The moss Lycopodium serratum is a creeping, flowerless plant containing a potent brew of alkaloids that have attracted scientific interest thanks to their possible anti-cancer properties. However, analyzing the medicinal properties of these chemicals has been next to impossible as the plant makes them in extremely low amounts. But that’s no longer a problem for […]
Ice in Antarctica appeared suddenly (in geologic terms) about 35 million years ago, after more than 100 million years of being relatively ice-free. Scientists have long puzzled over what triggered the formation of Antarctica’s massive ice-sheets, as no evidence of global cooling during the period had been found. “Previous evidence points paradoxically to a stable […]
In research with profound implications for public health, scientists have created entirely new strains of infectious prions in the laboratory by simply mixing infectious prions from one species with the normal prion proteins of another species. According to the scientists’ report in Cell, the new prions produced symptoms in laboratory animals that differ from any […]
It isn’t just humans that have problems with nicotine. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have found that certain plants use nicotine to increase the number of visits by birds and other pollinators, thus spreading their pollen more effectively and increasing their own genetic diversity. The findings appear in The Plant Journal. […]
Ohio State University molecular biologist Richard Sayre says that the genetically modified cassava plants he has developed could help solve food shortages in Africa and other nations. His study, appearing in Plant Biotechnology Journal, reports that his genetically modified cassava plants produced roots that were an average of 2.6 times larger than those produced by […]
