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Pistil leads pollen in life-and-death dance

By Guest PostJuly 17, 2013Nature, Sciencealexander leydon, biomolecular tango, brown university, cross breeding, female ovule, fertilization, flowers, karolina woroniecka, kristin beale, life on earth, male pollen tube, mark johnson, pistil, pollination, protein, reproduce, reproductive system, sex lives, sperm carrying pollen, stigma, thionin

Pollination, essential to much of life on earth, requires the explosive death of the male pollen tube in the female ovule. In new research, Brown University scientists describe the genetic and regulatory factors that compel the male’s role in the process. Finding a way to tweak that performance could expand crop cross-breeding possibilities.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Millions of times on a spring day there is a dramatic biomolecular tango where the flower, rather than adorning a dancer’s teeth, is the performer. In this dance, the female pistil leads, the male pollen tubes follow, and at the finish, the tubes explode and die. A new paper in Current Biology describes the genetically prescribed dance steps of the pollen tube and how their expression destines the tube for self-sacrifice, allowing flowering plants to reproduce. (more…)

Going wild could improve winged workforce

By Guest PostJune 25, 2013Environment, Naturealmonds, apples, bee, blueberries, bumble bee, bumble bee gyrations, canada, cherries, crops, flower bee interactions, flowers, going wild, jason gibbs, michigan state university, michigan team, North America, pollination, raspberries, rufus isaacs, spring, strawberries, united states, wild populations, winged workforce

Every spring in the United States, bees pollinate crops valued at about $14 billion.

A Michigan State University professor and a team of scientists are using a five-year, $8.6 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to keep this winged workforce operating efficiently.

Almonds, strawberries, apples, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, cucumbers and more depend on bees to help maximize yields. But with wild honey bee populations decimated by varroa mites and other threats, farmers are dependent on beekeepers to deliver managed colonies of honey bees during peak pollination to ensure their flowers are pollinated. (more…)

UK Mums Are Keen Online Shoppers

By Guest PostDecember 9, 2011TechnologyComscore, demographic analysis, ea online, Europe, european markets, females, flowers, france, Germany, gifts, Google, household, internet usage in europe, italy, online, top online destination, turkey, uk mothers, united kingdom, vimeo

*comScore Releases Overview of European Internet Usage for October 2011*

LONDON, UK, 9 December 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of internet usage in Europe, showing 376.6 million unique visitors went online in October 2011 for an average of 27.8 hours per person. This study highlights internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. The study also analysed the online behaviour of mothers, defined as females age 25 and older with children in the household, showing their heavy propensity to visit retail sites. (more…)

Under Pressure: Germanium

By Guest PostApril 11, 2011Scienceatomic number, China, condensed matter, condensed matter theory, crystal structures, element, fiber optic systems, flowers, germanium, ho kwang mao, next generation computer architecture, phonons, pressure, series of phase transitions, superconductivity, vibrations, viktor struzhkin, xiao-jia chen

Washington, D.C. — Although its name may make many people think of flowers, the element germanium is part of a frequently studied group of elements, called IVa, which could have applications for next-generation computer architecture as well as implications for fundamental condensed matter physics.

New research conducted by Xiao-Jia Chen, Viktor Struzhkin, and Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao from Geophysical Laboratory at Carnegie Institution for Science, along with collaborators from China, reveals details of the element’s transitions under pressure. Their results show extraordinary agreement with the predictions of modern condensed matter theory. (more…)

How Nature’s Patterns Form

By Guest PostFebruary 23, 2011Nature, Sciencealan newell, applied stress, bracts, d'arcy wentworth thompson, evolution, fingerprints, florets, flower arrangements, flowers, good poem, how plants grow, leopards, mari n jensen, mathematical biologist, mathematical models, mathematics, on growth and form, patterns, sand ripples, stickers, the universal nature of fibonacci patterns, universal features

*Alan Newell, a UA mathematics professor, studies patterns in nature, which he said have features that are universal*

When people on airplanes ask Alan Newell what he works on, he tells them “flower arrangements.”

He could also say “fingerprints” or “sand ripples” or “how plants grow.” (more…)

Online Access to the Plants of the World Is Available

By Guest PostJanuary 12, 2011Nature, Scienceafrican plants, biodiversity, digital scanner, ecologist, eldredge bermingham, Europe, flowers, global plants initiative, green tendrils, helene muller landau, herbaria, herbarium sheets, jstor, jungle, latin american, mireya correa, North America, online database, plants, pollen grains, university of panama

*The Global Plants Initiative Meets at the Smithsonian in Panama Jan. 11-13*

For centuries, jungle explorers from Europe and North America have created art of the plants they discover—pressing bright flowers and green tendrils onto herbarium sheets for prestigious museums and plant collections. But scientists in the most biodiverse countries lack easy access to this basic information needed to identify plants. The Global Plants Initiative, meeting Jan. 11-13 at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, catapults biodiversity research to a new level, sharing plant collections in a massive online database of high-resolution scans. (more…)

What “Pine” Cones Reveal About the Evolution of Flowers

By Guest PostDecember 15, 20101 commentScienceafrica, angiosperms, arabidopsis, australia, avocado flowers, bees, bottlebrush, california poppy, conifers, cycads, doug soltis, floral organ, flowering plants, flowers, genetic fossils, genetic origin, gymnosperms, pine cone, pineapple lily, plant life, pollination agents, seed bearing plants, tepals, zamia, zamia furfuracea

*Research genetically traces flowers to a single common ancestor*

From southern Africa’s pineapple lily to Western Australia’s swamp bottlebrush, flowering plants are everywhere. Also called angiosperms, they make up 90 percent of all land-based, plant life.

New research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides new insights into their genetic origin, an evolutionary innovation that quickly gave rise to many diverse flowering plants more than 130 million years ago. Moreover, a flower with genetic programming similar to a water lily may have started it all. (more…)

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