Obesity has seen soaring rates in the U.S. and is already having an adverse impact on young people. Worse, most people still do not practice healthy behaviors that can prevent obesity. A common result of obesity is the excessive development of body fat in the abdominal region. Scientists are already...
For more than half a century now, scientists have known that DNA is the genetic material, and that mutations in DNA thereby drive evolution. However, if a mutation occurs in an essential gene, it could cost the gene its original function and jeopardize the organism’s survival.
Many scientists...
Hundreds of years ago, the thunder god vine, or lei gong teng, was used in traditional Chinese medicine to fight a variety of different illnesses. Given that the plant was actually successful in alleviating pain from problems such as rheumatoid arthritis, the plant has been critically studied for...
With experts telling us that the world’s viable reserves of oil are on track to run out in 50 years, the race is on to discover new processes for producing alternative fuels that can be used to power our vehicles. The fuels that have received most of the attention in this hunt for an alternative...
As a child, I often remember playing outside with my friends and coming home to find tiny spike like seeds attached to my shirt, pants, and worst of all, socks. Although I didn’t understand what they were at the time, I now know that these tiny “hitchhiker” seeds come from the bur...
Ever since the Middle Ages, a flowering plant named “Tansy,” has helped heal ailments from fever to rheumatism. The actual medical benefits of Tanacetum vulgare, more casually known as “Golden Buttons” or “Mugwort,” have always been a debatable matter, but scientists from Britain and...
For all of human history, we omnivores have been inextricably dependent on plants for their ability to convert gaseous carbon dioxide into a solid form useable to us. While all plants convert (or “fix”) atmospheric CO2 into sugar, two classes of plants exist, distinguished by their method of delivering...
The beginning of this week, March 20th to be exact, marked the first day of spring. While some people may see this time as the perfect opportunity to unpack their spring wardrobe and fire up the grill, others have a bit more negative connotation of the phrase “spring has sprung.” For those...
[Greenseedling is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a week of St. Paddy's Day-themed stories. Beer, Four-Leaf Clovers, Potatoes....A perfect holiday for the plant enthusiast!] A recent study by the American Chemical Society, published in the Journal of Proteome Research, details...
[Greenseedling is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a week of St. Paddy's Day-themed stories. Beer, Four-Leaf Clovers, Potatoes....A perfect holiday for the plant enthusiast!] With St. Patrick’s Day this week, what better way to celebrate the holiday then to discuss the plant...
[Greenseedling is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a week of St. Paddy's Day-themed stories. Beer, Four-Leaf Clovers, Potatoes....A perfect holiday for the plant enthusiast!] St. Patrick’s Day is a widely celebrated holiday that appreciates the patron saints of Ireland. It...
[Greenseedling is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a week of St. Paddy's Day-themed stories. Beer, Four-Leaf Clovers, Potatoes....A perfect holiday for the plant enthusiast!]
While we are still a few days away from Saint Patrick’s Day, tonight my family and I are sitting...
As a tourist in Peru a few years ago, I learned that coca leaves were often used by laborers to wake up early and stay focused throughout the day. In addition, many foreigners often chewed on coca leaves to help adjust to the drastic change in elevation and prevent altitude sickness. In fact, the...
Imagine going to the dermatologist and being prescribed lavender oil to treat your skin infection. This might sound absurd at first, for isn’t lavender used in cosmetics and perfumes? Although this is true, breakthroughs in research have revealed lavender’s potent effect against fungal diseases...
As many of you probably know by now, I have been living in Damascus, Syria for the past 8 months as a part of an Arabic Studies Scholarship known as the Arabic Flagship Program. For the past month or so, I have been fortunate enough to have been able to intern with a project funded by the European...
How many times have you gone to the grocery store and been unable to find a good stem of lettuce? Many times the leaves are either yellowing or marked with spots or smears. We constantly need lettuce, for it is used in common dishes such as salads, burgers, sandwiches and tacos. This leafy vegetable...
As was discussed in last week’s biofuels article, the Agave plant has appeared as a very strong candidate for biofuel production because it solves many problems and controversies raised by biofuel crop production. Not only can the plant be produced in regions that are unusable for large-scale food...
Reminiscing back to my elementary school years, I thoroughly remember the cereal commercial that sang “Wheaties, the breakfast for champions!” In fact, this whole wheat rich cereal got me energized every morning. However, now that I’m older, it is interesting to think how wheat is actually processed...
Few compounds or elements are as crucial to plant growth as water, but nitrogen comes close—in fact, it’s the second most common growth-limiting factor for plants (after water, of course). But why is nitrogen such a limiting factor when it makes up so much of our atmosphere?
Last week,...
