Ecosystems
Desert cities get powerful tree shade but miss out on the cooling effect that works elsewhere
Las Vegas trees create 17°C shade oases but can’t cool city air like temperate climates due to desert adaptations that limit transpiration.
The Week in Botany
The Week in Botany June 23, 2025
This week, extreme weather in the Amazon, extreme control of agriculture, David Alors on the challenges of expeditions, and more…
Growth & Development
The Best Way to Farm on the Moon Uses Barely Any Fertiliser
Adding tiny amounts of organic waste transforms sterile lunar dust into farmland, but the secret lies in managing competing bacterial communities around plant roots.
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Why won’t your African Violets stay the same colour?
Your colour-changing African violets aren’t misbehaving. They’re using sophisticated molecular switches that regulate their genes.
Ecosystems
Wet Gets Wetter, Dry Gets Drier in the Amazon Rainforest
As seasons get more extreme in the Amazon, weather patterns will shift across South America, threatening both indigenous communities and economic stability.
The Week in Botany
The Week in Botany June 16, 2025
This week, we have primroses in the rough, plants growing tough, midnight science in the botany lab, and more.
Cells, Genes & Molecules
The genetic prison that traps a ghost plant
Why would you make leaves that are all cost and no benefit? A ghost plant puzzle is solved.
The Week in Botany
The Week in Botany June 9, 2025
This week, the importance of passion in plant science, mass extinctions that aren’t, the surprising complexity of your garden and more…
Ecosystems
The hidden complexity of pollinator networks in gardens
What might appear to be one network of plants and pollinators may in fact be many.
Ecosystems
Is it time to kill the “Mass Extinction” concept?
A story popular in New Scientist at the moment questions what we know of the deep past, and it has a plant twist.
News in Brief
How Heliamphora turns a first date into a last meal
Researchers at Colorado State University have found the genetic basis of attraction – if you’re a carnivorous plant seeking prey.
Ecosystems
The search for gold risks losing treasure
Amazon gold mining leaves forests unable to heal for centuries, because miners carelessly turn the landscape into a giant sieve.