Plants

  1. Plants

    This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers

    With only four known species, Langsdorffia are thieves stripped down to their essentials.

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  2. Tech

    Bubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination

    Drones are too clumsy to rub pollen on flowers and not damage them. But blowing pollen-laden bubbles may help the machines be better pollinators.

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  3. Life

    Pollen-deprived bumblebees may speed up plant blooming by biting leaves

    In a pollen shortage, some bees nick holes in tomato leaves that accelerate flowering, and pollen production, by weeks.

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  4. Chemistry

    Ancient recipes led scientists to a long-lost natural blue

    Led by medieval texts, scientists hunted down a plant and extracted from its tiny fruits a blue watercolor whose origins had long been a mystery.

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  5. Chemistry

    Beets bleed red but a chemistry tweak can create a blue hue

    A new blue dye derived from beet juice might prove an alternative to synthetic blue dyes in foods, cosmetics or fabrics.

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  6. Climate

    How Hurricane Maria’s heavy rains devastated Puerto Rico’s forests

    Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rican forests in some unexpected ways.

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  7. Animals

    A year of big numbers startled the world into talking about nature

    One million species are at risk. Three billion birds have been lost. Plus surges in Amazon burning.

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  8. Life

    A tree in Brazil’s arid northeast rains nectar from its flowers

    Northeast Brazil is home to a tree that entices bat pollinators by making a “sweet rain” of nectar.

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  9. Climate

    5 things to know about fighting climate change by planting trees

    One group’s idea of planting vast swaths of trees to curb climate change exaggerates the proposal’s power to trap carbon, some argue.

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  10. Ecosystems

    Can forensics help keep endangered rosewood off the black market?

    Timber traffickers are plundering the world’s forests, but conservationists have a new set of tools to fight deforestation.

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  11. Life

    A peek inside a turtle embryo wins the Nikon Small World photography contest

    The annual competition highlights the wonders to be found when scientists and photographers zoom in on the world around us.

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  12. Ecosystems

    Burrowing birds create pockets of rich plant life in a desert landscape

    Mounds of sand dug out by birds are hot spots for plants in Peru’s Atacama Desert, possibly providing a sheltered and moist area for seed germination.

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