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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Physics: Optics

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Root hairs represent a low-cost strategy to enhance nutrient uptake because they can significantly increase the nutrient-acquiring surface of plant roots. While primary and lateral roots are stimulated to elongate when plants grow under mild nitrogen deficiency, the existence of such a foraging response for root hairs and its underlying regulatory mechanism remain elusive. Now, researchers have revealed a framework composed of specific molecular players meditating auxin synthesis, transport and signaling that triggers root hair elongation for nitrogen acquisition.

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New results reveal that many of Africa's remaining lions live within small, fragmented populations at risk of disappearing. The researchers developed a new framework which integrates ecological and socio-political risk factors to better understand the fragility of these populations.

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A research team has created an aluminum-nitride device that can convert visible light into deep-ultraviolet light through the process of second harmonic generation. This work can lead to the development of practical devices that can sterilize surfaces with ultraviolet radiation while using less energy.

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Using laser light, researchers have developed the most robust method currently known to control individual qubits made of the chemical element barium. The ability to reliably control a qubit is an important achievement for realizing future functional quantum computers.

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Researchers have shown that the shape, size, and geometry of carnivorous pitcher plants determines the type of prey they trap.

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Researchers have found a way to maintain valley polarization at room temperature using novel materials and techniques.

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New research explores the historical shifts in mammal traits and biodiversity loss in eastern Africa. The study reveals how environmental changes disrupted mammal communities and highlights the urgent need for targeted conservation efforts to protect vulnerable species.

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A study shows nest temperatures affect leatherback hatchling shape, performance and nest success. Lower temperatures produced longer hatchlings; highest temperatures produced hatchlings with thicker body depths. Hatchlings from the highest nest temperatures had shorter flippers. Righting response (ability to flip over) scores were significantly lower in hatchlings from hotter nests. Hatchlings that were smaller and/or had a larger body depth struggled to right themselves. The leatherback turtle nests in this study also had an overall lower hatching success (45 percent) than loggerhead (73 percent) and green sea turtles (70 percent).

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Researchers have investigated how the behavior of an individual wheat plant under limiting light conditions influences the performance of the whole community. They assessed morphological and biomass phenotypes of single plants grown in mixtures under sunlight and a simulated canopy shade, and the relevance of these phenotypes for the monoculture community in the field.

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Farmers usually plant so-called cover crops after harvesting their main crop in the Fall. This prevents erosion of the soil and nutrient leaching. The roots of these crops also stabilize the structure of the soil. It had been assumed up to now that a mixture of different cover crops would result in particularly intensive rooting. However, a recent study found only limited evidence that this is the case. Instead, mixed cover crops grow thinner roots than when just one single type of cover crop is planted. This result was unexpected. It documents how little is currently understood about the interactions between plant roots.

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Pumping liquids may seem like a solved problem but optimizing the process is still an area of active research. Any pumping application -- from industrial scales to heating systems at home -- would benefit from a reduction in energy demands. Researchers now showed how pulsed pumping can reduce both friction from and energy consumption of pumping. For this, they took inspiration from a pumping system intimately familiar to everyone: the human heart.

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Right at the bottom of the deep sea, the first very simple forms of life on earth probably emerged a long time ago. Today, the deep sea is known for its bizarre fauna. Intensive research is being conducted into how the number of species living on the sea floor have changed in the meantime. Some theories say that the ecosystems of the deep sea have emerged again and again after multiple mass extinctions and oceanic upheavals. Today's life in the deep sea would thus be comparatively young in the history of the Earth. But there is increasing evidence that parts of this world are much older than previously thought.

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Invasive alien species are animals that may pose a threat to biodiversity, but it's time to deal with that threat in a more ethical way.

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Researchers have pushed the limits of the possible in the field of atomic-scale spin-optics, creating a spin-optical laser from monolayer-integrated spin-valley microcavities without requiring magnetic fields or cryogenic temperatures.

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In just 26 years, the distribution of rare butterflies has plummeted by 72% in Eastern Denmark. Several species are threatened with extinction, yet the conservation actions aiming to safeguard species have proved unsuccessful.

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By adding a naturally-occurring polymer that makes wood more porous, scientists have engineered trees easier to disassemble into simpler building blocks.

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A new study has uncovered intriguing insights into the evolution of plant biology, effectively rewriting the history of how they evolved over the past billion years.

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Elephants, buffaloes and other heavy herbivores are effective against invasive plants. This is the conclusion of a new study that used Indian data, including data from the world's largest survey of wildlife based on camera traps. But smaller animals can do the same: you don't need elephants to get the same effect, the researchers point out.

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Digital information exchange can be safer, cheaper and more environmentally friendly with the help of a new type of random number generator for encryption. The researchers behind the study believe that the new technology paves the way for a new type of quantum communication.

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Researchers have revealed an innovative approach to track individual molecule dynamics within nanofluidic structures, illuminating their response to molecules in ways never before possible.