Trees need sunlight for the same reason you need food. The energy from the Sun’s rays is a crucial ingredient in how plants make their own food that helps them power all their cells. Since trees don’t ...

From left, ORNL's Biruk Feyissa holds a five-month-old poplar tree expressing high levels of the BOOSTER gene, while colleague Wellington Muchero holds a tree of the same age with lower expression of ...

If you built a potato-powered clock as a child, you know plants can generate electricity. But scientists are now developing sophisticated methods to harness this power on a much larger scale. The ...

Paper birch, though, is so much more. According to the National Park Service, there is evidence of the trees being used by ...

Plants have small pores on the underside of their leaves, known as stomata. When the sun rises, these pores open and the plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere, which they need, in ...

A team of scientists at two Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers have identified a gene in a poplar tree that enhances photosynthesis and can boost tree height by about 30 percent in the ...

Trees stop making food for themselves when they get too hot, a new study shows. If tropical air temperatures reach 116 degrees Fahrenheit, a lot of the rainforest could die. This is the first study to ...

Plants and trees may seem pretty passive, but behind the scenes, their cells are working hard to put on a magic show. In this episode of Crash Course Botany, we’ll explore how the processes of ...

The concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere is rising rapidly, with numerous negative consequences for the climate. However, there is also a positive effect, as scientists from WUR have discovered: ...