Latest Chlorophyll Stories
University of Toronto Pigments found in plants and purple bacteria employed to provide protection from sun damage do more than just that. Researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Glasgow have found that they also help to harvest light energy during photosynthesis. Carotenoids, the same pigments which give orange color to carrots and red to tomatoes, are often found together in plants with chlorophyll pigments that harvest solar energy. Their main function is...
Treated seedlings are healthier, more vigorous after transplanting The quality of agricultural seedlings is important to crop growth and yield after transplantation. Good quality seedlings exhibit characteristics such as thick stems, thick leaves, dark green leaves, and large white roots. Scientists have long known that plant development and physiology are strongly influenced by the light spectrum, which affects seedling structure. Raising seedlings irradiated with blue light has been...
Clean solutions to human energy demands are essential to our future. While sunlight is the most abundant source of energy at our disposal, we have yet to learn how to capture, transfer and store solar energy efficiently. According to University of Toronto chemistry professor Greg Scholes, the answers can be found in the complex systems at work in nature. "Solar fuel production often starts with the energy from light being absorbed by an assembly of molecules," said Scholes, the D.J....
The best fall foliage colors can be seen by spending several days in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah National Park, and driving around each of those days. Choosing to stay in a cabin rental in Virginia provides a great base from which to explore. Waynesboro, VA (PRWEB) September 17, 2011 “When should I come to see the peak colors?†This question causes the phones at Cabin Creekwood to ring off the hook as the days get shorter and the temperatures cooler. Of...
Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have produced groundbreaking global maps of land plant fluorescence, a difficult-to-detect reddish glow that leaves emit as a byproduct of photosynthesis. While researchers have previously mapped how ocean-dwelling phytoplankton fluoresce, the new maps are the first to focus on land vegetation and to cover the entire globe.To date, most satellite-derived information related to the health of vegetation has come from...
Planting soybean [(Glycine max (L.) Merr.] into Fe chlorosis-prone soils where soybean has seldom, if ever, been grown may require special precautions to establish effective Bradyrhizonium japonicum populations, while simultaneously providing adequate levels of N for the current crop. However, adding fertilizer N likely will increase rhizosphere pH and [ OH− ] and, thus, promote Fe deficiency. Our objective was to determine whether varieties (Vs) that differed in Fe efficiency also...
A change in the color of ocean waters could have a drastic effect on the prevalence of hurricanes, new research indicates. In a simulation of such a change in one region of the North Pacific, the study finds that hurricane formation decreases by 70 percent. That would be a big drop for a region that accounts for more than half the world's reported hurricane-force winds.It turns out that the formation of typhoons "” as hurricanes are known in the region "” is heavily mediated by the...
For a plant, light is life. It drives everything from photosynthesis to growth and reproduction. Yet the chain of molecular events that enables light signals to control gene activity and ultimately a plant's architecture had remained in the dark. Now a team of researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Duke University have identified the courier that gives the signal to revamp the plant's gene expression pattern after photoreceptors have been activated by light."Light...
TORRANCE, Calif., May 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Summer action movies may call for suspension of disbelief from audiences, but one superhero's penchant for a chlorophyll-rich drink to detoxify his body has real benefits, according to one medical expert. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100514/LA04961) "Chlorophyll has been shown to help reduce contaminants found in everyday life and that build up in the body over time," explains Mark Drucker, M.D. and co-founder of the Center for...
As so-called primary producers, plants use solar energy to synthesize the foodstuffs that sustain other forms of life. This process of photosynthesis works in much the same way as the solar panels that supply energy for domestic heating. Like these, plant leaves must cope with variations in the level and quality of ambient light. LMU researcher Professor Dario Leister and his colleagues at LMU Munich have been studying how this is accomplished in the thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana....
