Flowering plants reinvented weediness by outcompeting ancient plants

October 5th, 2009 SYDNEY - The discovery of a piece of fossilized amber that came from a plant living more than 300 million years ago, has led scientists to suggest that flowering plants may have started to appear a lot earlier than previously believed. It is believed that flowering plants only started to show up in the fossil record at the beginning of the Cretaceous period, around 120 million years ago.

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A long-term study of the Africanized bee invasion of Mexico's Yucatan shows that invading 'killer bees' may actually increase food resources for native bees. Aggressive African bees were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957.

October 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists in China have discovered that a natural plant hormone, applied to crops, can help plants eliminate residues of certain pesticides. The study, by scientist Jing Quan Yu and colleagues, noted that pesticides are essential for sustaining food production for the world's growing population.

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by scientists has predicted the effect of global warming on spring flowers by the year 2080. Data, taken from records dating back to the late nineteenth century, has been used to demonstrate the impact of global warming and to predict the effect further warming will have on plant life by 2080.

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Chinese researchers have discovered a natural plant hormone that can help plants eliminate residues of certain pesticides. Researchers have been seeking new ways of minimizing pesticide residues that remain in food crops after harvest - with little success.

September 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology have discovered a key missing link in the so-called signaling pathway for plant steroid hormones. Many important signaling pathways are relays of molecules that start at the cell surface and cascade to the nucleus to regulate genes.

August 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has discovered signaling pathway that ensures plants remember to flower, even without positive signals from the environment. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany found the solution to the mystery that why do some plants blossom even when days are short and gray.

July 7th, 2009 LONDON - A new research has determined that due to their huge sizes, dinosaurs were the 'couch potatoes' of the prehistoric world. According to a report in the Telegraph, the research was done by Dr McNab from the University of Florida.

July 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have constructed a new time-calibrated family tree for ferns, which has indicated that while modern tropical rain forests were becoming established, ferns climbed aboard, and experienced a flowering of their own species diversity. The family tree for ferns was created by Duke University researcher Eric Schuettpelz, along with associate professor Kathleen Pryer.

June 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has determined that it apparently took a long time to get the Agricultural Revolution off the ground, with discoveries at a Jordan site indicating that ancient granaries, more than 11,000 years old, preceded the advent of modern agriculture. Excavations at Dhra' near the Dead Sea in Jordan have uncovered remnants of four sophisticated granaries built between 11,300 and 11,175 years ago, about a millennium before domesticated plants were known to have been cultivated there.

June 22nd, 2009 LONDON - Plants do talk to one another to warn about predators, and are "capable of more sophisticated behaviour than we imagined", according to a new study. Researchers from the University of California and Kyoto University have found that subtle chemical messages to discuss pollinators such as bees, potential dangers and even animals, which might attack their enemies.

June 6th, 2009 LONDON - A study of the giant trees and beautiful flowers depicted in Maya art has identified which plants they held sacred. According to a report by BBC News, the depictions, created during the Maya Classic Period, are so accurate they could help researchers spot plants with hitherto unknown medicinal uses.

May 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study is helping shed light on the mystery of the sudden origin of flowering plants about 130 million years ago, with information about what the first flowers looked like and how they evolved from non-flowering plants. "There was nothing like them before and nothing like them since," said Andre Chanderbali, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral associate at Unifersity of Florida's (UF's) Florida Museum of Natural History.

May 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found that rare and unique ecological communities will be lost if oceanic islands aren't adequately considered in a global conservation plan. Although islands tend to harbor fewer species than continental lands of similar size, plants and animals found on islands often live only there, making protection of their isolated habitats our sole chance to preserve them.

April 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the University of Chicago have identified a novel compound that primes a plant's immune system, which may lead to the development of disease-resistant plants. The team, which includes Tim Tschaplinski of the Department of Energy's ORNL, has determined that azelaic acid has a role in priming the immunity response in Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard.