The animals could have fed on the seeds and leaves of ferns and cycads or perhaps fished out clamlike creatures known as conchostracans from the water for food Luo said.
The scientists detailed their findings in the Aug 16 issue of the journal Science. Followâ Livescienceâ@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.
#Ancient Roots: Flowers May have existed When First Dinosaur Was born Newfound fossils hint that flowering plants arose 100 million years earlier than scientists previously thought suggesting flowers may have existed
when the first known dinosaurs roamed Earth researchers say. Flowering plants are now the dominant form of plant life on land evolving from relatives of seed-producing plants that do not flower such as conifers and cycads.
Flowering plants were the last group of plants appearing in Earth's history said Peter Hochuli a paleobotanist at the University of ZÃ rich's Paleontological Institute
and Museum and a co-author of the new study. They are an extremely successful group on
which all terrestrial ecosystems today depend including the existence of humanity. Flowering plants or angiosperms became the dominant plants about 90 million years ago
when the dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. However the exact time when these plants originated remains hotly debated.
Now scientists have unearthed ancient pollen grains with microscopic features typically seen in flowering plants. These well-preserved fossils discovered in two core samples drilled in northern Switzerland are about 245 million years old dating back to the earliest known dinosaur in the middle Triassic period.
See Images of the Earliest Known Dinosaur Our findings suggest that the origin of flowering plants is rooted much deeper than originally thought Hochuli told Livescience.
This makes them easier to find in the fossil record than comparably large and fragile leaves and flowers.
Six different types of pollen were found in the ancient samples revealing that flowering plants back then may have been considerably diverse.
and the region that is now Switzerland was much drier than the Barents sea region suggesting the flowering plants spanned a broad range of environments.
The fossil record of flowering plants is continuous dating back 140 million years. Until now the fossil record of flowering plants suggested they dominated the planet rather quickly after their earliest appearance.
This sudden appearance has bothered scientists ever since Darwin who called the origin of flowering plants an'abominable mystery'Hochuli said.
These newfound fossils reveal that flowering plants may have existed more than 100 million years longer than previously thought.
This increased span of time might help explain how flowering plants spread diversified and prevailed on land.
The ancestors of flowering plants currently remain a mystery and scientists aren't sure what kind of events or conditions might have spurred their origin.
So far no direct ancestors of flowering plants are known Hochuli said. Some groups of plants are suspected to be related closely.
But the evidence is weak and most of these groups are thought to be specialized too to be at the base of the flowering plants.
Hochuli and his colleague Susanne Feist-Burkhardt detailed their findings Oct 1 in the journal Frontiers in Plant science.
The tablets also contained starch pine resin beeswax and a mix of plant-and animal-derived fats perhaps including olive oil.
and medicines and pine resin may have kept the oil from going rancid and fought microbes due to its antiseptic properties.
These came from olive wheat and many other plants such as stinging nettles and alder trees. However about 60 percent of this pollen came from plants that are pollinated by insects such as bees suggesting they may inadvertently have hitched along in a bee product such as beeswax instead of getting intentionally added to the medicine.
The upper portion of the train on the other hand may help peahens spot peacocks across large distances or over dense foliage.
and desert plants and spawned unprecedented wildfires all related to a drought that wasn't as bad compared to
#Arctic Going Green from Warming, Study Finds Large swaths of the Arctic tundra will be warm enough to support lush vegetation
About half the areas will see vegetation change and areas currently populated by shrubs may find woody trees taking their place.
Substitute the snowy surface with the darker surface of a coniferous tree and the darker surface stores more heat said study co-author Pieter Beck a vegetative ecologist at the Woods Hole Research center in Massachusetts It's going to exacerbate warming.
To find out exactly how much greening Arctic warming would bring the team used a model that projected how temperature changes would affect snow cover vegetation and the increased evaporation and transpiration from plants in the Arctic.
In addition they found more than a 50 percent increase in how much woody greenery such as coniferous trees would populate the Arctic.
The tree line would also shift north with coniferous forests sprouting where shrubs once grew. Most of the greening was driven by the loss of reflectivity or albedo from snow cover.
That warmth supports more tree and shrub growth creating a positive feedback cycle to the warming Beck said.
