News by Subject Agriculture

What makes for an endangered species classification isn't always obvious.

A new computational model shows how different patterns of crop rotation -- planting different crops at different times in the same field -- can impact long-term yield when the crops are threatened by plant pathogens. Maria Bargués-Ribera and Chaitanya Gokhale of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany present the model in PLOS Computational Biology.

Photosynthesis, the process by which some organisms convert sunlight into chemical energy, is well known. But, it is a complex phenomenon, which involves a myriad of proteins. The molecule Chl f, a new type of chlorophyll, is known to play a part in photosynthesis, but owing to its recent discovery, its location and functions are not understood. Scientists from Japan have now analyzed in detail the protein complex involved in photosynthesis and uncovered several new aspects about Chl f.

Chinese scientists from the Technical Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have recently shown how the tiny apex structure in plant leaves controls water drainage and confers an evolutionary advantage.

NASA scientists using data from its NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite, has traced the movement of the smoke coming off the Australian fires across the globe showing that it has circumnavigated the Earth.