Plant Cuttings
Good things come in small packages
And few eukaryotic things are smaller than diatoms, unicellular algae that are common, numerous and taxonomically extremely diverse, particularly in the oceans. Small? Yes, typically 20
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Tracing the roots – stems, leaves, fruits… – of modern botany
Ancient Botany. Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin. Routledge, 2016. What do you get if you combine the academic interests of a marine phycologist with those of
Plant Cuttings
Curious case of Cape coprobotany
Now, and please be honest, if you saw an article entitled, “Faecal mimicry by seeds ensures dispersal by dung beetles” you’d want to read it, right?
Plant Cuttings
Plants and Pinatubo, Prestahnukur, Popocatépetl…
Plants are generally sessile organisms that, unlike their puny animal ‘cousins’, can’t get up and run away if the environment is not to their liking.
Plant Cuttings
Burning trees? Give me a break…
The high flammability of plant material, fuelled by photosynthesis and oxygen production, poses a significant problem, especially in wildfires.
Plant Cuttings
Coping with phenol-rich foodstuffs
Researchers discovered that earthworms produce drilodefensins, metabolites that counteract the inhibitory effects of polyphenols on their gut enzymes, enabling them to digest these well-defended leaves.
Plant Cuttings
Noble plant wins Nobel Prize!
A lack of a Nobel prize in Biology makes botanical Nobel prizes rare.
Plant Cuttings
All’s fir in love and war
Nigel Chaffey discovers there is a fountain of youth, but only if you’re a firebug.
Plant Cuttings
Plants, given a helping hand
I’ve been known to remind my students that just because testing demonstrates presence of e.g. ‘phosphate’ in a soil sample that doesn’t necessarily
Plant Cuttings
It’s all about technique
A close eye on microscopy.
![Location, Location, Location [Or, Why rice is thrice as nice (maybe…)]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/eb/2eeb2fa9-78ad-4718-9c6b-8b5b05545bf6/content/images/size/w600/botany-one/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/riceimage.jpg)
Plant Cuttings
Location, Location, Location [Or, Why rice is thrice as nice (maybe…)]
Arguably, one of humankind’s greatest achievements is agriculture [“the art and science of growing plants and other crops and the raising of animals for food,
Plant Cuttings
Grounds for climate change optimism?
Waste coffee grounds can be treated to create a material with a high capacity for methane storage, potentially providing a renewable energy source.