Articles for category: Plants

Why Your Lawn Might Be a Desert for Biodiversity (And How to Fix It)

Why Your Lawn Might Be a Desert for Biodiversity (And How to Fix It)

Annette Uy

Picture this: you walk outside your front door and see that perfect emerald carpet stretching across your yard. The grass is trimmed to an exact height, the edges are crisp, and not a single dandelion dares to interrupt this green perfection. You feel proud for a moment—then you realize what you might actually be looking ...

8 Incredible Ways Plants Adapt to Extreme Environments

8 Incredible Ways Plants Adapt to Extreme Environments

Sumi

Some plants quietly survive where no sensible living thing should. Scalding deserts, salt-crusted coasts, frozen mountaintops, oxygen-starved bogs – places that seem completely hostile, yet somehow still green. When you start to look closely at how plants manage this, the story is honestly more gripping than most survival movies. These adaptations aren’t just cute trivia ...

The Secret Lives of Trees: How Forests Communicate Underground

The Secret Lives of Trees: How Forests Communicate Underground

Sumi

Walk into a forest and it feels still, almost silent. But beneath your feet, an entire hidden world is buzzing with activity, like a crowded city where no one ever sleeps. Trees are not just standing there; they’re sensing, reacting, warning, feeding, and even quietly competing with one another through an underground network we’re only ...

The Science of Spell Ingredients: How Folk Potions Mirror Modern Medicine

Resurrecting Recipes: What We’ve Relearned From Ancient Medical Texts

Trizzy Orozco

Imagine standing in a candlelit room, surrounded by the scent of crushed herbs, as someone carefully transcribes remedies from a crumbling, centuries-old manuscript. In recent years, scientists and historians have dusted off the pages of ancient medical texts, only to discover that some of humanity’s oldest healing recipes are more than folklore—they’re blueprints for botanical ...

10 Unique Plants With Abilities That Seem Straight Out of Science Fiction

10 Unique Plants With Abilities That Seem Straight Out of Science Fiction

Sumi

Some plants don’t just grow; they perform. They move, hunt, count, glow, aim, and even remember in ways that feel almost unsettling, as if nature quietly wrote its own sci‑fi script long before humans imagined one. When you look closely at these strange species, the familiar idea of a “simple plant” pretty much falls apart. ...

Green trees inside a greenhouse in Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens’ Biggest Expansion in a Decade: How 300+ Wild Plant Seeds Are Being Preserved

Trizzy Orozco

Kew Gardens, renowned for its vast botanical collections and contributions to global plant conservation, marks an exciting milestone with its largest expansion in a decade. Over 300 wild plant species are now under preservation, ensuring their survival amidst the growing threats of climate change and habitat destruction. This monumental effort not only strengthens conservation outreach ...

How Trees Remember Climate: Secrets Locked in Tree Rings and Their Stories

How Trees Remember Climate: Secrets Locked in Tree Rings and Their Stories

Annette Uy

Imagine standing in a silent forest, the crisp air tingling on your skin, surrounded by towering giants that have witnessed centuries unfold. What if I told you these trees are not just passive spectators, but living historians—each trunk a time capsule, each ring a secret diary entry about Earth’s changing climate? The story of tree ...

A technician using a microtome at the Advanced Technology Research Facility.

Ben Barres & the Discovery of the Mysterious Plant Compound That Can Treat Cancer

Anna Lee

Ben Barres was a celebrated neurobiologist whose groundbreaking work significantly impacted the field of neuroscience. Though he was widely recognized for his scientific contributions, Barres also championed gender equality in science, both through his advocacy and life as a transgender scientist. However, his association with a mysterious plant compound allegedly capable of treating cancer is ...

10 Remarkable Trees Around the World With Incredible Stories

10 Remarkable Trees Around the World With Incredible Stories

Kristina

Have you ever wondered what secrets a tree might tell if it could speak? Some trees standing today have witnessed empires rise and crumble, survived lightning strikes that should have killed them, and even inspired scientific breakthroughs that changed the world. These aren’t just plants. They’re living monuments with personalities all their own. Around the ...