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Astronomers have confirmed that a planet orbiting a distant star has a rocky structure similar to that of Earth, a find that shortens the odds on extraterrestrial life being discovered. New observations of a planet named Corot-7b, which circles a star 500 light years away in the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn, have shown that its density is similar to the Earth’s, indicating that it is also a solid, rocky world. The discovery is important for the prospects of discovering life elsewhere because Corot-7b is the first exoplanet — a planet beyond our solar system — orbiting another star that...

Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees. Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to 200 millivolts of electrical power. A millivolt is one-thousandth of a volt. And although the popular potato or lemon battery experiments have shown that an electrical current can be generated by creating a reaction between the food and two different metals, power is harvested from trees through a different mechanism. "We specifically didn't want to confuse this effect with...

At his morning meeting with the Wakefield ninth-graders, Obama held a question-and-answer session in which a student who identified himself as "Sean" asked a question about why the U.S. lacks universal healthcare when 36 other countries have such a system. Obama replied that it was a question he is asking Congress because "we think we can do it," according to a pool report from the event. (Because it was a small setting, a few reporters were allowed into the meeting and their reports were disseminated to other journalists.)

It turns out the Obama White House planted two questioners at yesterday's press conference by Barack Obama, a move that further cements the reputation of the media as being complicit with the Obama administration.The incident also raises uncomfortable questions for liberals who falsely accused the Bush administration of the same practice. The news media's tolerance and complicity One of the plants acknowledged Obama's staff chose the topic of his question for him.Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney and Spanish language EFE reporter Macarena Vidal were invited by the White House to the press conference and given special access. Obama called on...

Things are not as placid and peaceful in the plant kingdom as you might believe. Beyond the flowers, butterflies and vegetables, something dark is lurking in the garden. In her new book, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, author Amy Stewart focuses on plants that are illegal, dangerous — even deadly. Stewart says people don't realize that many plants have protective poisons to defend themselves from bugs and animals, including humans. For instance, oleander may have beautiful flowers, but if you ingest enough of it, your heart will stop. "There's a woman in Southern...

Back in 2005, the Old Media was all atwitter over a supposed ”plant reporter” at a Bush press conference. The Old Media made a big deal out of this guy and used it to try and cast the Bush White House as employing some sort of underhanded control of information. Flash forward to today, President Obama held his Healthcare townhall in Green Bay, Wisconsin and it turns out that Obama’s first “spontaneous question” from the audience sure seems like a “plant” in the same way as the previously mentioned situation in 2005. Will the media take notice? Naturally, President Obama...

Some of the Central American rainforest's hidden treasures are being revealed by the Maya, more than a millennium after their passing. A study of the giant trees and beautiful flowers depicted in Maya art has identified which they held sacred. Created during the Maya Classic Period, the depictions are so accurate they could help researchers spot plants with hitherto unknown medicinal uses. The research is published in the journal Economic Botany. Plants played a significant role in the ecology, culture and rituals of the Maya people, whose artwork reflected the rich diversity of plant life around them. But while numerous...

News to Note, May 23, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (READ THE FOLLOWING STORIES AND MUCH MORE BY CLICKING THE EXCERPT LINK AT BOTTOM) 1. ICR: “‘Missing Link’ Ida Is Just Media Hype”The news media has been awash this week in hype over an alleged missing link fossil nicknamed Ida. As it turns out, the fossil wasn’t fraudulent, but the hype definitely was. 2. The Telegraph: “New ‘Super Rats’ Evolve Resistance to Poison”Is this “super rat” an example of evolution in action, or the result of an information-reducing mutation? 3. Gallup: “More Americans ‘Pro-Life’ than...

The stakes have never been more high. The opponents of our decision to exercise our right of peaceable assembly to redress grievances with our Government are vile filth who have no compunction about destroying us. Literally. In fact, the more brutal the backlash against our initial efforts, the sooner the entire fight will be over as the steam is released from the pressure cooker by the shocking images on CNN. Expect there to be a police presence at all Tea Parties. Expect there to be highly trained and fanatically dedicated plants by Acorn and their militant wing, sometimes referred to...

