Botany Archives

Microbes Help Plants Survive Heavy Metal Stress

April 18, 2019December 12, 2023 Science Connectedmicrobes, soil fungi, soil microbiome

By Radhika Desikan When you hear the term heavy metal, what do you think of? Music or chemistry? Exposure to heavy metal music can cause stress in some humans. But what about chemical heavy metals? Are they good or bad for the environment and living organisms? In chemical terms, heavy metals are elements in earth’s crust that have a high density (weight), and they include zinc, copper, iron, silver, gold, arsenic, lead, and cobalt, to name a few. While trace amounts of heavy metals such as copper, iron, cobalt, and…

Anthropology Biology Botany Chemistry

Leaf Age Matters for Plant Survival

April 11, 2019April 3, 2019 Science Connectedbotany, plant communication

By Radhika Desikan Does age really matter? For us humans, age seems to be a very sensitive issue relevant to how we live our lives. And while it also matters to plants, it does so at a different level. Some of our tissues, like skin, have cells that are constantly dividing (to replace dead cells) and therefore differ in age, but what defines our age as an organism is not the life span of individual cells in our body, but rather the length of time that has passed since our…

Biology Botany

Plants Communicate with Neighbors in Response to Touch

March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 Science Connectedcommunication, plant communication, plants

By Radhika Desikan How well do you and your neighbour know each other? Chances are, very little these days. But some living things, including plants, know their neighbours well. According to new research, it appears that what one plant “feels” can also be sensed by its neighbouring plant. Isn’t that remarkable? It is a fact of life that plants do not move from one place to another. Therefore plants, unlike humans, cannot move away from any impending danger, be it a herbivore, a disease-causing microbe, or even the cold and…

Biology Botany Chemistry

To Grow or Not to Grow? Bacteria Make Seeds Think!

February 7, 2019December 12, 2023 Science Connectedbacteria, plants, seeds

By Radhika Desikan A seed is the beginning of new life for most flowering plants. It has all the potential to develop into a new plant, with its own stored food used for germination (the sprouting of a seed). However, if you have done any gardening, you might know that not all seeds always germinate. Whether or not a seed grows into a plant is determined by a number of factors, such as the presence of oxygen, water, and the right temperature. Seeds have a remarkable ability to detect whether…

Biology Botany

Do We Really Need Fertilizers To Grow Crops?

January 24, 2019March 5, 2021 Science Connectedagriculture, crops, fertilizers, plants

Plants need nitrogen, and many plants depend on fertilizers to get enough. But scientists have been growing plants without fertilizers. By Radhika Desikan We all learn that plants can make their own food via a complex process called photosynthesis. However, to make their food, and to grow properly, plants need nutrients (chemicals) such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium from the soil. Although these chemicals are naturally present in most soils, years of intensive farming have depleted soils of these nutrients. As a result, humans have resorted to using artificial…

Astronomy and Astrophysics Biology Botany

Space Farming Is More Than Just Plants

December 13, 2018March 21, 2021 Science Connectedagriculture, experiments in space, life in space, space exploration, space farming

Scientists studied how plants can grow better in conditions that mimic microgravity in space, highlighting the prospects of future space farming.

Biology Botany Physics

How Do Plants Know Which Way to Grow?

October 10, 2018December 12, 2023 Science Connectedbiology, botany, environment, gravity, plants

How do plants know which way is up and which way is down? No matter which way you put a seed in the soil, it will always send its roots down and its shoots up.

Botany Environment

California’s Urban Forests Have Lowest Tree Cover per Resident

January 23, 2018July 15, 2021 Science Connectedcalifornia, forests, trees, urban

Valued at $181 billion, California’s urban forests cover 90.8 square meters (109 square yards) per city resident, the lowest of all US states. By Neha Jain California’s urban forests are not just a pretty sight; they are an asset valued at a whopping $181 billion, finds a new study. But, according to the study, the state’s urban tree cover at 90.8 square meters (109 square yards) per city resident is the lowest among all US states. The good news is that there are 236 million spots available for more trees…

Botany Citizen Science

Citizen Scientists Invited to Identify Plants

September 21, 2017September 21, 2017 Science Connectedplants

By Kate Stone @GotScienceOrg Pl@ntNet is a citizen science project and an app that helps you identify plants, thanks to the camera of your smartphone. The app recognizes more than 13,000 species around the world. We recently spoke with Rémi Knaff, community manager for the project, about plant identification and citizen science. GotScience: Who can use this plant identification tool? Knaff: The app can be used by anyone who is interested in plants or wants to be part of a citizen science project. The app uses crowdsourced data to give…

Botany Ecology Zoology

Chemicals Used on Almond Trees Linked to Bee Deaths

August 1, 2017August 8, 2023 Science Connectedbees, pesticides

While the demand for almonds is growing worldwide, honeybee populations have been steadily declining. Are almond-growing fungicides to blame?