The motivation for most, if not all of wars is to accumulate resources for the aggressing nation’s or peoples’ benefit. A competition of resources is a motif that has been widely observed in the animal community. Surprisingly, a recent study in the December 2009 issue of The American Naturalist...

Have you ever thought about the evolution of pharmaceutical drugs? When I watch Grey’s Anatomy or House, I constantly feel amazed by far humans have come, how much we understand about the human body, and how many drugs and procedures have been procured to help us live longer. However, while the contemporary...

In the wild, what we think of as spices are actually a key component to a plant’s defense mechanism. Now, Dr. Murray Isman of the University of British Columbia recently published a study on these organic pesticides that has produced fruitful results. The research has shown that common household spices,...

Southern Africans have used native plants for hundreds of years to treat a slew of different illnesses in a wide variety of animals. Researchers at Kansas State University are just beginning to document the 506 herbal remedies that have been used in 18 different areas of Southern Africa. While gathering...

In the effort to preserve our planet’s natural resources, societies all over the world have promoted the idea of “going green.” For some, this may mean carpooling to work or using re-usable, cloth grocery bags, but for tree shrews, “going green” has a more literal connotation. According to...

Ever since the Silicon Valley technology boom of the nineties, the phrase “nanotechnology” has attained a special place in the science world’s colloquial vocabulary. Proposed devices implementing nanotechnology include LED contact lenses, improved fiber optics, and increasingly faster...

Most agricultural studies focus on improving crop yield or preventing the adverse effects of environmental conditions. Other studies, however, focus on increasing the nutritional value of crops. Phillipe Seguin and his fellow researchers from various universities and governmental agricultural agencies...

This month’s buzzword in the world of biofuel production is Caution. The United Nations Environment Programme’s most recent report covers the issue of alternative energy in the face of growing sustainability needs. The report is a compilation of a large number of recent studies on biofuels and conducts...

For thousands of years, tribes and villagers worldwide have looked to nature for solutions to their medical problems. Even today, researchers continue to look into traditional remedies to discover if they are truly successful. One such natural treatment stems from (pun intended) the kava plant, found...

Before taking your bike out for a joy ride on the same route that your bus travels, you may want to reconsider, or better yet, consult the nearest…tree? A recent study, by scientists at Western Washington University in Bellingham, has uncovered that the leaves of trees may be very helpful in detecting...

The expression “family comes first” is one that has and continues to be relayed by virtually every culture of the world. In fact, as a student of Arabic, I was exposed to a peculiar Arab version of this motto that both denotes the importance of family while simultaneously establishing a hierarchal...

In the October issue of the journal BioScience, David Flaspohler and Joseph Fargione published their analysis on the impact of biofuel-dedicated land consumption on various wildlife populations throughout the grasslands. The journal article addressed the long term effects of America’s focus on biofuel...

Whether consuming green vegetables raw or cooked, these colorful plants provide us with many essential nutrients. I have always heard, “The greener the vegetable, the better the nutritional value,” but scientists from The University of Nottingham are presently conducting research that could possibly...

(We began to cover this story last week, here’s another, more personal perspective!) South Asian cooking is known for its use of spices. Coming from a South Asian background, I remember when I first ate a raw vegetable. I was confused because that raw piece of carrot tasted nothing like the carrots...

When an officer of a factory decides to buy a new, state-of-the-art machine that could double the productivity of the company, the officer understands that an initial investment must be made before actual profits are seen. The same concept can be applied to biofuels and the environment. The biofuels...

Remember when our kindergarten teachers taught us the age-old, seemingly irrefutable rule that “sharing is caring”? Well, in the case of weeds and their genetically modified crop brethren, a new study in the October issue of the American Journal of Botany has proven that not only is this rule a bad...

Traditional Chinese medicine provides of a wide variety of homemade remedies for a wide variety of illnesses, even illnesses that modern technology’s pharmaceuticals have failed to treat. Of course, traditional Chinese medicine is not as widely accepted as the medicine that comes in the form of a pill...

A hybrid of the Australian invasive species Casuarina has been found growing wild in Florida. Traditionally, Casuarina trees have been planted as decorative foliage alongside boulevards. Recently, they have been become the tree of choice for blocking the wind in orange groves. However, as useful as...

With the recent increase in the activity of the H1N1 virus, the evolution of pathogens is under the spotlight. It scares me to think how one strain of the flu virus that affected birds, evolved and jumped to pigs and then ran rampant among humans. It has taken a long time for scientists to finally come...

While making my weekly trip to the grocery store, I always tell myself that I will make this trip quicker than the last, but one section of the store never fails to ruin my goal for speediness – the produce section. Unlike other food aisles, the produce section requires a little more effort than just...