Author: tegan
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Just like humans, these monkeys use plants to self-medicate
Observations of Brazilian monkeys shows once again that humans aren’t the only ones to use plants as medicine.… Read more
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Rat chews tree for added poison damage
The crested rat chews the poison arrow plant, extracting a deadly plant poison that is then smeared on its fur for defence.… Read more
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This AI looks at plants all day, so you don’t have to
A new machine-learning based pipeline that could help phenotype plants en masse, might just break a major bottleneck in the process of understanding what plant genes really do.… Read more
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Every family has an oddball cousin, here’s Arabidopsis’
While the rest of us were distracted by the events of 2020, a desert plant quietly announced itself as a new cousin to the plant lab rat, Arabidopsis.… Read more
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This plant survived the dinosaur end days, but so did its insect pests
Agathis trees have survived since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but throughout the ages, tiny burrowing insects have made their life hard.… Read more
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Deliberately making mistakes
Scientists, ultimately, want to understand things. And while true understanding, often comes through patience and skill – months or years of careful observation and measured experimentation – a lot of the time, the fastest way to understand something, is to F*** that something up.… Read more
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The plant that hides from human eyes
Intense commercial harvesting of the alpine plant Fritillaria delavayi, which is used in traditional chinese medicine, may be driving the selection of duller, more camouflaged plants.… Read more
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Why do the leaves turn red?
Autumn leaf colours have amazed the public for all of human history… and puzzled scientists for just as long. While the orange, yellow and brown hues of autumn can be easily understood, the stunning reds that some species display remain in question.… Read more
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What happens when you put a plant in the dark?
Plants rely on light to survive- without it, they can’t photosynthesise. Of course, like us, plants are used to normal light-dark cycles. But what happens when the lights just don’t come back on?… Read more
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Trick or treat: plants that beat up bees
The orchid family, Orchidaceae, contains over 750 genera, yet it is the Catasetum genus that has earned a description from non other than Darwin himself as ‘the most remarkable of all Orchids’. Probably because, while other pollinated plants like to offer their pollinators a treat, Catasetum orchids also bring the trick.… Read more