Nature

A fresh publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society states that an international team of scientists has established the origin of multi-coloured colour in flowering plants. According to experts, its diversity had a direct dependence on the perception of ancient pollinators, namely insects and birds.
In the course of their research, scientists have compared the colour diversity of the background in nature with specific features of flowering plants on the example of Australia, as a result of which they have collected a database of materials that existed about 100 million years ago – at this time falls the appearance of the first flowers in plants.

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A team of researchers from Northwestern University has demonstrated a remarkable new way of generating electricity in which a device the size of a paperback book is placed in soil and receives the energy created when microbes decompose dirt as long as carbon is present in the soil.

So-called microbial fuel cells have been around for more than a century, and their working principle is similar to batteries with an anode, cathode and electrolyte. However, instead of getting electricity from chemical sources, they use bacteria that share electrons as they absorb soil.

The problem was maintaining water and oxygen levels in them when buried underground, so a team of US scientists came up with several designs to ensure the cells had access to oxygen. A cartridge-shaped version on top of a horizontal disc was found to be the best. The disc-shaped carbon anode sits at the bottom of the device, being buried deep in the ground, while a conductive metal cathode sits on top of the anode.

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Many flora are characterised by a variety of ways in which they communicate with each other and other wildlife. In a new publication in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, experts from the University of Illinois focused their attention on how tomatoes communicate with each other depending on environmental conditions. Thus, they revealed that they have different reactions to positive and negative external influences, as well as a specific response to multiple stimuli at the same time.

It is noted that tomatoes use so-called volatile organic compounds to interact with the environment, which are released as a response to various kinds of external stimuli. Their number can vary depending on what kind of impact is exerted, as well as from variety to variety.

Specifically, the scientists’ work looked at samples of four local varieties that were impacted by pest caterpillars and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which enter into a symbiotic relationship with the plants and help extract nutrients from the soil in exchange for carbon. As part of the tests, plants were placed in odour-blocking bags for one hour and analysed to see which substances were subsequently produced.

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In Brazil, several living trees of Ilex sapiiformis, also known as Pernambuco, have been discovered by accident. Scientists found four holly trees of a species that was thought to be extinct two centuries before the present day.
The research team came across the trees in the northeastern part of the country, in the town of Igarassu. The area where the discovery was made was once a barely passable rainforest.

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In Birmingham, UK, they noticed an omen of the apocalypse in the fact that the water in a stream took on a blood red hue

A member of the public reportedly saw such an unusual phenomenon on Perry Common Meadows. The city government began to investigate the phenomenon.

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