Museum Of Life: Collection For The Future

Museum of Life gives viewers an inside look at the Natural History Museum and some of the 300 or more scientists who work here. Cameras follow them on collecting expeditions around the world, as they hunt for dinosaur fossils and study the biodiversity of remote areas. But there are also plenty of discoveries to be made at the Museum itself, including hidden store rooms full of specimens, and high tech science facilities, such as the DNA labs. Find out about the huge variety of plants and animals that scientists study here, and why they are important for conservation efforts today.
About the presenters: As a young man, Jimmy Doherty (Jimmy's Farm, Jimmy Doherty in Darwin's Garden, Jimmy's Global Harvest) worked as a volunteer at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Now he returns to join the Museum scientists and find out how much has changed. He is joined by engineer Kate Bellingham (Tomorrow's World), doctor of tropical medicine Chris van Tulleken (Medicine Men), conservationist Liz Bonnin (Bang Goes the Theory) and zoologist Mark Carwardine (Last Chance to See).
LINK: Youtube

Plants Vs Zombies Nail Art

Be sure to go to the LINK: Youtube to get all the information on this video.

The Albino, Vampiric Redwood Tree

Have you ever seen an albino plant? Albino redwood trees are very rare, since they lack chlorophyll plants use to convert sunlight to nutrients. However, they can survive by sucking nutrients from neighbor trees. There are only 25 known specimens of albino redwoods alive, eight of which are in California. Read more about them at Discoblog. Link -Via: mental_floss, Via: Neatorama

Sri Lankan Tea Country

The Sri Lankan tea industry is undergoing a renaissance. Once upon a time nearly 60% of all revenue exports were from tea. With the end of decades of civil war and an improving economy the tea industry is set to boom again. Eco tourism and organic blends are being used to try and help sell Sri Lankan tea to the world.

Aljazeera's Steve Chao reports from the Western Highlands of Sri Lanka.

Shot and edited by Matthew Allard. LINK: Vimeo

Kamal Meattle: How to grow your own fresh air

Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. LINK: Youtube

42 Milestones In The History Of Marijuana

“People around the world have been smoking marijuana for thousands of years while also using the hemp plant for everything from fabric and rope to ethanol fuel. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, a man with a bit of power and enough determination decided pot was wicked, evil and narcotic. He moved mountains to make it illegal worldwide. In the U.S., the struggle continues to this day to overcome the lies and misconceptions about marijuana that the government spent billions to spread… Here are the 42 milestones in the history of marijuana.” w/ photos. LINK

BBC Life - Plants (On Location) in HD

David Attenborough explaining the challenges they had to face filming plants.
COPYRIGHT BBC. LINK: Youtube

PRETTY PECULIAR PLANT

“Platycerium – even the name sounds odd. Mostly referred to as Staghorn or Elkhorn ferns, this genus of fern is, to say the very least, unusual looking. Yet they are fascinating to look at because their fronds are something else, quite unique. To look at a platycerium is to look back in time millions of years. They are found on several continents, South America, Africa, Asia as well as Australia and unsurprisingly thrive in tropical and temperate climates. They really aren’t your average fern at all.” w/ photos. LINK

Newly-discovered pea-sized froggie lives inside carnivorous pitcher plants

Researchers have found and identified a new species of frog, the size of a pea: Microhyla nepenthicola. For the past century, this critter was previously thought to be the infant form of another frog species. It resides inside carnivorous pitcher plants in Borneo. And, occasionally, on the tips of the endangered Blackwing Pencil.

Here is the National Geographic News story, and photo gallery.

[Submitterated by chriscombs], Via: Boingboing

Plants Can Think And Remember

Plants are able to remember and react to information contained in light, according to researchers. Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems. These electro-chemical signals are carried by cells that act as nerves of the plants.

