Today, science discusses plants using the buddy system, the pending cicada invasion, the value of urban forests, and rapid DNA extraction.
Plants grow faster when they can “talk” to each other
Scientists at the University of Western Australia have observed that chili plants, when grown near other chili plants or basil, germinate faster than when grown alone. But the real surprise is that when grown next to basil plants—but separated by black plastic to prevent transmission of light or chemical signals—the chili plants still grow faster, as though communicating acoustically with the basil. One study scientist says the plants could be using nanomechanical oscillations inside cells to rapidly communicate with each other.
After a 17-year wait, billions of underground cicadas lie poised to swarm across the East Coast by the end of the month
While it sounds a tad apocalyptic, and has been dubbed the horror-film-esque “Brood II” by scientists, this year’s noisy emergence is likely to be mostly harmless—and is nothing new. These characteristically red-eyed have been feeding on roots while preparing to burst forth for their mating season, which will last about 4-6 weeks until their death. This will mean dense swarms, followed by blankets of dead cicadas across the East Coast, though some areas may hardly see anything. After the mating season, their offspring will burrow underground to await the next emergence in 2030.
Scientists aren’t sure how the cicadas know when to come above ground, but one theory is that they detect the passage of time based on the roots of trees. The Brood II mating season is expected to have an especially large number of participants, outnumbering residents from North Carolina to Connecticut by at least 600 to 1.
US urban forests store about 780 million tons of carbon, study says
According to a recent study in the journal Environmental Pollution, city trees and forests provide an estimated $1.5 billion in economic benefit to the country annually by storing carbon. Texas tops the chart, with just over 49 million tons stored.
UW and a Bellevue company created a method to extract DNA from samples in minutes
Engineers from UW and Bellevue’s Nanofacture have developed a device that can separate DNA from bodily fluids much faster than the current method that takes 20-30 minutes. Instead of a centrifuge or microfilter, the device uses microscopic probes that dip into samples and use an electric field to attract particles to concentrate around them.
We know you’re tempted, but we can’t say we recommend eating them: