If you can’t raise a plant to save your life you know the appeal of terrariums, which can sustain themselves for months on end without being watered. But a retiree in the UK says he sealed up his bottle garden in 1972—and hasn’t watered it since.
Remember learning about America’s "amber waves of grain?" Well, it turns out that the United States’ bread basket—a.k.a., the Corn Belt—is even more productive than previously thought. In fact, during its growing season, it’s the most productive land on Earth, according to new NASA data.
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Plants that eat metal sound like a biological impossibility. But these hungry little guys exist, sucking tiny bits of toxic metal from the soil. They don’t just clean the Earth, either—they can actually mine bits of gold and nickel for use by humans.
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Cryonics enthusiasts will be pleased to hear that scientists have demonstrated the ability to revive frozen life not just after a couple years or even a couple of decades. They can bring something back to life that’s been frozen for fifteen centuries. The previous record was just 20 years.
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A team of chemical engineers and biochemists has managed to change how plants work. Well, to be exact, they’ve made plants work better by embedding carbon nanotubes into the plants’ leaves so that they absorb more light. Put simply, they’ve created bionic plants.
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When it comes to watering, there’s nothing stopping you from simply dumping a bottle of H2O onto the plants on your balcony, as long as you’re cool with possibly damaging them and splashing wet dirt all over the place. A gentler approach is a better idea, and Animi Causa’s new Rainmaker—which emulates a gentle summer rain—requires minimal additional effort on your part.
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What if we could identify plants not by sight but by sound? It’s not entirely fanciful: every plant makes a unique set of sounds—an auditory signature, if you will—influenced by its physiology. But these sounds, usually in the ultrasonic range, are not for our ears.
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Do you want to avoid burglars and nosy neighbors? And pets and small children? And possibly all other human beings? But do you also have a refined aesthetic sense—none of that ugly concrete, please—and a green thumb? No worries! These anti-personnel plants are as effective as any moat.
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Perhaps you remember the wildly successful but also controversial Glowing Plant Kickstarter. Perhaps you’re even patiently waiting for your glow-in-the-dark seeds, due to arrive in…September 2014.
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The New York Botanical Garden is packed with over 7.3 million specimens from all over the world. And when you’ve got that many plants, you need to get a little creative when it’s time to take their picture. It’s a high tech affair.
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