Shedding Light on the Protein Big Bang Theory March 13, 2009 — The precise three-dimensional structure of a typical protein molecule is so complex, its origin would seem hopeless by chance. What if evolutionary biologists were to discover a whole host of proteins literally exploded into existence at the beginning of complex life? We can find out what they would think by looking at an article on the “protein big bang” found on Astrobiology Magazine...

Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. Those plants in your office or home are not only decorative, but NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful.They have been found to absorb potentially harmful gases and clean the air inside buildings."If they're looking for an air purifying plant all house plants have some qualities. Spider plants, Peace Lillies are two of the plants that remove toxins. They don't only convert the Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen, they do that, but also remove some of the toxins," says Tallahassee Nurseries'...

ABC has apparently never heard that phrase, "There are two sides to every story." On Feb. 1, "World News Sunday" helped shamed former-pastor Ted Haggard take shots at the Christian conservatives who he says "shunned him." Reporter Dan Harris introduced the piece by qualifying Haggard as a former "insider, a powerful pastor at the highest levels of the Christian conservative movement." Haggard, who made headlines two years ago for getting caught in a gay sex scandal, is now offering advice to the Christian conservative movement; and ABC gave him the megaphone. Here is a portion of Harris' interview with Haggard:

Contact with nature has long been believed to increase positive feelings, reduce stress and provide distraction from the pain associated with hospital stays and researchers now say they have confirmed the beneficial effects of plants and flowers for patients recovering from abdominal surgery.

For years, conservationists have been concerned about the impact of invasive plant species in the Galápagos Islands. Hundreds of species have been identified as being nonnative, introduced through human contact. The idea is to remove these plants to help keep the archipelago ecologically pristine. That’s a worthy goal. But there’s just one problem, according to a study in Science: some of these pariah plants turn out to be native after all. They predate humans in the Galápagos by thousands of years. The evidence for this is in the form of fossilized pollen grains found in sediment cores from bogs on...

NEW YORK In a lenghty account of a Sarah Palin rally in Scranton, Pa. today, the local paper, the Times-Tribune, relates that at 1:25 p.m. just before she arrived, a candidate for Congress stepped on stage: "Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin. "Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly. "One man screamed "kill him!'"

Who Is to Say Flora Don't Have Feelings? Figuring Out What Wheat Would Want ZURICH -- For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants? That's a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity. [Beat Keller] Beat Keller "Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously," Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. "It's one more constraint on doing genetic research."...

I'm rather skeptical as to whether or not the composition of focus groups is truly reflective of the electorate, or of "undecided" voters. CNN and Fox News both had such groups featured tonight. How are these groups put together? Do the participants get paid? I would imagine that they do. Is that truly reflective of the electorate? I know that the little focus group meters they have seemed off. When McCain was sticking it to Obama, it seemed like the GOP line never really went up that high. Like, for example, when the debate turned to spending and McCain called...

Holes, Cheese, and Heads The Swiss, a few years ago, added a provision to their constitution that gives dignity to all living organisms using the term “Würde der Kreatur” (dignity of living beings) to apply to both plants and animals. To explain exactly what this means, the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology produced a report called "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants." There is a reason the most famous invention of the Swiss is the cuckoo clock. There are obviously more holes in their heads than in their cheese. The report appears to be one...

Plants' Rights It isn't just the rights of animals that some are promoting. The Weekly Standard reports an ethics panel in Switzerland is expressing concern that the arbitrary killing of plants is morally wrong. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology says that humans cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants; that "individual plants have an inherent worth," and that man may not use them as he pleases.

Watering Tomato Plants With Diluted Seawater Boosts Levels Of AntioxidantsWatering tomato plants with diluted seawater boosts levels of antioxidants, scientists report. (Credit: Courtesy of public-domain-photos.com) ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2008) — Watering tomatoes with diluted seawater can boost their content of disease-fighting antioxidants and may lead to healthier salads, appetizers, and other tomato-based foods, scientists in Italy report. Besides their use in a variety of ethnic food dishes, tomatoes are one of the most commonly grown home garden vegetables, particularly cherry tomatoes. Scientists have linked tomatoes to several health benefits, including protection against prostate cancer and heart disease. Researchers have known...

