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ost people think that Springtime is the time to start growing that vegetable or herb garden. But there are many types of plants that should mainly be grown during the cooler months. Fall is a great time to try your hand at growing leafy greens, and that makes this a great way to save some money on produce. If you end up with a good harvest, you'll have a bountiful source of vegetables while other people are paying higher prices for greens at the grocery store. Here are 6 cooler weather plants you may want to try your hand at...

Plants Use Underground 'Fungal Internet' to Communicate by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Researchers have just documented how plants use underground fungal networks to warn neighboring plants of impending insect attack, uniquely illustrating the complex and highly designed interconnected cooperation found in nature. The research study—just published in the July, 2013 issue of Ecology Letters—is the first such report that confirms and reveals how plants have uniquely co-designed physiologies that internetwork with other plants using an underground fungus as an information conduit.1 This amazing and intricate system allows the plants to readily and effectively communicate as a community, like a natural...

Plants have a built-in capacity to do maths, which helps them regulate food reserves at night, research suggests. UK scientists say they were "amazed" to find an example of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation in biology. Mathematical models show that the amount of starch consumed overnight is calculated by division in a process involving leaf chemicals, a John Innes Centre team reports in e-Life journal. Birds may use similar methods to preserve fat levels during migration. The scientists studied the plant Arabidopsis, which is regarded as a model plant for experiments. 'Astonished' Overnight, when the plant cannot use energy from...

How many of you have flower or vegetable gardens at your home? I know many people are growing their own herbs to use for cooking as well as indoor and outdoor vegetable gardens. Others have flowers in pots, window boxes, hanging baskets, in flower beds and outdoor gardens.My wife and I have a number of vegetables and fruit growing outside which include apples (2 varieties), beans (purple and wax), broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cantaloupes, carrots, cherries, cucumbers (bush), grapes (5 varieties), onions (red), peas (green and snap), potatoes (3 varieties), sage, radishes, tomatoes (6 varieties), and watermelons (3 varieties). We also...

Having practically banned the construction of new coal plants, Environmental Protection Agency regulators may try to cap emissions from existing coal plants, according to the acting head of the agency. “[T]hat’s certainly something that will be on the table in this next fiscal year,” acting EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe told reporters last week, per Midwest Energy News, after saying that the EPA intends to start “working with states on existing sources, but we’re not there yet.” The EPA has already finalized New Source Performance standards, a regulation limits the how much carbon

Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason's studio in Los Angeles last month to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener! Even stranger, the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels. While environmentalists often talk about how bad stuff like CO2 causes bad things to happen like global warming, it turns out that the plants aren't complaining. Approximately 19 minutes. Produced...

The New York Times has a must-read up on how the GOP is losing the tech war — and losing the youth vote. But tucked away in the piece, I found this: [W]e can’t be afraid to call out Rush Limbaugh,” said Goodwin’s fiancée, S. E. Cupp, a New York Daily News columnist and a co-host of”The Cycle”on MSNBC. “If we can get three Republicans on three different networks saying, ‘What Rush Limbaugh said is crazy and stupid and dangerous,’ maybe that’ll give other Republicans cover” to denounce the talk-show host as well.

More than 1,000 New Coal Plants Planned WorldwideBy Damian Carrington, The Guardian Published: November 26th, 2012 More than 1,000 coal-fired power plants are being planned worldwide, new research has revealed. The huge planned expansion comes despite warnings from politicians, scientists, and campaigners that the planet's fast-rising carbon emissions must peak within a few years if runaway climate change is to be avoided and that fossil fuel assets risk becoming worthless if international action on global warming moves forward. Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning...

When it comes to attracting business to California's eastern deserts, Inyo County is none too choosy. Since the 19th century the sparsely populated county has worked to attract industries shunned by others, including gold, tungsten and salt mining. The message: Your business may be messy, but if you plan to hire our residents, the welcome mat is out. So the county grew giddy last year as it began to consider hosting a huge, clean industry. BrightSource Energy, developer of the proposed $2.7-billion Hidden Hills solar power plant 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles, promised a bounty of jobs and a...

