Karachi: The University of Karachi Centre for Plant Conservation of the Department of Botany is working to save the country’s rare plant species, which are on the brink of extinction and could soon disappear from the planet. The centre’s director Dr Anjum Perveen said, “We are trying to protect the endangered plant species, which are only present in Pakistan. We are using the plant tissue culture technique through which several plants of a particular plant can be reproduced from a single tissue of the parent plant.”
She added that due to the topographical variation of a country, many different species of plants including wild and flowering species are present in the country. However due to loss of habitat, human disturbance and deforestation, many plants species are facing the threat of extinction. It is estimated that the habitat destruction from human activity is the primary cause of risk for 83 percent of the endangered plant species.
Read complete article by Sarwat Ghulam Rasool at the Daily Times site>
Showing posts with label Botany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Botany. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Scientist's seven years of research stolen
New Zealand article soliciting help in the recovery of a stolen laptop, containing years of Botany research data. Read more>
Friday, July 31, 2009
BOTANY BUILDINGS Grow Buildings From Trees!
By Bridgette Meinhold
We’ve seen trees molded to form fantastic living chairs before, and now a young group of German architects are bending trees to their will to form a new breed of living architecture. The team is calling their tree-shaping system “Botany Building,” and while it may not be the cure to climate change, it’s an incredibly interesting way to create living structures.
Read more>
Saturday, July 25, 2009
BGI, China Partners to Sequence Orchids
Newsletter: GenomeWeb Daily News
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Chinese genomics and botany researchers will sequence and analyze the whole genome of one common variety of orchid, Phalaenopsis equestris, and the transcriptomes of ten other species from the orchid family, Tsinghua University said this week.
The research will be conducted by the Tsinghua University Graduate School at Shenzhen, the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, the National Orchid Conservation Center, the Beijing Genomics Institute – Shenzhen, and the Institute of Botany of CAS.
The university said that the sequencing and assembling of the draft sequence of the orchid genome will take around six months, and it expects the transcriptome for the ten other orchid species to be completed around the same time.
Read more>
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Chinese genomics and botany researchers will sequence and analyze the whole genome of one common variety of orchid, Phalaenopsis equestris, and the transcriptomes of ten other species from the orchid family, Tsinghua University said this week.
The research will be conducted by the Tsinghua University Graduate School at Shenzhen, the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, the National Orchid Conservation Center, the Beijing Genomics Institute – Shenzhen, and the Institute of Botany of CAS.
The university said that the sequencing and assembling of the draft sequence of the orchid genome will take around six months, and it expects the transcriptome for the ten other orchid species to be completed around the same time.
Read more>
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Neb. Hall of Fame gets new inductee
Associated Press - June 27, 2009 6:25 AM ET
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - There is a new member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
Charles Bessey was inducted into the Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Friday at the state Capitol. Bessey was a University of Nebraska professor of botany and horticulture from 1884 to 1915.
He helped establish a program to take university research to Nebraska's citizens.
Bessey also wrote federal legislation requiring land-grant universities to distribute new knowledge and research to the public through agricultural experiment stations.
Bessey also developed a modern plant classification system and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - There is a new member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
Charles Bessey was inducted into the Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Friday at the state Capitol. Bessey was a University of Nebraska professor of botany and horticulture from 1884 to 1915.
He helped establish a program to take university research to Nebraska's citizens.
Bessey also wrote federal legislation requiring land-grant universities to distribute new knowledge and research to the public through agricultural experiment stations.
Bessey also developed a modern plant classification system and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Profile - Carl Linnaeus
Carl LinnaeusFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Carolus Linnaeus)
Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné)
Carl von Linné, Alexander Roslin, 1775. Currently owned by and displayed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Born : May 13, 1707(1707-05-13) (seearticle note:[1])Råshult, Älmhult, Sweden
Died : January 10, 1778 (aged 70)Uppsala, Sweden
Residence : Sweden
Nationality : Swedish
Fields : Zoology, Medicine, Botany
Alma mater : Lund UniversityUppsala UniversityUniversity of Harderwijk
Known for TaxonomyEcologyBotany
Author abbreviation (botany) -L.