Using animals as a method of seed dispersal is actually a useful form of mutualism the plants get to spread their genes
and track down other food sources from vegetation and grasses. The study reveals something interesting about the way scientists might operate.
and having ingested seeds is solid evidence for this. It shows that sometimes stepping back and taking a broad look at evidence can reveal some interesting things.
but they're continuing to work on discovering the root of the problem. Dogs that eat grapes will often vomit usually within a few hours.
Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals (Harper Perennial 2011) and the second by Melanie Joy called Why We Love Dogs Eat Pigs and Wear Cows (Conari Press 2011).
when you reach in to pluck that beefsteak off the vine yourself you engage the plant's primary defense mechanism:
whenever the hair cells on the tomato's leaves and stem are ruptured by any invader whether it be human hand a crawly insect or an oozy fungus.
Research teams led by Robert Last Daniel Jones and Cornelius Barry of Michigan State university and Eran Pichersky of the University of Michigan recently determined how cultivated and wild varieties of tomatoes manufacture their protective chemical barrier:
This work and research through the NSF-funded Solanum Trichome Project will help agricultural planners devise new strategies to protect tomato crops.
and cats and invaded by weeds. Much work has been done to identify and protect the remaining coastal habitat.
even though the birds have learnt to eat the weeds. The birds are also under pressure at breeding sites in Tasmania.
Fires release nutrients and parrots love feeding on sedge and grass seed in the first years after they are burnt.
This oil combined with leaf litter and peeling bark during periods of dry windy weather can turn a small ground fire into a terrifying explosive firestorm in a matter of minutes.
That's why eucalyptus trees especially the blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus) that are common throughout New south wales are referred sometimes to wryly as gasoline trees.
Their seed capsules open up when burned and the seedlings thrive in freshly burned ash-rich soils.
Give a hillside a really good torching and the eucalyptus will absolutely dominate Bowman told KQED.
Dazzling light shows with hues most commonly of pink green yellow blue violet and occasionally orange and white depending on what elements the particles collide with. 2. Animals respond testes swell Living things respond to the light
The Rich Colors of Fall Foliage These autumn colors could be some of the casualties of global warming say scientists.
Fall's cool nights and sunny days also help to trigger trees like the sugar maple to store their anthocyanins temporarily in their leaves giving leaf peepers a show of red.
instead sending that fuel to twigs or burning it off according to Howie Neufeld a plant physiologist at Appalachian State university in North carolina.
#Bees Get a Buzz from Flowers'Electrical Fields Everyone knows that bees buzz around flowers in their quest for nectar.
But scientists have learned now that flowers are buzzing right back with electricity. Plants generally have a negative electrical charge
And scientists have known for years that bees'flapping wings create a positive electrical charge of up to 200 volts as they flit from flower to flower according to a news release.
But can the bees detect flowers'electrical charge? While animals like sharks are known to sense electrical fields nobody had ever found that an insect could do the same Scientificamerican reports.
Half of the flowers were charged electrically and carried a sugary reward while the other half had no charge and a bitter solution of quinine.
The bees quickly learned to visit only the electrically charged flowers and to not waste their energy visiting flowers with no electrical charge.
But when the electrical charges were switched off the bees once again visited flowers randomly suggesting that they had been reacting to the electrical charges.
The 10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries Animals are just constantly surprising us as to how good their senses are Dominic Clarke lead author of the study published in journal Science told the BBC.
Bees and flowers of course co-evolved with a longstanding symbiotic relationship: The bees depend on flowers for nectar
which they use to produce honey and flowers need bees to help pollinate other flowers.
Flowers use various means to attract bees and other pollinators. In addition to their electrical charge and alluring fragrance flowers display bright colors and research has found that bees see colors three times faster than humans.
But bees busy as they famously are don't have time to waste visiting pretty flowers
whose nectar has just been taken by another insect. The last thing a flower wants is to attract a bee
and then fail to provide nectar said Daniel Robert co-author of the study in a statement.
Bees are good learners and would soon lose interest in such an unrewarding flower So flowers the researchers confirmed emit a different electrical signal after their nectar has been harvested.
They found that petunias became slightly more positively charged after a bee visited them according to Scientificamerican.
