Flowers bounce back after injury, according to ScienceDaily 7 April 2020 and BBC News 8 April 2020, and New Phytologist 6 April 2020, doi: 10.1111/nph.16482. Several years ago Scott Armbruster, now a Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Portsmouth UK, was in Australia where he noticed a trigger plant that had been […]
Category: Plants
Antarctic Rainforest
Antarctic rainforest found, according to BBC News and ScienceDaily 1 April 2020, and Nature 2 April 2020, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2148-5. A team of scientists from Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have examined a core of rock from West Antarctica, approximately 900km from the South Pole and found it contained fossilised […]
Possum Pollination
Possum pollination found, as described in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 12 February 2020, In Defense of Plants 16 February 2020, and Ecology, 11 February 2020; doi: 10.1002/ecy.3001. Scientists in South America have studied an obscure plant named Scybalium fungiforme, that lives most of its life underground as root parasite, but does produce flowers that […]
Insect Pollination Extended By 50 Million Years
Insect pollination extended by 50 million years, claim scientists in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 11 November 2019, and PNAS 11 November 2019 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1916186116. Scientists from China, Germany and USA have studied a beetle preserved in Burmese amber and found it was carrying pollen grains from a flowering plant. The beetle belongs to a […]
“Good Coral Parenting” For Reef Recovery
“Good coral parenting” for reef recovery found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 16 September 2019 and Scientific Reports 16 September 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50045-y. Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with algae – single celled plants that provide the coral with a lot of nutrients, as well as giving the corals their colour. When the corals […]
Reef in No Trouble At All Says Expert
Reef in no trouble at all, says expert in an interview recorded by the Institute of Public Affairs. Dismissed university Professor Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist at James Cook University, made the following comments about the Great Barrier Reef: “When you bury down to the data about that bleaching event in 2016, at the extreme […]
Rising Seas Will Drown Mangroves
Rising seas will drown mangroves, claim Australian scientists in a report in ABC News 1 July 2019. Scientists at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory of Australia are studying mangrove swamps to assess the effect of climate change and rising sea levels. According to Madeline Goddard, one of the researchers, “Across the world the […]
Fossil ‘Meteorite Impact Dino Graveyard’,
Fossil ‘meteorite impact dino graveyard’, according to reports in BBC News, National Geographic and ScienceDaily 29 March 2019, CNN and Science News 1 April 2019, and PNAS published online 1 April 2019, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1817407116. Palaeontologists in North Dakota USA have found a fossil graveyard they claim was formed as a result of the impact of […]
Oldest Fossil Flowers
Oldest fossil flowers found, according to articles in ScienceDaily 18 December 2018 and Live Science 19 December 2019, and eLife 18 December 2018, doi: 10.7554/eLife.38827.001. An international group of scientists has studied 34 rock slabs containing 198 specimens of a previously unknown fossil flower. The fossils are from the South Xiangshan Formation, an outcrop of […]
Weevil Larvae at Sea
Weevil larvae at sea according articles in Journal of Experimental Biology, 13 December 2018, doi: 10.1242/jeb.195792. Flightless insects and small invertebrates are found all over the world, including remote islands. In order to get to such places they must cross long stretches of ocean. Even if they are carried on rafts of vegetation they will […]