“Impossible” dandelion flight described, in Nature News and ScienceDaily 17 October 2018, and Nature 17 October 2018, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0604-2. Anyone who has tried to keep dandelions from taking over their gardens and lawns knows how efficiently these plants spread their flying seeds. Each dandelion seed is suspended under a parachute-like structure called a pappus, formed […]
John Mackay and Joseph Hubbard have found some great fossils in the Newcastle Coal Measures, on the east coast of Australia. These included fossil thorns on what seems to be a previously unrecorded species of Neuropteris, a seed fern. Regardless of what the classification finally turns out to be it means one challenging thing, so […]
Did dinosaurs stop to smell the flowers? According to articles in ScienceDaily 7 August 2018 and Historical Biology, doi: 10.1080/08912963.2018.1502288 published online 25 July 2018, they could have. Many flowers attract pollinators by producing fragrances. George Poinar, an entomologist at Oregon State University and his son Greg, a perfume collector, have examined fossil flowers found […]
Dinosaur food experiment described in ScienceDaily and Palaeontology, doi: 10.1111/pala.12385. Dinosaur experts have long been intrigued by how giant sauropods were able to get enough food to provide energy and maintain their large bodies. One theory is that the levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air were higher in Mesozoic eras and plants therefore […]
Plant parasite evolved by gene loss, according to reports in Eurekalert 11 July 2018 and Nature Communications 11 July 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04721-8. Scientists in China have studied the genome and pattern of gene expression in a parasitic plant named Cuscuta australis, otherwise known as Australian dodder or southern dodder, to find out how parasitic plants […]
Upright plants explained in reports in ScienceDaily 2 May 2018, and PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1801895115, published online 30 April 2018. Plants are exquisitely sensitive to being tilted, and will change their growth direction to keep growing upwards if knocked off the vertical by only a few degrees. It has long been known that plants sense the […]
Clams recycle urea for algae, according to reports in Inside JEB 19 April 2018, and Journal of Experimental Biology 14 March 2018, doi: 10.1242/jeb.176313. Giant clams live in close symbiotic relationship with marine algae known as zooxanthellae, which produce nutrients for the clam by photosynthesis. The algae can make sugars from carbon dioxide and water, […]
How opalescent algae glow, as reported in Science (AAAS) News 13 April 2018 ScienceDaily 17 April 2018 and Live Science 20 April 2018 and Science Advances 11 April 2018 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aan8917. Scientists at University of Bristol have studied the microscopic structure of a seaweed named Cystoseira tamariscifolia, which grows and glows in the tidal regions […]
Grass eating shark found, according to Science (AAAS) News 7 January 2018 and Sci-News 9 January 2018. The bonnethead shark is a small coastal dwelling shark that forages for food amongst the seagrass meadows along the coasts of southern USA and the Gulf of Mexico. In 2007 environmental scientists examined the stomach contents of bonnethead […]
Rain spreads crop diseases, according to an article in ScienceDaily 20 November 2017. Previous research has shown that raindrops can spread microscopic pathogens, i.e. disease causing bacteria, viruses and fungi. A team of researchers at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech have now studied how the spread actually happens, using laser […]