Outside of human influences, why do rare plant species persist instead of dwindling away to extinction? It's a question that has plagued ecologists for centuries. Now, for the first time, scientists at Penn State and Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Argentina, demonstrate that fruit-eating birds play an important role in maintaining rare plant species.
Sneaky parasitic weeds may be able to steal genes from the plants they are attacking and then use those genes against the host plant, according to a team of scientists.
Rush Holt, retired congressman and executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, headlined a panel of Penn State researchers discussing policy and science on Oct. 13 at the Freeman Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center.
Four Penn State researchers have been awarded a total of $450,000 by the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation to carry out basic science research over the next two years.
A genetic mutation may have helped modern humans adapt to smoke exposure from fires and perhaps sparked an evolutionary advantage over their archaic competitors, including Neandertals, according to a team of researchers.
Zombie ants are only one of the fungi-insect relationships studied by a team of Penn State biologists in a newly compiled database of insect fungi interactions.
Anna Wing and Joshua Bram, both of State College, Pennsylvania, will be honored as student marshals during the Penn State Eberly College of Science spring commencement ceremony on May 7 at University Park.
For Pennsylvania dairy farmers, producing feed grain on-farm requires significantly less energy than importing it from the Midwest, according to Penn State researchers whose findings may help dairy farmers save energy and money in the face of rising feed costs.
Devon Fisk, a Biobehavioral Health major, will serve as the college marshal for the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State’s fall 2015 commencement exercises.
If Pleistocene megafauna -- mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths and others -- had not become extinct, humans might not be eating pumpkin pie and squash for the holidays, according to an international team of anthropologists.
The key to efficient biofuels may lie in learning how plants build their cell walls.
An invasive species of symbiotic micro-alga has spread across the Caribbean Sea, according to an international team of researchers. These single-cell algae, which live within the cells of coral animals, are improving the resilience of coral communities to heat stress caused by global warming, but also are diminishing the abilities of corals to build reefs.
Obesity and diabetes are not just problems of modern-day humans and their domesticated pets. Insects also are affected by these health conditions, and intestinal infections by protozoans are the cause, according to researchers at Penn State. The research suggests that intestinal infections may contribute to metabolic diseases in humans as well. Ruud Schilder, assistant professor of entomology and biology, has received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to expand upon these findings.
Penn State Eberly College of Science Professor Charles Anderson and his research team are looking to help farmers and crop breeders grow hardier plants to boost the world's food supplies.
David Hughes understands the devastating effects a plant disease can have on crops and the people who rely on them for food and income. This understanding, and the mentoring he received early in his research career, germinated the seed of an idea that has borne fruit in the form of an online network designed to get practical knowledge about plants and plant diseases into the hands -- and mobile devices -- of farmers around the globe.
