MADISON – For Simon Gilroy, sometimes seeing is believing. In this case, it was seeing the wave of calcium sweep root-to-shoot in the plants the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of botany is studying that made him a believer.

Gilroy and colleagues, in a March 24, 2014 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed what long had been suspected but long had eluded scientists: that calcium is involved in rapid plant cell communication.

It's a finding that has implications for those interested in how plants adapt to and thrive in changing environments. For instance, it may help agricultural scientists understand how to make more salt- or drought-tolerant plants.

Sentinel-1A lifted off on a Soyuz launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guyana at 9:02 PM GMT today.

Sentinel-1A has been at the launch site since the end of February and has been through numerous tests to make sure that everything is in perfect condition to provide essential radar imagery for Europe’s Copernicus program, which focuses on providing data to improve the way the environment is managed.

Weather satellites have been providing operational data for years, of course, but the family of Sentinel missions is designed for environmental monitoring.

Wildlife fences are constructed for lots of reasons, including having them killed by cars (and people along with them) to prevent the spread of disease and to protect small small populations of threatened species.

Near more populated areas, the concern is different; predatory animals will wantonly kill livestock and ruin crops, a few threaten human lives.

Separating people and wildlife by fencing is a mutually beneficial way to avoid detrimental effects but a paper in Science, clearly written by people who clearly do not live near bears, wolves or mountain lions, argues it is a last resort.

Oregon State University chemists have discovered how to use the sun as more than just a way to harvest passive energy - they can use it to directly produce the solar energy materials that make energy harvesting possible.

This breakthrough by chemical engineers at Oregon State University could soon reduce the cost of solar energy, speed production processes, use environmentally benign materials, and make the sun almost a "one-stop shop" that produces both the materials for solar devices and the eternal energy to power them.

If we describe the feeling of someone drilling an icicle into their temple, throwing up, and light and sound being unbearable, migraine sufferers know just what we mean.

Despite extensive cultivation and testing of GM foods, questions related to whether genetic manipulation causes changes in food quality and composition or if genetically modified foods are somehow less nutritious than their non-GM counterparts linger in the minds of some consumers. 

In research led by Owen Hoekenga, a Cornell University adjunct assistant professor, scientists extracted roughly 1,000 biochemicals, or "metabolites," from the fruit of tomatoes. These tomatoes had been genetically engineered to delay fruit ripening, a common technique to help keep fruits fresher longer. The researchers then compared this "metabolic profile" from the GM fruit to the profile of its non-GM variety.