Ongoing research finds that a blend of plant substances -- such as resveratrol and grape seed extract -- can prevent skin cancer in mice.

An international team of scientists from Italy, France, New Zealand, Belgium and the US have published a draft sequence of the domestic apple genome. The sequence will allow scientists to more rapidly identify which genes provide desirable characteristics to the fruit and which genes and gene variants provide disease or drought resistance to the plant. This information can be used to rapidly improve the plants through more informed selective breeding.

During field studies, scientists discovered that the oral secretions of tobacco hornworm larvae contain a particular substance that promptly alters a green leaf volatile in tobacco leaves into an odor attractant signal. With this signal, called (E)-2-hexenal, they unintentionally lure their own enemies: carnivorous bugs. These bugs start their piercing attacks not only against freshly hatched caterpillar babies; they also devour eggs laid by the female moths.

Proponents of organic farming often speak of nature's balance in ways that sound almost spiritual, prompting criticism that their views are unscientific and naive. At the other end of the spectrum are those who see farms as battlefields where insect pests and plant diseases must be vanquished with the magic bullets of modern agriculture: pesticides, fungicides and the like.

New nesearch helps explain how plants protect themselves from freezing temperatures and could lead to discoveries related to plant tolerance for drought and other extreme conditions.

Controlling juniper trees by cutting them down and burning them where they fall keeps invasive cheatgrass at bay and allows native perennials to become re-established, according to new findings.

A team of scientists has used the tools of structural biology to understand how a synthetic chemical mimics abscisic acid (ABA), a key stress hormone that helps plants cope with adverse environmental conditions such as drought.

Fires and floods which raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago made the island the richest source of pick ’n’ mix dinosaur remains of this age anywhere in the world. A new study has revealed the Island’s once violent weather explains why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the huge bones of their gigantic relatives.

In a study that promises to fill in the fine details of the plant world's blueprint for surviving drought, a team of researchers has identified in living plants the set of proteins that help them withstand water stress.

Scientists have determined the fine-scale genetic structure of the first animal to show an evolutionary response to rapid climate change.

A biosensor utilizing black platinum and carbon nanotubes will help give scientists a better understanding of how the plant hormone auxin regulates root growth and seedling establishment.

Global plant productivity that once was on the rise with warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline because of regional drought, according to a new study of NASA satellite data.

Fungal and bacterial pathogens are well capable of infecting plants, animals and humans despite their immune systems. Fungi penetrate leafs, stalks and roots, or skin, intestines and lungs, to infect their hosts. Researchers have now discovered how this is possible. They found that the fungus secretes a protein that makes stray building blocks of the fungal cell wall invisible for the immune system of the plant. In this way infection remains unnoticed.

Agricultural scientists are a step closer to unlocking genetic clues that may lead to packing more protein and oil into soybeans, a move that would boost their value and help US growers compete in international markets.

Researchers have shown for the first time that a specific protein plays an indispensable role in the formation of vacuoles, by far the largest organelles in plant cells. Enveloped by a membrane, vacuoles store substances vital for the plant cell and in many cases important to humans as well. Until now, scientists have only vaguely understood how these vacuoles are formed or how the substances stored inside them get there.

Scientists have developed a new tool for improving the expression of desirable genes in rice in parts of the plant where the results will do the most good.

The widening of the Panama Canal currently underway has created a rare opportunity to study the insects that inhabit the plants of environmentally sensitive Central American rainforest habitats. A new research effort there could shed light on biodiversity by documenting the area's host-plant relationships.

Scientists are working on a way to screen crop plants for toxic accumulation. Many plants, in response to predators or herbivores, release hydrogen cyanide to defend themselves. The new genetic screen for plants lacking this ability will be particularly useful for crops grown in tropical and sub-Saharan Africa.

Rising over 2,500 meters from Kenya's northern desert, the Mathews Range is a sky island: isolated mountain forests surrounded by valleys. Long cut off from other forests, 'sky islands' such as this often contain unique species and ecosystems. Supported by the Nature Conservancy, an expedition including local community programs Northern Rangelands Trust and Namunyak Conservancy recently spent a week surveying the mountain range, expanding the range of a number of species and discovering what is likely a new insect.

Despite the many cosmetic products, surgical treatments, food supplements, and drugs designed specifically to reverse the biological effects of aging in humans, long-lived aspen clones aren't so lucky. Researchers have shown that as long-lived male aspen clones age, their sexual performance declines.