worldThe evolutionary leap that allowed plants to live on land 400 million years ago upended Earth in a way unseen since the Great Oxidation Event over 1.5 billion years earlier.
By Stephen Porder Published
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Mysterious bamboo regeneration baffles scientists ahead of once-in-a-century blooming eventHenon bamboo flowers only once every 120 years then vanishes for years, and researchers have no idea how it regenerates.
By Jacklin Kwan Published
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Genetically engineered pink pineapples are flying off shelves: What gives them their distinctive color?The food giant Del Monte has created a genetically engineered pink pineapple that owes its rosy hue to higher concentrations of a pigment called lycopene.
By Donavyn Coffey Published
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Tropical rainforests could get too hot for photosynthesis and die if climate crisis continues, scientists warnData collected by the International Space Station has revealed a small fraction of leaves in the world's tropical rainforests are already exceeding peak temperatures, and scientists warn that this could increase.
By Ben Turner Published
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This bizarre little succulent looks like a baby's buttGibbaeum heathii is endemic to a valley in South Africa that is surrounded by mountains and receives very little rainfall, allowing a huge range of succulent species to thrive. This bababoutjies — or baby's bum — is one of them.
By Megan Shersby Published
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How do plants with seedless fruit reproduce?Plants are capable of producing seedless fruit through a process called parthenocarpy, and humans have long leveraged it in agriculture.
By Amanda Heidt Published
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World's deepest canyon is home to Asia's tallest tree - and Chinese scientists only just found itAt 335 feet (102 meters) in height, the enormous newly-discovered cypress tree — which was found in a forest in Tibet — would tower over the Statue of Liberty.
By Lydia Smith Published
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Scientists have finally discovered how photosynthesis starts — by setting it off with a single photonFor the first time, researchers have observed how just one particle of light can trigger photosynthesis in bacteria — finally revealing the first step of the crucial process.
By Joanna Thompson Published