I have had a week from Hades and will be perfectly honest with you all.........I completely and totally FORGOT about this thread yesterday. And so you all have my heartfelt apologies. My brain is pretty much just mush at the moment and so I am just going to share some of my favorite links.Edible LandscapingYou Grow GirlNational Home Gardening Club

PLANTS deserve respect, a group of Swiss experts says, arguing that killing them arbitrarily is morally wrong - except when it comes to saving humans or maybe picking petals off a daisy. In a report on "the dignity of the creature in the plant world", the federal Ethics Committee on non-human Gene Technology condemned the decapitation of flowers without reason, among other sins. Still, commission member Bernard Baertsche suggested the body weighed such cruel acts on a case by case basis, noting "the simple pleasure of picking the petals off a daisy might suffice as a reason". Similarly "all action...

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Two plants that were thought to have been extinct since the late 1800s have been rediscovered in far northern Australia, according to an official report released on Saturday. The Queensland state government's State of the Environment report said the two species were found on Cape York, in tropical far north Queensland. "The Rhaphidospora cavernarum, which is a large herb that stands about one and a half meters high, has reappeared," state climate change minister Andrew McNamara told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. "It hasn't been seen in Queensland since 1873," he said. He said the second plant that...

Megaherbs flourished in Antarctica Wednesday, 19 March 2008 Stephen Pincock, ABC This daisy-like 'megaherb' may have once grown in Antarctica 2 million years ago before spreading north when the last ice age started (Source: David Norton) Giant flowers found on Australia and New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands are probably survivors of lush forests that covered Antarctica before the beginning of the last ice age nearly 2 million years ago, scientists say. The flowers, known to researchers as megaherbs, grow abundantly on the tiny windswept islands such as the Snares, Auckland and Campbell island groups. Dr Steve Wagstaff from Landcare Research in...

Wow! February was sure a weather rollercoaster. Not just for us, but for most of the country, and indeed the world, with record snows and cold temperatures recorded in many places. So much for glo-bull warming! Face it, scientists-who-think-you-know-everything! Weather is weather, and mankind has no control over it, no influence on it whatsoever. We can record it, and complain about it, compare this year to that year. Bottom line is—the weather and the climate cycle as they will, hotter sometimes, colder sometimes. Wetter sometimes, dryer sometimes. All the hype, whichever way it goes, sounds suspiciously like a retelling of...

A couple of yahoos interrupted Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight in Salem by waving big signs and chanting “Iron my shirts!” Clinton asked that the lights be turned on, apparently to see them better and declared. “Oh the remnants of sexism, alive and well tonight,” to applause. She then talked about breaking glass ceilings, before joking as the pair were hustled out: “If there’s anybody in the audience who wants to learn to iron his own shirt, we can talk about that.” We followed.to ask what the heck they were thinking. Nick Gemelli, who is 21, and born at least a...

If you thought there was something odd about CNN's YouTube Republican presidential debate you are correct. As it turns out, at least nine of the “undecided Republican voters” have subsequently been identified as Democrats who have taken stands in support of one or another of the current Democratic presidential candidates. CNN President Jonathan Klein was quick to defend loading the questions in this fashion. “Who better to show the unsuitability of these Republican candidates than knowledgeable Democrats?” Klein asked. “The American people deserve to see these poseurs exposed to critical scrutiny. Our only disappointment is that the revelation of the...

[W]hy is anyone surprised and why would anyone think that after Democrats refused to debate on the Fox News Network that Democrats are fair and balanced? Fox’s debates incidentally were co-sponsored by the exclusively Black Liberal Democrat Congressional black caucus, but Democrats were so hell bent on disparaging Fox that it didn’t matter. So why wouldn’t anyone think that Democrats would try the dirty tricks that they delusionally projected onto Fox News and Conservatives? I did.

I have some ideas on how we can capitalize on the Hillary plants

I only saw a little of the Republican presidential debate last night, which featured video questions sent in through YouTube selected by CNN. There’s a lot of griping this morning about how the debate was an embarrassment and a bad night for the GOP in general because CNN chose questions that were either defiantly peculiar, beneath contempt, or freakish. I wonder if there’s a little oversensitivity at work here, because the great surprise of the first YouTube debate in September, featuring Democrats, was how substantive it was and how it forced the Democratic field to engage for the first time...

Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter (and a slobbering Anderson Cooper fan); Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers

Carnivorous Plants Use Pitchers Of 'Slimy Saliva' To Catch Their Prey ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2007) — Carnivorous plants supplement the meager diet available from the nutrient-poor soils in which they grow by trapping and digesting insects and other small arthropods. Pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes were thought to capture their prey with a simple passive trap but in a paper in PLoS One, Laurence Gaume and Yoel Forterre, a biologist and a physicist from the CNRS, working respectively in the University of Montpellier and the University of Marseille, France show that they employ slimy secretions to doom their victims.Pitcher...

I know Hillary Clinton sponsored federal funding for the Woodstock Museum, but who knew she took Joni Mitchell's song about the concert so literally? Apparently heeding the lyrical call to "get back to the garden", Hillary's team has plants popping up all over the campaign trail: For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances, FOX News has learned. In a telephone interview Saturday, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, said he was approached by Clinton campaign worker Chris Hayler to ask a question about how she was...

DETROIT (AP) — The tentative contract between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers would allow GM to close a plant each in Michigan and Indiana and possibly shut down several other facilities, according to a detailed copy of the agreement. The moves are the downside of job security pledges that the UAW won in the negotiations, including commitments for new products at 16 plants. About 74,000 hourly GM workers will vote on the pact starting this week, with a final tally to be done by Oct. 10. Gregg Shotwell, a GM worker and frequent critic of the UAW,...

Everyone seems to think that ethanol is a good way to make cars greener. Everyone is wrong SOMETIMES you do things simply because you know how to. People have known how to make ethanol since the dawn of civilisation, if not before. Take some sugary liquid. Add yeast. Wait. They have also known for a thousand years how to get that ethanol out of the formerly sugary liquid and into a more or less pure form. You heat it up, catch the vapour that emanates, and cool that vapour down until it liquefies. The result burns. And when Henry Ford...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash. More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled -- mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things. But in a process being used increasingly across the nation, chemicals are injected into plants' emissions to capture airborne pollutants. That, in turn, changes the composition of the ash and cuts its usefulness. It can't be used in cement, for...

HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species. The human dominance of this natural resource is affecting other species, reducing the amount of energy available to them by almost 10 per cent, scientists report. Researchers said the findings showed humans were using "a remarkable share" of the earth's plant productivity "to meet the needs and wants of one species". They also warned that the increased use of biofuels - such as ethanol and canola - should be...

William Stein, associate professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University... and his colleagues offer new insights into the world's oldest trees found in an area cited as home to the Earth's oldest forest. Located near the Gilboa Dam in Schoharie County, NY, the region has yielded tremendous tree trunks from the Devonian era, meaning they're roughly 380 million years old. These trunks have been studied by paleobotanists for about a century, but scientists could only guess what the tops of the trees looked like... The fossil, more than 12 feet long, offered the first evidence of how big and complex...

The seeds of a sunflower, the spines of a cactus, and the bracts of a pine cone all grow in whirling spiral patterns. Remarkable for their complexity and beauty, they also show consistent mathematical patterns that scientists have been striving to understand. Each yellow nub in the center of this daisy is actually its own miniature flower, complete with a full set of reproductive organs. The buds form interlocking clockwise and counterclockwise spirals.Scott Hotton A surprising number of plants have spiral patterns in which each leaf, seed, or other structure follows the next at a particular angle called the golden...

NEW YORK -- A high school senior from Oregon won a $100,000 scholarship at one of the nation's premier high school science competitions on Monday for his research in a new area of mathematics called string topology. The research conducted by Dmitry Vaintrob, 18, a student at South Eugene High School in Eugene, Ore., could provide knowledge that mathematicians and physicists might apply to understand electricity, magnetism and gravity, judges at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology said. "His work is at the Ph.D. level, publishable and already attracting the attention of researchers," said competition judge Michael Hopkins,...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—In the history of life on earth, one intriguing mystery is how plants made the transition from water to land and then went on to diversify into the array of vegetation we see today, from simple mosses and liverworts to towering redwoods. A research team led by University of Michigan evolutionary biologist Yin-Long Qiu has new findings that help resolve long-debated questions about the origin and evolution of land plants. The work will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Two major steps kicked off the chain of events that helped...