That revised electrical charge acts as a kind of No Vacancy sign to other bees which learn to trust the signals that the flowers emit.
This is a magnificent interaction where you have an animal and a plant and they both want this to go as well as possible study co-author Gregory Sutton told NPR.
The flowers are trying to make themselves look as different as possible. This is to establish the flower's brand.
How do bees sense an electrical charge? Researchers aren't sure but they suspect the fuzzy hairs on bees'bodies bristle up under an electrostatic force just like human hair in front of a television screen.
Other scientists are excited about the possible implications this research may have for other nectar-gathering insects such as hoverflies and moths.
Stars perform some of the most important work in the cosmos: they manufacture the elements heavier than hydrogen they create planets as part of their own formation
</p><p>People in the middle East began experimenting with edible plants selecting seeds from the best plants and planting them in protected areas.
Geneticists Create a Plant That Can't Stop Growing In the comedy Little Shop of Horrors a carnivorous plant named Audrey Jr. grew nonstop by feasting on unsuspecting human beings.
But researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in MÃ nster Germany have isolated the genetic switch that tells the tobacco plant to stop growing flower and die.
and produces thicker roots. By switching off a gene called UPBEAT1 the switchgrass never receives a signal to stop growing leading scientists to believe they can use the modified plant to create a higher-yielding biofuel crop.
and dries out before native vegetation does a continuous carpet of fuel for fires. An NSF-funded study conducted by Balch
In addition cheatgrass burned twice as frequently as any other vegetation. The Heat is On Another factor promoting increased wildfires in the western U s. is climate change
In fact fires that people intentionally start to clear land of vegetation currently contribute up to one-fifth of human-caused increases in carbon dioxide emissions according to a study conducted by Balch and other scientists.
and space involving weather conditions local winds landscape features microclimates day-tonight changes in atmospheric conditions soil moisture and the types and distribution of vegetation.
In fact these instruments may measure the individual tree heights leaf area and leaf chemistry of 15 million trees in a single flyover.
and condition of surviving vegetation plant species ash cover soil properties and other factors are being incorporated into high-definition 3-D images as well as other types of rich ecological data covering the study area.
and severity of the fire and how the fire's burn patterns are affecting recovery of vegetation wildlife and water resources.
or decaying vegetation do the work for them. The chicks when they finally hatch are quite mature;
and ranching operation is looking out on a deep green field of sunflower vetch corn clover buckwheat savannah grass and other crops.
Brown is among a growing number of farmers who use a suite of techniques to build soil's natural capacity to retain moisture discourage weeds and pests and nurture crops.
-and nut-bearing trees and wind-dispersed seedlings take root instead according to a study published today (March 19) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The seedling communities of the forest floors are really different in a hunted forest compared to a well-protected forest said study co-author Ola Olsson an ecologist
at Lund University in Sweden. In the long run that's going to make the hunted forest look quite different from
Whereas similar large trees dominated both types of forest the seedlings looked very different. Well-protected forests had many seedlings such as the bush mango that rely on primates to spread their seeds.
Many of these trees bear fruits or nuts that humans also eat. Hunted forests held seedling species that relied on wind to disperse their seeds.
In a generation that could fundamentally change the forest ecology he said. And whereas gorilla and monkey meat does provide protein for local people the fruit trees the primates maintain may be an even bigger economic benefit to people Olsson said.
It takes one million flowers to produce enough nectar for one pound of honey said Andrew Cote founder of the New york city Beekeepers Association.
We have the same amount of flowers and trees but more bees Cote said. While not everyone in New york's beekeeping community agrees the better-informed beekeepers do agree he said.
Caffeine occurs naturally in the nectar of coffee and citrus flowers. Bees that fed on caffeinated nectar were three times more likely to remember a flower's scent than bees fed sugar alone.
The findings detailed today (March 7) in the journal Science show how plants can manipulate animals'memories to improve their odds of pollination.
Remembering floral traits is difficult for bees to perform at a fast pace as they fly from flower to flower
and we have found that caffeine helps the bee remember where the flowers are study leader Geraldine Wright a neuroethologist at Newcastle University UK said in a statement.
