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How plants defend themselves

2023-10-02T11:51:47+02:0028 July 2023|Categories: Curiosity, Nature|Tags: , , , , , , , |

How plants defend themselves? If there is a way plants can't defend themselves, that's running away. Plants, indeed, they are immobile (although not that much). But then how do they defend themselves from the attack of various parasites, like microorganisms, virus, mushrooms, insects, hungry predators and competition from other plants? Not only, they must also be able to protect themselves from various physical factors and critical conditions, such as a shortage or excess of water, or from excessive sun exposure. Plants have various physical barriers at their disposal, che insieme alla produzione di metaboliti tossici costituiscono dei meccanismi di [...]

The climate has changed

2021-11-02T23:59:20+01:002 November 2021|Categories: Earth and Sky|Tags: , , , , , |

The climate has changed, Time is up. The twenty-sixth edition of the annual Conference of Parties (COP26), literally "Conference of the Parties", starts this week in Glasgow (Scotland), in collaboration between the UK and Italy. The conference is held one year after the originally scheduled date, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and sets itself ambitious goals. We already talked about the COP a few months ago on the occasion of the US re-entry into the Paris Agreement, but perhaps it is appropriate to refresh the subject. In summary, the COP has been organized every year since 1995 by the United Nations, under the [...]

The genetics of roses

2021-07-09T17:40:23+02:008 July 2021|Categories: Nature|Tags: , , |

Roses are the most widely grown ornamental plants in the world, also important from an economic point of view in the cosmetic industry. The ornamental features, the therapeutic and cosmetic value have contributed to its domestication but the evolution of the Rosa genus is very complex. The genus Rosa, belonging to the Rosaceae family, contains approximately 200 species, many of which are polyploid, that is, they have multiple chromosomal sets, but only from 8 all 20 species are involved in the cultivation of hybrid roses (Rosa hybrida), among these there is a very important Chinese species known as "Rosa chinensis". These crossings gave birth to the "Rosa tea", [...]

Missing penguins

2021-07-02T14:00:36+02:002 July 2021|Categories: Nature|Tags: , , , |

There is a mystery that scientists are trying to unravel: that of the disappeared penguin colony. Or better, the entire colony has not really disappeared, however it is estimated that it has drastically reduced: from about 900.000 about 100.000 penguins. Crazy. “Where the hell have the penguins gone?!”This is certainly the question posed by researchers Henri Weimerskirch and Charles Bost, of the French research institute CNRS, at the beginning 2017, looking at the aerial images of Île aux Cochons, a volcanic island located halfway between Madagascar and Antarctica and which has rarely been visited by [...]

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