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The exact science of tree sap transport has puzzled plant physiologists for many years. Sap’s migration throughout tree trunks and branches is linked heavily to transpiration, the movement and subsequent evaporation of moisture from plants. As carbon dioxide diffuses inward from the air to plant leaves, a vapor pressure deficit between the leaf interior and surrounding atmosphere causes evaporation. This generates tension within leaf cell walls that is then transmitted via sap to tracheids — conductive hollow wood cells with vertical grooves that comprise the trunk, stem, and branches of trees and are collectively called sapwood. The resulting negative sap pressure draws water from roots to leaves, sometimes to heights of over 300 feet. 

Earlier this year, a three-year-old video of researchers extracting a long, twisted tube from a reptile’s bleeding nostril went viral. To date, it has accumulated more than 30 million views and set off a moral panic.

The role of the e-bike in promoting health and fitness is comparable to that of a conventional bicycle. This was reported by researchers of the University of Basel in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine. In particular, overweight and untrained individuals can benefit from riding an e-bike.

Ullas Karanth, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, is one of the world’s premier tiger experts and a leader in the effort to restore India’s depleted tiger populations. Raised in the South India state of Karnataka, he has spent much of his professional life studying and working to bring back tigers there, starting in Nagarahole National Park in the foothills of the Western Ghats, and then across a 10,000-square-mile region of that mountain range.

Rice plants engineered to have fewer stomata – tiny openings used for gas exchange - are more tolerant to drought and resilient to future climate change, a new study has revealed.