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Snacking helps Drosera’s appetite
A paper by Pavlovič et al. has caught my eye this week. Feeding on prey increases photosynthetic efficiency in the carnivorous sundew Drosera capensis has moved
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The most efficient trap isn’t always the most deadly trap
Pitchers plants are carnivorous. They catch small animals, usually insects to gain nutrients like Nitrogen. You’d expect that they’d evolve their traps to be
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Deadly competition between parasites
There’s an interesting paper out in Nature Communications: Coinfection alters population dynamics of infectious disease. The paper is the study of Plantago lanceolata a common
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How do you make someone excited about #Botany – Dr M?
Dr M has taken his brand of eXtreme botany to the Association of Science Education Conference.
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Where did your cells come from?
Where did your complex cells come from? A new model literally turns an old theory inside out.
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Do changes in water levels in wetlands give plants a backbone?
The usual rule whenever a headline asks a silly question is that answer is no, and that’s the same here because plants don’t have
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Laughing gas no laughing matter for climate change
There’s an interesting article published in PLOS One that I like. It’s one of these things that’s very clever, but the basic idea
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Inflorescences take centre stage
Annals of Botany has a new special issue in Free Access: Inflorescences. It’s a useful reminder to me of another area of Botany I need
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The Guardian tackles the ethics of rewilding
The Guardian posted an interesting article yesterday from Tori Herridge: Mammoths are a huge part of my life. But cloning them is wrong. I’ll concede
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Microgravity and chromosome damage
The Karyological Observations of Krikorian and O’Connor look at plant material from flights STS-2 and STS-3 of the Space Shuttle. STS-2, among
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Use it or lose it, for a plant’s sense of gravity?
Gravitropism is the ability of a plant to turn in response to gravity. Roots have gravitropism, bending to turn down and stems negative gravitropism to turn
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Is there a downside for plants when they can’t sense ‘up’?
Looking at a tree, it can be hard to visualise the sheer volume of water being drawn up from the roots to the canopy. That volume