Plants communicate in ways that we are only beginning to learn.
Plants
Devolution: The “surprising” gene costs of the carnivorous lifestyle to plants
Researchers: “To their surprise, the researchers discovered that the plants do not need a particularly large number of genes for carnivory. Instead, the three species studied are actually among the most gene-poor plants known. ” Yes, because – as Mike Behe says – Darwin Devolves.
Claim: Plants are conscious!
Expect more crazy. Salad is murder, did you know? That time of year.
There is an “underlying design principle” in plants?
“Our model shows that by absorbing only very specific colors of light, photosynthetic organisms may automatically protect themselves against sudden changes — or ‘noise’ — in solar energy, resulting in remarkably efficient power conversion,” said Gabor, an associate professor of physics and astronomy, who led the study appearing today in the journal Science.
Billion-year-old algae (“leaves, … branches …”) raise some interesting questions
Like any real history, evolution is not driven by a single force or idea. Horizontal gene transfer from bacteria obviates the quest for an “ancestor” seaweed. Maybe there isn’t one.
Could we bring back extinct plants?
So far a Siberian flower and a date palm have been brought back. The idea is that restoring n extinct animal like the woolly mammoth would just be a curiosity but some of these plants may be staple foods or useful medicines.
Granville Sewell: Bladderworts are irreducibly complex
Carnivorous plants construct “mousetraps” which are no use to the plant until they succeed. How then did they evolve randomly by chance?
Huge discordance between gene trees in a new phylogenetic study
“Deep phylogenetic incongruence” sounds like journalspeak for “our current phylogenetic tree is a hot mess.”
Green plants discovered in China dated at a billion years ago
It’s not “land” vs. “sea” that’s really significant here. It’s how much time was available for the development of photosynthesis. If the claim is that photosynthesis developed via natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism), then it must have somehow randomly happened in that billion years. Was there enough time? becomes an unavoidable question.
Cells have two separate guidance systems for the arrangement of their cellulose fibres
This “dual guidance system” was “not predicted”. Imagine somehow randomly evolving two separate guidance systems…
At Mind Matters News: Researchers: Trees “sense” their height and weight
Trees rarely just fall over but we seldom stop to think about why they don’t.
Researchers: We switched the direction of electrons in photosynthesis
Actually, it’s not clear from the release whether we are any closer to understanding why plants always choose the other direction, left to themselves. Something more is going on, probably. Nice find though.
Key points in plant evolution featured “fundamental genomic novelties”
Researchers: “This approach reveals an unprecedented level of fundamental genomic novelties in two nodes related to the origin of land plants: the first in the origin of streptophytes during the Ediacaran and another in the ancestor of land plants in the Ordovician.” Stuck for what to call this, some of us would call it creationism.
Roasted root veggies found at 170 000 years ago
Apparently the original paleo diet was big on starches. But where oh where is the subhuman who gorged on raw zebra flesh (or whatever) when you need him?
Fossil forest update: “Pretty sophisticated” for nearly 400 million years ago
Researcher: “Based on what we know from the body fossil evidence of Archaeopteris prior to this, and now from the rooting evidence that we’ve added at Cairo, these plants are very modern compared to other Devonian plants.