Plants, features and articles | Educational Science

May 28, 2022

Why is grass green?

As soon as the weather warms, lawn mowers also begin to start up (at least in suburbia), creating those perfectly shaped and brilliantly green lawns. But why is grass green and not blue or purple, say? The short answer is a green pigment called chlorophyll. The longer answer has to...

Jun 8, 2022

Is this the oldest tree in the world?

The world's oldest tree may have been standing for centuries when the first boulders were erected at Stonehenge, new research suggests. The ancient giant, an alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) known as the Gran Abuelo (or great grandfather in Spanish) that towers over a ravine in the Chilean Andes, may be roughly...

Jul 2, 2022

When did Earth's first forests emerge?

From Earth's tallest living plants, California's redwoods, to the planet's largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon, stately forests may seem timeless. But like every species or ecosystem, they have a birth date. In fact, though plants first arrived on land about 470 million years ago, trees and forests didn't hit the...

Jul 13, 2022

Carnivorous Plant Snaps Shut With 600 Gs

A carnivorous plant that lives in bogs worldwide traps its prey in less than a millisecond, more than 100 times faster than a Venus flytrap can manage, a new study finds. The study is the first to capture a high-speed recording of the plant's traps snapping shut. Utricularia, a genus...

Oct 13, 2022

Is dehumidifier water good for plants?

It's important to recycle water where we can, but is dehumidifier water good for plants, and is it a viable way to be more sustainable at home? That's the question we'll be delving into in a bid to reduce our clean-water usage. To check out these valuable air quality appliances,...

Oct 14, 2022

Global Biosphere Images Reveal Changes in Plant Growth

A new series of NASA images illustrates how Earth's plant growth has changed over the past 11 years. The images are part of the series, World of Change: Global Biosphere. They show the yearly changes in plant growth between 1999 and 2008 based on data on chlorophyll on the ocean's...

Oct 14, 2022

Cunning Weed Sniffs Out Victims

It may look like a benign spaghetti noodle, but a bizarre parasitic plant has some cunning moves. When the stringy dodder plant emerges from the earth, it sniffs out a plant victim in the first known example of an amazing form of plant communication. Then it sucks the life out...

Oct 14, 2022

Trees Flirt with Death During Dry Periods

Tree growth in temperate forests is driven by availability of water and not by temperature as previously thought, new research suggests. In a first study of its kind, scientists looked at the survival mechanisms of cone-bearing trees such as pines and firs, in the harshly dry pre-monsoon seasons of the...

Oct 14, 2022

How Cacti Survive: Surprising Strategies Quench Thirst

Cacti have can be found in rain forests and as far north as Canada. But it is their ability to thrive in the desert, where rain falls infrequently and unpredictably, that is their most remarkable trait. How do they do it? By working nights, using alternative methods to generate energy...

Oct 14, 2022

Global Warming Sparks Increased Plant Production in Arctic Lakes

Biological activity in some Arctic lakes has ratcheted up dramatically over the past 150 years as a result of global warming, according to a new study. In six lakes, researchers dug deep into the sediment to measure the amount chlorophyll-a, the main pigment involved in photosynthesis. When plants convert sunlight...

Nov 3, 2022

What is photosynthesis?

Photosynthesis is the process used by plants, algae and some bacteria to turn sunlight into energy. The process chemically converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into food (sugars) and oxygen. The chemical reaction often relies on a pigment called chlorophyll, which gives plants their green color. Photosynthesis is also the...

Nov 16, 2022

New 'artificial' photosynthesis is 10x more efficient than previous attempts

A new method of artificial photosynthesis could get humans one step closer to using the machinery of plants to make fuels. The new system is 10 times more efficient than previous synthetic photosynthesis methods. While natural photosynthesis allows plants to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into carbohydrates using the...

Jan 30, 2023

Some carnivorous plants evolved to eat poop instead of bugs. And they're better off for it.

A group of former carnivorous plants have given up catching creepy crawlies and instead feed on animal poop. And it turns out these living toilets get more nutrients from their new diet than their insect-eating cousins, a new study shows. Tropical pitcher plants from the genus Nepenthes are carnivorous plants...

Feb 16, 2023

Plants 'slept' with curled leaves 250 million years ago, ancient insect bites reveal

Each night at sunset, a handful of plants fall asleep. Species as diverse as legumes and daisies curl up their leaves and petals for the evening and do not unfurl until morning. Now, a new study suggests that plants may have been folding their leaves at night for more than...

Feb 28, 2023

Otherworldly 'fairy lantern' plant, presumed extinct, emerges from forest floor in Japan

Scientists in Japan have rediscovered an extremely rare species of parasitic fairy lantern that was presumed to be extinct. The mysterious plant, Thismia kobensis, belongs to a rarely seen, fungus-sapping genus. The plants grow underground without photosynthesis yet send translucent flowers to sprout like ghostly lanterns from the forest floor....