In their study Wright and colleagues measured how much caffeine was in the nectar of three different species of the Coffea plant including the robusta plant used to make freeze-dried coffee
Twice as many bees remembered the flowers'scent after three days. I think it's the first example of nature manipulating memory in an animal neuroscientist Serena Dudek of the National institutes of health who was involved not in the study told Livescience.
 Baer thinks that the discrepancy happens because of the indigestible fiber in the nut cell walls traps the fat.
One popular story suggests that the strong winds of a tornado can blow a single piece of straw straight into a tree trunk.
which may create cracks in their trunks in which straw can get stuck. If the tree straightens with the straw still wedged in one of these cracks it might appear as though the straw pierced the bark of the tree.
 Discovery Channel Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman put this bit of folklore to the test in 2006 in an experiment involving an enormous air gun a piece of straw and a palm tree.
The straw reached speeds of 320 mph (515 kilometers/hour before wedging itself just a quarter of an inch (0. 6 centimeter) into the trunk of the palm.
Folate the naturally occurring form of folic acid is found in green leafy vegetables peas lentils beans eggs yeast and liver.
How the Myth Began The myth that carrots improve your eyesight may have its roots in a WORLD WAR II propaganda campaign.
These toxic amino acid sequences are found in wheat rye and barley. Research shows that some celiac sufferers can tolerate oats
Wheat rye and barley are common in many foods like bread pasta baked goods and pizza.
Nearly every plant living today had its roots in the Cenozoic era. During the early part of the era forests overran most of North america.
Among the common plant life were pines mosses oaks and grasses. Flowering plants and edible crops dominate the landscape in the later part of this era as humans cultivate the land h
#Champagne Toasts: How Climate Affects the Quality of Bubbly As partiers around the world cheer to the New Year this evening many will enjoy a crisp burst of fizz to the nose before gulping down a tart glass of bubbly.
which the grapevines create sugar and can delay ripening causing the final product to taste unpleasantly tart.
 Wine grapes generally thrive in relatively dry environments with just enough rain to keep roots moist and photosynthesis in action.
and vegetation zones begin to shift northward within this century as predicated by climate scientists vineyards may face more erratic crop qualities;
Prior to playing the game half of the participants chewed either Juicy Fruit gum or Wrigley's Spearmint gum.
which relies heavily on use of peanuts sesame paste and ginger and is known for its spiciness.
Another type of medication is the bile-acid-binding resin which include the brand names Prevalite Questran Welchol and Colestid according to the Mayo Clinic.
and supplements that may help to lower cholesterol according to the Mayo Clinic including artichokes barley garlic oat bran beta-sitosterol blond psyllium (found in Metamucil) and sitostanol.
With recent estimates of fungi diversity ranging from approximately 720000 to over 5. 1 million species
Identifying specimens by tracking a species-specific DNA component (barcode) is an invaluable technique for tracking organisms like fungi that spend most (or all of their life cycles in a microbial stage.
whereas the invasive species cheatgrass may fuel forest fires in Colorado. In other areas closely packed trees overgrown with younger saplings may provide ladder fuels that allow fire to ramp up easily Dennison said.
which these trees were cloned by Archangel Ancient Tree Archive a nonprofit group spearheading the project.
One of the potentially new katydids seems to mimic a dead leaf with its curved torso and brown coloration.
This growing season Costa rica's coffee production is expected to fall 10 percent largely because of a fungus called coffee rust or la roya
The fungus is attacking coffee berries throughout prime coffee-growing regions in Latin america and Africa as well.
In addition to the outbreak of fungus rainfall patterns are changing. And while some farmers are starting to plant coffee higher up on the mountains to take advantage of the temperature shift at some point they're going to run out of room.