Religious stance : Church of Sweden
Signature Notes: Linnaeus adopted the name Carl von Linné after his 1761 ennoblement awarded him the title von. He is the father of Carolus Linnaeus the Younger.
Carl Linnaeus (Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné (help·info), May 23 [O.S. May 13] 1707 – January 10, 1778) was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology.
Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. His father was the first in his ancestry to adopt a permanent last name; prior to that, ancestors had used the patronymic naming system of Scandinavian countries. His father adopted the Latin-form name Linnaeus after a giant linden tree on the family homestead. Linnaeus got most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures of botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735–1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 60s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, and published several volumes. At the time of his death, he was widely renowned throughout Europe as one of the most acclaimed scientists of the time.
The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth."[2] The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly."[2] Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist".[3]
In botany, the author abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is simply L.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Vegetarian Ferns? Idaho State University researchers note simple plant species ‘consumes sugar’
ISU Headlines
Posted June 12, 2009
In a significant scientific paper soon to be published in the well respected journal Botany, Idaho State University researchers have documented how ferns, a primitive plant, “consume” sugars in early life stages.
“Ferns and their plant allies are very primitive plants that reproduce without seeds,” said Jeff Hill, ISU associate professor of biological sciences. “Sugar uptake from their environment during a microscopic phase of their life cycle is a potentially important part of their ecology. What we think is that ferns have the ability to pick up simple sugars from the soils when they germinate.”
Jeff Hill with ferns in the ISU Plant Physiology Laboratory.This challenges the basic beliefs that many have towards plants in general and opens the door for a wide range of new research on this topic.
Plants are generally thought of as self-feeders, which produce food for themselves through photosynthesis by processing light and inorganic materials. Scientists have long known that some plants, such as pitcher plants, are carnivorous and gain nitrogen and carbon nutrients by consuming insects. However, it has not been widely thought that plants uptake sugar from their environment for nourishment.
“The broad view of plants is that they are self-feeders, that by using photosynthesis they produce their own food and don’t have to go to the ‘refrigerator’ and they fix carbon from the air to eventually produce sugars,” Hill said. “We’re on the cusp of learning that, as an important part of their ecology, some plants in certain habitats have the ability to supplement and augment their photosynthetic ability by essentially grabbing free sugar from their environment.”
Read more:
Posted June 12, 2009
In a significant scientific paper soon to be published in the well respected journal Botany, Idaho State University researchers have documented how ferns, a primitive plant, “consume” sugars in early life stages.
“Ferns and their plant allies are very primitive plants that reproduce without seeds,” said Jeff Hill, ISU associate professor of biological sciences. “Sugar uptake from their environment during a microscopic phase of their life cycle is a potentially important part of their ecology. What we think is that ferns have the ability to pick up simple sugars from the soils when they germinate.”
Jeff Hill with ferns in the ISU Plant Physiology Laboratory.This challenges the basic beliefs that many have towards plants in general and opens the door for a wide range of new research on this topic.
Plants are generally thought of as self-feeders, which produce food for themselves through photosynthesis by processing light and inorganic materials. Scientists have long known that some plants, such as pitcher plants, are carnivorous and gain nitrogen and carbon nutrients by consuming insects. However, it has not been widely thought that plants uptake sugar from their environment for nourishment.
“The broad view of plants is that they are self-feeders, that by using photosynthesis they produce their own food and don’t have to go to the ‘refrigerator’ and they fix carbon from the air to eventually produce sugars,” Hill said. “We’re on the cusp of learning that, as an important part of their ecology, some plants in certain habitats have the ability to supplement and augment their photosynthetic ability by essentially grabbing free sugar from their environment.”
Read more:
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