In today's news roundup, Captain Tom, who inspired Britain, has passed away at the age of 100, a company called bluShift has launched a rocket powered by biofuel, and a woman is caught trying to sneak cactuses into New Zealand - by wearing them.
Posts tagged as “plants”
Scientists at MIT have managed to change ordinary spinach plants into natural sensors which can detect chemicals used in bombs. Using a cheap and small computer system, the spinach can even trigger a warning email.
In Australia, there are plenty of wild things that can bite or sting you. Oddly enough, one of them is a tree. Now scientists have figured out what makes the tree's sting so bad.
Among the more unusual news stories recently…gangs of monkeys have taken over the streets in Lopburi, Thailand, a Barcelona opera house offers a concert for thousands of plants, and a smelly fruit causes big problems in a German post office.
Scientists are struggling to understand the movements of glacier mice - round balls of moss that appear on icy glaciers. Somehow, the glacier mice manage to travel together in ways that scientists still can't explain.
There are a number of animals that glow in some way - including several kinds of insects and fish. Some kinds of mushrooms glow, too. But plants don't glow. Now, scientists are working to change that.
A pine tree in the Czech Republic, known as the "Guardian of the Flooded Village", has won the European Tree of the Year contest. The goal of the contest is to encourage people to appreciate and protect trees.
The thieves who robbed Seiji and Fuyumi Iimura didn't even have to break in. The seven works of art they stole had been left sitting out in the garden. Why? They were bonsai trees.
A farm that opened its sunflower fields to picture takers had to close down after it got flooded by crowds of people who learned about the farm through social media.