Wildflowers increasingly doing without insect pollinators

Scientists at the CNRS and the University of Montpellier have discovered that flowering plants growing in farmland are increasingly doing without insect pollinators. As reproduction becomes more difficult for them in an environment ...

Hair finds new roots as urban farming growth medium

The clumps of discarded hair on the salon floor could one day help to grow your lunchtime salad, thanks to scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), who have created the growth medium used ...

Soybean virus may give plant-munching bugs a boost in survival

Most viral infections negatively affect an organism's health, but one plant virus in particular—soybean vein necrosis orthotospovirus, often referred to as SVNV—may actually benefit a type of insect that commonly feeds ...

Israeli scientists produce energy from plants

Israeli scientists say they have produced hydrogen from plants in a development that they hope could eventually lead to using vegetation to produce electricity.

Helping plant nurseries reduce runoff

You may have heard how excess nutrients, such as phosphorus, can run off of crop fields. This can cause harm when the nutrients end up in rivers and lakes. However, there are other sources of excess nutrients you might not ...

Mobile, instant diagnosis of viruses

In a first for plant virology, a team from CIRAD recently used nanopore technology to sequence the entire genomes of two yam RNA viruses. This little-used but promising molecular biology technique paves the way for new tools ...

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