What: “Tuning up photosynthesis” a hybrid scientific-explainer-slash-music-video created by the Gates Foundation to popularize the idea plants can be engineered in ways that improve upon nature. Who: ...

New method reveals chemical signs of early microbial life in ancient Earth rocks, showing photosynthesis evolved much earlier ...

Unlike us, plants don't need pantries full of food to stay alive; the Sun is their pantry. But, like us, they require fairly regular sustenance, which they create via photosynthesis. This seemingly ...

Humans can do lots of things that plants can’t do. We can walk around, we can talk, we can hear and see and touch. But plants have one major advantage over humans: They can make energy directly from ...

Photosynthesis is one of nature’s most useful chemical reactions, so it’s not surprising that scientists often try to mimic it. Now, researchers from the Max Planck Institute have developed a new way ...

Researchers have identified microstructures in fossil cells that are 1.75 billion years old. These structures, called thylakoid membranes, are the oldest ever discovered. They push back the fossil ...

In the damp understory of forests in Taiwan, mainland Japan, and Okinawa, a plant called Balanophora can fool you at first ...

How does one improve the amount of food a crop yields? Speed up the way that plant eats. A new study published last week in the journal Nature details a group of scientists that were able to ...

A little extra light goes a long way. By fixing a glitch in plants’ ability to use sunlight to make sugar, scientists have managed to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis by about 15% — an upgrade ...

"Natural selection is not a master engineer, but a tinkerer. It doesn't produce the absolute perfection achievable by a designer starting from scratch, but merely the best it can do with what it has ...

Enhancing just three genes helps plants harvest more light, raising new hopes for developing crops that can keep up with food demands from a crowded planet. Genetically engineered tobacco plants, ...