Most of us associate sinkholes with frightening abysses, but in China, they’re considered “heavenly” for good reason. Far from being mouths of doom, a number of these have been discovered containing ...

If a farmer misses the fertilisation window for a flower, or damages the plant, he loses out on precious pods - it takes about 600 blossoms pollinated by hand to produce just 1kg of cured vanilla ...

To know what a tropical bird is, you first have to know where the tropics are. The tropics form a band around the equator ...

Baobab trees may be a proxy for measuring long-term use of land by humans. They live long, have economic benefits, and are ...

Beyond the well-known elephants and tigers, the world teems with tiny mammals playing crucial roles. From the Etruscan shrew, ...

In a new study published today in Science Advances, my colleagues and I have uncovered the earliest evidence of rice in the ...

On occasion, it is of vital importance to consider how little we know about the spinning rock we all live on. Take coral ...

Over a million species of animals and plants are now hanging by a thread, more than ever before in human history, says the ...

One in three plants call islands home: Many at risk Date: October 16, 2024 Source: Macquarie University Summary: From Tasmania to Madagascar to New Guinea, islands make up just over five per cent ...

Planet Earth Plants Lost biblical tree resurrected from 1,000-year-old mystery seed found in the Judaean Desert News By Sascha Pare published 23 September 2024 ...

New research has found that the world’s baobab trees all evolved on Madagascar 21 million years ago. Sometime in the last 12 million years, they floated on piles of debris to Australia and Africa.

Hence one of its nicknames: the "upside down tree." But the origins and history of the baobab - found in Madagascar and parts of Africa and Australia - have been something of a mystery.