plants

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, TOP FOUR

Turns Out If You Have Plants In Your Home You Will Have A Healthy Home

More and more people are discovering the benefits of having house plants. We all know that plants absorb carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen; but that's not all - they also effectively reduce the amount of airborne chemicals in a given space, that's why it's ideal to have at least one house plant! If you're wondering what plant you should go for, consider any of these top 5 indoor plants for a healthy home: Spider Plant One of the most popular and most favored house plant is the spider plant. It looks pretty with long green leaves that look like green fireworks. But aesthetics aside, they're good for cleaning the air of an area and scrubbing it of toxic chemicals found in common household goods like nail polish, paint and rubber. Not only that, the spider plant is also ideal for beg...

By Communicating, Sharing Resources And Transforming Their Environments – Plants Thrive In A Complex World

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

By Communicating, Sharing Resources And Transforming Their Environments – Plants Thrive In A Complex World

As a species, humans are wired to collaborate. That’s why lockdowns and remote work have felt difficult for many of us during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longleaf pines support one another through mycorrhizae – mutually beneficial relationships between certain fungi and the trees’ roots. Justin Meissen/Flickr, CC BY-SA For other living organisms, social distancing comes more naturally. I am a plant scientist and have spent years studying how light cues affect plants, from the very beginning of a plant’s life cycle – the germination of seeds – all the way through to leaf drop or death. In my new book, “Lessons from Plants,” I explore what we can learn from the environmental tuning of plant behaviors. One key takeaway is that plants have the ability to develop interdependence, but also to avoid...

Policies That Encourage Workers To Show Up Sick Are Legal – Meatpacking Plants Have Been Deadly COVID-19 Hot Spots

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Policies That Encourage Workers To Show Up Sick Are Legal – Meatpacking Plants Have Been Deadly COVID-19 Hot Spots

Working in meatpacking plants has always been dangerous. A recent study shows that it became deadlier in the era of COVID-19, even as company profits soared. This analysis, published in December 2020, estimates that 6%-8% of all COVID-19 cases and 3%-4% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were tied to meat and poultry plants. Workers in these facilities stand close together on processing lines, which makes social distancing difficult. At the same time, companies like Tyson, which produces chicken, beef and pork, and JBS, which produces beef and pork, are reporting high earnings despite COVID-related challenges such as plant closures. I am a law professor and have written about links between lax state and federal enforcement of health and safety laws and increased rates of COVID-19 infect...

Plants might be able to tell us about the location of dead bodies, helping families find missing people

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Plants might be able to tell us about the location of dead bodies, helping families find missing people

The notion of plants talking to us about dead people sounds like a bad horror movie. But that’s the theme of a recent scientific paper I co-authored. Each day, over 160,000 people die in the world. Most people die with family members present or nearby; their family and friends mourn their loss, which includes having the loved-one’s body present. Sometimes people die in the wilderness, in war and under questionable circumstances. In so many of these cases the body is never recovered and loved ones don’t get closure. In cases of murder or genocide, perpetrators go unpunished without a recovered body. I didn’t usually think about this topic, until recently. I am a plant biologist who uses biotechnology and synthetic biology approaches in research. Nearly 20 years ago, I coined the word “phy...