plants

Plant roots grow and spread like neurons in the human brain, shocked scientists discover

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– Plant roots grow and spread like neurons in the human brain, shocked scientists discover:

A research project that was conducted by a team of researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California that was titled A Statistical Description of Plant Shoot Architecture and was published in the journal Current Biology, concluded that plants grow very similarly like neurons in the human brain.

Saket Navlakha, assistant professor in Salk’s Center for Integrative Biology and lead author of the study, said they were interested in finding the basic elements involved in a plant’s growth, noting, “Our project was motivated by the question of whether, despite all the diversity we see in plant forms, there is some form or structure they all share.”

Read morePlant roots grow and spread like neurons in the human brain, shocked scientists discover

Plants Absorbing More CO2 Than We Thought

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– Plants Absorbing More CO2 Than We Thought (Ice Age Now, Oct 17, 2014):

Climate models “have grossly underestimated the power of our plants,”says this article on Nature World News.

The models “failed to take into account that when carbon dioxide (CO2) builds up in the atmosphere, plants actually thrive, become larger, and are able to soak up more CO2.”

According to a new study, carbon acts like a fertilizer that accelerates plants growth.

Read morePlants Absorbing More CO2 Than We Thought

Why Environmentalists Are Celebrating Rising CO2 Levels

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– Al Gore backlash: Why environmentalists are celebrating rising CO2 levels (Natural News, June 2, 2013):

Thank goodness carbon dioxide levels are finally rising ever so slightly in our atmosphere, bringing much-needed carbon dioxide to the plants and forests of the world which have been starving for CO2. The lack of CO2 in the atmosphere is one of the most devastating limiting factors for plant growth and reforestation of the planet, and at just 400ppm — that’s just 400 micrograms per kilogram — carbon dioxide is so low that Earth’s plant life can barely breathe.

Editor’s note: I have added substantially to this story since it was first published in order to attempt to educate what appear to be a mass of brainwashed, mathematically illiterate commenters on Facebook who demonstrate a wholesale inability to process information with anything resembling rationality on this subject.

Let me clarify three things before we even get into the story:

Read moreWhy Environmentalists Are Celebrating Rising CO2 Levels

Biologist: Dramatic Damage To Fukushima Animals And Plants … Now Seen At The Level Of DNA

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– Biologist: We’ve seen dramatic effects on Fukushima’s animals & plants — Now we’re seeing it at the level of DNA (AUDIO) (ENENews, Aug 21, 2012):

Interview with Tim Mousseau
5 o’clock Shadow with Robert Knight
WBAI New York
Date: August 16, 2012

DR. TIMOTHY MOUSSEAU, University of South Carolina biologist, Chernobyl/Fukushima researcher, and author of “Maternal Effects as Adaptations”, discusses the etiology of radiation-based mutations and consequences of Fukushima’s nuclear blowout.

At 37:00 in

MOUSSEAU: The animals and plants that are living in Chernobyl and living in Fukushima, we’re seeing dramatic effects on the abundances, biodiversity, and now we’re seeing this at the level of the DNA.

Listen here

New Research: Plants May Communicate By Sound

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Scientists studying maize plants have found that the plants make clicking noises with their roots, and bend their roots toward similar sounds. (Selahattin BAYRAM/Photos.com)

– Plants May Communicate by Sound (Epoch Times, July 8, 2012):

Some plants may communicate by making clicking noises with their roots, according to new international research.

Using a microscanning laser Doppler vibrometer (a device to measure vibrations), the scientists recorded young maize plants making clicking noises with part of their roots. When the researchers broadcast similar sounds, the plants bent their roots toward it.

“Everyone knows that plants react to light, and scientists also know that plants use volatile chemicals to communicate with each other, for instance, when danger—such as a herbivore—approaches,” said study co-author Monica Gagliano from the University of Western Australia in a news release.

“I was working one day in my herb garden and started to wonder if maybe plants were also sensitive to sounds—why not?—so I decided as a scientist to find out.”