And on Australia's Queensland coast once-competitive sugarcane farmers are working together to help protect the magnificent Great Barrier reef by sharing innovative agricultural practices These are just three examples from many that show how people working together make a crucial difference
Working with peer companies additional NGOS and local sugarcane growers we helped create the first global metric standard for more sustainable sugarcane production Bonsucro
</p><p>Researchers grew human stem cells in an environment that encouraged them to form pea-size gobs of brain tissue
and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out or regurgitate act a bit like Johnny Appleseed helping forests grow by planting seeds across their territories.</
</p><p>Officials with New york's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are planning to survey a lake in Central park for signs of the dreaded northern snakehead fish aka Frankenfish NBCNEWS. com reports.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/29219-frankenfish-snakehead. html target=blank>Have invaded'Frankenfish New york city?</
now that they have developed the first printer for embryonic human stem cells.</</p><p>In a new study researchers from the University of Edinburgh have created a cell printer that spits out living embryonic stem cells.
The printer was capable of printing uniform-size droplets of cells gently enough to keep the cells alive
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/26865-3d printed-embryonic-stem-cells. html target=blank>3d printed Human Embryonic Stem Cells Created for First time</a p><p
</p><p>Caffeine occurs naturally in the nectar of coffee and citrus flowers. Bees that fed on caffeinated nectar were three times more likely to remember a flower's scent than bees fed sugar alone.
The findings detailed today (March 7) in the journal Science show how plants can manipulate animals'memories to improve their odds of pollination.</
and some key heath markers according to a new analysis. After crunching the data from the National Health
That means they don't know how each leaf looks notice changes in the height of plants
The news that researchers have used cloning to make human embryos for the purpose of producing stem cells may have some people wondering
See How Stem Cell Cloning Works (Infographic) What's more cloned animals often have different kinds of genetic abnormalities that can prevent embryo implantation in a uterus
It's like sending your baby up in a rocket knowing there's a 50-50 chance it's going to blow up.
since overgrazing strips the Earth of vegetation. And in Africa where he was working to set up national parks in the 1950s Savory thought elephants were also to blame for the land's deterioration.
and vegetation developed alongside very large numbers of grazing animals which traveled in packs were constantly moving sometimes quite frantically
Cretaceous period plants One of the hallmarks of the Cretaceous period was the development and radiation of the flowering plants.
The oldest angiosperm fossil that has been found to date is Archaefructus liaoningensis found by Ge Sun and David Dilcher in China.
and wasps evolved at about the same time as the angiosperms. It was cited frequently as an example of co-evolution.
New research however indicates that insect pollination was established probably well before the first flowers. While the oldest bee fossil was trapped in its amber prison only about 80 million years ago evidence has been found that bee
It is thought now that competition for insect attention probably facilitated the relatively rapid success and diversification of the flowering plants.
As diverse flower forms lured insects to pollinate them insects adapted to differing ways of gathering nectar
and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out or regurgitate act a bit like Johnny Appleseed helping forests grow by planting seeds across their territories.
I had found seeds in crocodiles before but I had assumed just they were not important and when
The researchers would now like to feed fruit to crocodilians to see what happens to the seeds Do they regurgitate them out their mouths
What effects do their guts have on the seeds? The scientists detailed their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Zoology.
Their primary piece of evidence is a woodcut from 1678 that appears to show a field of oat stalks laid out in a circle.
(despite unproven claims by a few researchers that stalks found inside real crop circles show unusual characteristics) there is no reliable scientific way to distinguish real crop circles from man-made ones.
The earliest branch of the animal tree belongs to Ctenophora now confirmed to be the sister lineage to all other animals.
and ruled out several possible causes for the elk deaths including poachers anthrax lightning strikes epizootic hemorrhagic disease (an often-fatal virus known to affect deer and other ruminants) botulism poisonous plants
Pond scum of death Through science and further testing of elk tissue samples and water samples the real killer has finally been found:
pond scum. Or more specifically a neurotoxin produced by one type of blue-green algae that can develop in warm standing water.
A bloom of this alga can be devastating to wildlife. In warm weather blooms of blue-green algae are not uncommon in farm ponds in temperate regions particularly ponds enriched with fertilizer according to a classic toxicology reference book Casarett and Doull's Toxicology:
The Basic Science of Poisons (Mcgraw-hill Professional 2013. Under these conditions one species of alga Anabaena flos-aquae produces a neurotoxin anatoxin-A which depolarizes and blocks acetylcholine receptors causing death in animals that drink the pond water.
The lethal effects develop rapidly with death in minutes to hours from respiratory arrest. In other words the elk herd suffocated to death unable to breathe.
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