Tracking the sun Sunflowers track the sun during the day, while by night they ‘reset’ themselves, ready to start the morning by facing east. A process that scientists have called heliotropism, or the following of the sun. The regulatory mechanism behind this is still unknown, even though researchers from the University of California try toContinue reading “Tracking the sun”
Category Archives: Development
Carrot history
Carrot history This time I would like to talk about carrots. About the ever-present orange one, but also about the white, yellow, and purple variants. A group of American and Polish researchers resequenced the genome of 630 carrot variants. Through doing this they deciphered a lot about its history and its orange colour. Wild carrotsContinue reading “Carrot history”
Sensitive to touch
Sensitive to touch Environmental signals help to optimize growth. In this way tells the ratio red versus far-red light if there is an obstructing neighbouring plant. But a touch is also informative. Now Dutch researchers discovered how a plant perceives this kind of long duration touch. When the ratio red versus far-red light tells thatContinue reading “Sensitive to touch”
Warm flowers
Warm flowers We associate warm-bloodedness, or to be more precise the regulation of body temperature through burning nutrients, with animals. With mammals and birds, but not really with plants. There are however, also plants that regulate their temperature independent of their environment. Mostly they do this for a specific organ, for example, their flowers. OneContinue reading “Warm flowers”
Plant en Zo 