Candy Crowley, the moderator of the presidential debate at Hofstra University on October 16, interfered in this U.S. presidential race in a way no one ever has before and—let’s hope—no one ever will again. Crowley loudly validated President Barack Obama’s version of reality—and contradicted Governor Mitt Romney’s recollection of actual reality—regarding what the president said in the Rose Garden about what happened in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2011. During the debate President Obama said he called the murder of four Americans an act of terrorism. Romney said he didn’t. Crowley said he did. And Crowley told them they had...

We were a bit disappointed in how President Obama handled his recent Reddit AMA, giving mostly canned politician's answers to a community that tends to expect a bit more human emotion. It was no Woody Harrelson debacle, but it did seem like a missed opportunity. And, now, some Redditors are suggesting that parts of it were actually stage. Some internet sleuthing pointed out that among the only 10 questions that Obama chose to answer (out of hundreds that were asked almost immediately) was one from someone who appears to have been planted by the administration. The evidence: Profile created mere...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Thursday that would increase the number of cogeneration plants in the U.S. by 50 percent by 2020, a move that would boost U.S. industrial energy efficiency and slash carbon emissions by 150 million tons per year. The order is the administration's latest effort to deploy cleaner and more efficient energy production in the country by working around political resistance to climate change and "green" energy legislation on Capitol Hill. The measure aims to accelerate investments to help manufacturers expand their use of combined heat and power (CHP) facilities,

Posting for JADB. We seem to have missed the thread last week, but here we are!

PORTLAND, OREGON – June 24, 2012 – President Barack Obama visited Portland Tuesday greeting diners Mark Peterson, center, and Thomas Foeller, right, at the Gateway Breakfast House in an unschedueld stop on the way to fundraisers at the Oregon Convention Center. Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian. But then the truth eked its way out—- The three veterans were not regulars. They just happened to be sitting in a booth at the diner when Obama popped in. Victoria Taft has more, via Orbusmax: “No, they were not regulars.” The waitress who served President Obama, Mary, told me the veterans with whom the President...

What a coincidence! Obama just happened to find three friendly veterans in a booth at a Portland diner this week. It was a “surprise stop.” At least, that’s what local King5 told us.

President Obama, speaking in North Carolina a short while ago, noticed an audience member had fainted: "Looks like somebody might've fainted up here, have we got . . . Somebody . . . EMS . . . Somebody . . Don't worry about it: Folks do this all the time in my meetings," Obama said. "You always got to eat before you stand for a long time--that's a little tip. They'll be OK, just make sure--give them a little room.

Due to the mild/non-existent winter we experienced this year, plants are blooming sooner. Here are a few of mine: Apple tree Citrus tree Kiwi Strawberries Buds on Mulberry tree Peach blossoms Japanese Loquat (finally bearing fruit!)

Earth's flora is responsible for the glaciers and rivers that have created this planet's distinctive landscapeAstronomers are finding lots of exoplanets that are orbiting stars like the sun, significantly raising the odds that we will find a similar world. But if we do, the chance that the surface of that planet will look like ours is very small, thanks to an unlikely culprit: plants. We all know how Earth's landscape came about, right? Oceans and land masses formed, mountains rose, and precipitation washed over its surface; rivers weathered bare rock to create soil and plants took root. Well, new research...

On January 25, 2012, The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), the first major update since 1990. See the new map, detailed state specific PHZMs, as well as PHZMs for Australia, Canada, China, Europe, and Japan...

Devastating fungus has already stripped shrubbery in Europe and New Zealand. Shrubs may be trembling by doorsteps across North America as an aggressive fungus disease of boxwood invades the continent. Boxwood blight, caused by a Cylindrocladium fungus, was unknown to science before 2000 but has now spread through Europe and New Zealand. In October, U.S. authorities confirmed that the blight had jumped continents, with infections confirmed in North Carolina and Connecticut. By mid-January, with growers and pathologists on alert, the fungus had turned up in at least five more states — Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Oregon — and...