Read moreNew Research: Plants May Communicate By Sound

Germany Takes Stand against Patents on Plants and Animals: ‘Limits We Should Not Cross’

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The problem started with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980). Suddenly it was OK to patent life forms, were before life forms were considered a part of nature and were not patentable.

This ruling lead to corporations patenting the genes of everything they can think of that could later on bring them profit.

germany-takes-stand-against-patents-on-plants-and-animals
Should conventional breeding techniques be patentable?

German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner has spoken out against the patenting of varieties of livestock and plants. Her comments come as the European Patent Office prepares to rule in a test case with far-reaching implications for biological patents in Europe.

The German government wants to prevent the patenting of agricultural livestock and plants. “There are limits that we should not cross,” Germany’s Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection Ilse Aigner told SPIEGEL. In order to preserve genetic variety, farmers and breeders should not be handcuffed by biological patents, she argues.

Aigner, who is a member of the conservative Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, wants to make European rules regarding biological patents more precise. Although the agriculture minister does not oppose the patenting of new breeding procedures, she argues that the resulting whole organisms should not be patentable.

She is supported in her position by the parliamentary group of the opposition center-left Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD even goes one step further, arguing that neither conventional breeding methods nor whole organisms should be patentable.

Read moreGermany Takes Stand against Patents on Plants and Animals: ‘Limits We Should Not Cross’

Carbon Dioxide Air Fertilization Improves Plant Growth and Quality, Cuts Operating Costs While Increasing Production

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The Importance of Carbon Dioxide (Co2) for Healthy Plant Growth

Most of the applied research on greenhouse crops has dealt with effects of environmental conditions on plant growth. Factors such as water, light, temperature and nutrients are more easily controlled for optimum growth. It is now possible to also control and accurately measure Carbon Dioxide concentrations in greenhouse and Controlled Environment Garden (CEG) atmospheres.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) contributes to plant growth as part of the miracle of nature known as photosynthesis. This enables plants to combine Carbon Dioxide and water with the aid of light energy to form sugar. Some of these sugars are converted into complex compounds that increase dry solid plant substances for continued growth to final maturity. However, when the supply of carbon dioxide is cut off, or reduced, the complex plant cell structure cannot utilize the sun’s energy fully and growth or development is curtailed.

Read moreCarbon Dioxide Air Fertilization Improves Plant Growth and Quality, Cuts Operating Costs While Increasing Production

Scientists to capture DNA of trees worldwide for database

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The New York Botanical Garden may be best known for its orchid shows and colorful blossoms, but its researchers are about to lead a global effort to capture DNA from thousands of tree species from around the world.

The Bronx garden is hosting a meeting this week where participants from various countries will lay the groundwork for how the two-year undertaking to catalog some of the Earth’s vast biodiversity will proceed.

The project is known as TreeBOL, or tree barcode of life. As in a similar project under way focusing on the world’s fish species, participants would gather genetic material from trees around the world.

A section of the DNA would be used as a barcode, similar to way a product at the grocery store is scanned to bring up its price. But with plants and animals, the scanners look at the specific order of the four basic building blocks of DNA to identify the species.

The resulting database will help identify many of the world’s existing plant species, where they are located and whether they are endangered. The results are crucial for conservation and protecting the environment as population and development increases, said Damon Little, assistant curator of bioinformatics at the Botanical Garden and coordinator of the project.

(No way that this is only about identifying the species and finding out weather they are endangered or not.
What could a scientist possibly do with DNA?
Why have massive, high level security ‘Doomsday’ Seed Vaults been built just recently?
Just in case you have missed these articles:

‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Arctic

Investors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose (Part 2)

Hungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

African seed collection first to arrive in Norway on route to Arctic seed vault

Maybe, just maybe, could it be that this is more than a coincidence? …and there are no coincidences.
Maybe some of the – socially accepted – most powerful people in the world are expecting a catastrophe of epic proportions. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreScientists to capture DNA of trees worldwide for database