FORT HUACHUCA — A federal judge has approved a lawsuit settlement in which the post and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will renegotiate a biological opinion. “Fort Huachuca’s proactive decision to re-initiate consultation was instrumental in the Center for Biological Diversity and the Army agreeing to settle the lawsuit involving activities at Fort Huachuca and the impact of these activities on the San Pedro River basin,” post spokeswoman Tanja Linton said Tuesday. Jeff Humphrey, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman in Phoenix, said the settlement was signed Friday by U.S. District Judge Cindy K. Jorgenson, who is assigned to...

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's prime minister announced plans Tuesday to build three nuclear power plants by 2015 to meet the country's growing energy needs. Turkey has limited energy resources, relying on natural gas supplies from Iran and Russia. "As a country whose energy consumption is increasing rapidly, we want to benefit from nuclear energy as soon as possible," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an energy conference in Istanbul. "We foresee the building of three nuclear power plants by 2015." Turkey has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and strict agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Mohamed El-Baradei, head of...

Plants predict where rumbling volcanoes will blow 09 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service WANT to know where a rumbling volcano is likely to split at the seams? Look for the tallest and greenest plants. Vigorous plant growth on the flanks of a volcano like that at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, can indicate where magma is most likely to spurt out. Satellite images reveal that shrubs and trees grow taller and greener along stripes where the volcano eventually ruptures. Nicolas Houlié from the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues studied satellite images of Mount Etna in Sicily and Mount Nyiragongo...

U.S. Army Maj. John Weibe inspects a water plant near the small Iraqi village of Sahfrah. The plant is 95 percent completed. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Cassandra Groce Water Treatment Plants Near Completion The plants are part of a project entitled Rihad Village Water Projects that is responsible for the construction of the new purification systems. By U.S. Army Spc. Cassandra Groce 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment HAWIJA, Iraq, April 26, 2006 — The cliché, “Don’t drink the water” could easily apply to some of Iraq’s water supply. Clean water is a necessity with the lack of a...

Iran 'covers up nuclear plants' By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 18/04/2006) Iran has expanded its underground nuclear facilities and covered them with a 25ft protective layer of earth and concrete, it has been claimed. David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector who now works for the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, studied commercially available satellite images taken over a four-year period up to January this year. His conclusion was that the images showed that the Iranians were developing nuclear facilities, built underground to protect them from possible air strikes. The newly discovered work "is indicative...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.--Plants apparently do much less than previously thought to counteract global warming, according to a paper to be published in next week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors, including Bruce Hungate of Northern Arizona University and lead author Kees-Jan van Groenigen of UC Davis, discovered that plants are limited in their impact on global warming because of their dependence on nitrogen and other trace elements. These elements are essential to photosynthesis, whereby plants remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air and transfer carbon back into the soil.

PlantAmnesty was founded on October 22, 1987, by Cass Turnbull. PlantAmnesty’s mission is to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs. Stop Shear Madness! Pruning Horror View The Madness Gallery To accomplish our mission we: * promote awareness and respect for plants. * encourage proper pruning techniques. * alert and educate the public. * improve landscape management practices. * volunteer in our communities. * provide a free referral/reference service.

Scientists in Germany have discovered that ordinary plants produce significant amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which helps trap the sun's energy in the atmosphere. The findings, reported in the journal Nature, have been described as "startling", and may force a rethink of the role played by forests in holding back the pace of global warming. And the BBC News Website has learned that the research, based on observations in the laboratory, appears to be corroborated by unpublished observations of methane levels in the Brazilian Amazon. Until now, it had been thought that natural sources of methane were mainly...

Scientists find plants cause global warming 12 January 2006 LONDON: German scientists have discovered a new source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its impact on climate change. The culprits are plants. They produce about 10 to 30 per cent of the annual methane found in the atmosphere, according to researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. The scientists measured the amount of methane released by plants in controlled experiments. They found it increases with rising temperatures and exposure to sunlight. "Significant methane emissions from both intact plants and...