University of Nottingham Archives

How roots bend in response to gravity stimulus in normal and mutant plants. Credit University of Nottingham

Gravitational Biology, Life Support Systems, Microgravity, Plant Biology, Press Release, Space Agriculture, Space Life Science

New Research Shows How Plant Roots Bend And Growth Downward Toward Gravity

by Keith CowingSeptember 20, 2025September 20, 2025

Scientists have uncovered how the plant hormone auxin helps roots bend and downwards towards gravity – a process called gravitropism – even after encountering obstacles in soil.

The coincident relationships of predictable genes and their predictors. The nodes are gene families, or groups of gene families with the same PAP, and the edges are coincidence relationships with the arrow pointing at the node whose presence is predicted by the other. Edge thickness is proportional to the GINI importance value scaling linearly from the thinnest at 0.01 to the thickest at 0.062, while node size is proportional to the PageRank (56) value for that node. The PageRank algorithm has been applied here to evaluate the relative importance of each node within the network. A larger node size indicates a higher PageRank score, suggesting that the node has more influence or is more central in the network. Node size scales linearly from the smallest with a PageRank of 0.000043 to the largest with 0.002945. This visualisation aids in quickly identifying key nodes that play pivotal roles in the connectivity and flow of the network. Node colour indicates community as identified by the Louvain algorithm (57). This figure can be thought of as a high-level summary of the results of this analysis, and attention should be paid to the number of nodes in a community, the discrepancy in the size of nodes, and the number of edges emerging from nodes, in this figure, source nodes can have a D score < 0. For a version of this figure with these nodes removed, see SI Appendix, Fig. S8. -- University of Nottingham

Fossils & Paleontology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Press Release

Evolution Is Not As Random As Previously Thought

by Keith CowingJanuary 9, 2024January 9, 2024

A groundbreaking study has found that evolution is not as unpredictable as previously thought, which could allow scientists to explore which genes could be useful to tackle real-world issues such […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Extinction events, Impact events, Plant Biology, Press Release

Discovery Of Sunscreen-like Chemicals In Fossil Plants Reveals UV Radiation Played A Part In Mass Extinction Events

by Keith CowingJanuary 9, 2023January 9, 2023

New research has uncovered that pollen preserved in 250 million year old rocks contain compounds that function like sunscreen, these are produced by plants to protect them from harmful ultraviolet […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Press Release

Early Earth Forests Did Not Significantly Change Atmospheric CO2

by Keith CowingDecember 20, 2022

Scientists have discovered that the atmosphere contained far less CO2 than previously thought when forests emerged on our planet, the new study has important implications for understanding how land plants […]

Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures

Possibility of Dozens of Intelligent Civilizations in Our Galaxy

by Keith CowingJune 16, 2020

Is there anyone out there? This is an age-old question that researchers have now shed new light on with a study that calculates there could be more than 30 intelligent […]