In their experiment, scientists from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond. And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark. This showed, they said, that the plant remembered the information encoded in light. LINK: The Presurfer

Plants vs. Zombies Dance Battle

As seen at IGN’s E3 2010 party. Plants vs. Zombies developer and publisher Popcap Games apparently had this octet of flower girls and well-dressed undead dancing off on the show floor as well. Glad I caught it somewhere. The right-to-left tower defense game, in which you plant flowers and produce to defend against a backyard zombie onslaught, went on sale last year for PC and this year for iPhone and iPad. LINK, Via: Youtube

Manga Farming

Want an earth friendly way to upcycle old manga or maybe even telephone books! How about using them to grow radish or other sprouts, like this project by Japanese artist Koshi Kawachi. It would make in interesting conversation piece. My only concern would be that the book might get moldy after a few days, but perhaps you could transplant them into a pot or garden.

Link,– Via: mademoisellechaos, Via: Neatorama

World’s Largest Blossoming Plant

A wistaria vine in Sierra Madre, California has been named as the World’s Largest Flowering Plant by the Guinness Book of World Records. This vine is so big it has its own festival! William and Alice Brugman planted it in 1894 to celebrate the purchase of their new home. The wistaria eventually destroyed the house! 116 years later, it is healthy and sprouts about a million and half blooms every year.

Link to story. Link to festival. – Via: greendiary, Via: Neatotama

15 House Plants You Can Use As Air Purifiers

A NASA research document came to the conclusion that 'house plants can purify and rejuvenate air within our houses and workplaces, safeguarding us all from any side effects connected with prevalent toxins such as formaldehyde, ammonia and also benzene.'

Here are 15 plants that could clean your air for just the price of a few drops of water each day. LINK: Presurfer

Plants vs Zombies vs Snow Sculpture

As seen by reader Liam at the Harbin International Ice and Snow (and Plants and Zombies) Sculpture Festival. LINK

Meet the Wonder Berries!

We eat them raw, we have them in pies but rarely do we think of the health benefits of many of the berries that we eat. Well, they're so small! However, as Papaleng demonstrates below, there is rather more to these small juicy fruit than meets the eye. Will you find your favourite berry in this long and beautifully illustrated list?

From the article:

Found throughout North America, blueberries grow abundantly in mountain regions and in forested areas. These flowering plants varies in size from 10 cm tall to 4 m tall. In commercial production, two species stand out namely: “lowbush blueberries” (smaller species) and the “highbush blueberries”(larger species).


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Written by Papaleng

Image Credit, Via: Webphemera

The most beautiful cactus flowers

A cactus is any member of the spine plant family Cactaceae, native to the Americas. They are often used as ornamental plants, but some are also crop plants. Cacti are part of the plant order Caryophyllales, which also includes members like beets, baby’s breath, spinach, amaranth, tumbleweeds, carnations, rhubarb, buckwheat, plumbago, bougainvillea, chickweed and knotgrass.

The cacti are spine plants that grow either as trees, shrubs or in the form of ground cover. Most species grow on the ground, but there is also a whole range of epiphytic species. In most species, except for the sub-family of the Pereskioideae, the leaves are greatly or entirely reduced. The flowers, mostly radially symmetrical and hermaphrodite, bloom either by day or by night, depending on species. Their shape varies from tube-like through bell-like to wheel-shaped, and their size from 0.2 to 15-30 centimeters.

Most of them have numerous sepals, and change form from outside to inside, from bracts to petals. They have stamens in great numbers. Nearly all species of cacti have a bitter sometimes milky sap contained within them. The berry-like fruits may contain few, but mostly many, seeds, which can be between 0.4 and 12 mm long. LINK

Absurd Plantimals

"a dandelion, the king of the garden"
The mixed up results of combining plants with animals. LINK

Poisonous Pitcher plant - The Private Life of Plants

David Attenborough looks at another meat eating plant - the pitcher plant and how it catches insects. From the BBC. LINK: Youtube

Audio of Richard Evans Schultes on Hallucinogenic Plants

Abraham Abulafia says: This is a rare audio of R. E. Schultes, the remarkable founder of Ethnobotany, talking about hallucinogenic plants. LINK

Go to the link below to get the embed for the Audio:
Audio of R E Schultes on Hallucinogenic Plants