Plants

Plants

Plants don’t grow well when always on high alert

Plants make bitter-tasting chemicals to defend themselves against hungry bugs. But they pay a cost for always being on alert, scientists find.

Plants

The plant world has some true speed demons

Some plants can fling, snap and hop at dizzying speeds. Such botanical gymnastics gives lie to the idea that all plants are slow, boring stick-in-the-muds.

Plants

Ouch! Lemons and other plants can cause a special sunburn

These are among a host of plants (many found in the refrigerator vegetable drawer) that produce chemicals that will kill skin cells when activated by sunlight. The result can be a serious, localized sunburn — sometimes with blistering.

Physics

An ancient plant inspires a new lab tool

Researchers have designed a lab tool that moves liquids from one place to another by mimicking a plant called a liverwort.

Plants

Scientists Say: Invasive species

These are foreign species that are causing problems for native organisms and ecosystems.

Climate

Analyze This: Climate change could make food less healthy

Levels of important nutrients are lower in crops exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. How high? Try levels expected to be typical 30 years from now.

Plants

Venus flytraps tend not to eat their pollinators

A first-ever study of what pollinates a Venus flytrap finds little overlap between the critters that serve as pollinators and those that are prey.

Plants

Blooms on ‘chocolate’ tree are crazy-hard to pollinate

The cacao trees must be pollinated or those seeds that give us chocolate will never form. The rub: The trees’ flowers challenge all but some of the tiniest pollen-moving insects.

Plants

Increasingly, chocolate-makers turn to science

Chocolate is delicious and may even have health benefits. To make sure there’s enough to go around, scientists are growing heartier cacao trees.

Ecosystems

Here’s why scientists have been fertilizing the Arctic

For more than 30 years, scientists have been fertilizing small parcels of Arctic tundra. Here’s what happens when you push an ecosystem to the brink.

Plants

Explainer: The fertilizing power of N and P

Two elements — nitrogen and phosphorus — help plants grow. When the soil doesn’t have them, farmers might add them in the form of fertilizer.

Environment

Tropics may now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb

Analyses of satellite images suggest that degraded forests now release more carbon than they store.