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The Cultivation of Aquatic Plants - What You Need to Know

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When raising aquatic plants in outdoor ponds, it is important to consider the amount of light available, the depth of the pond, the kind of soil, and various other factors. Since most aquatic plants obtain nourishment from the soil, it is necessary to have a soil rich in organic matter. In most natural ponds the accumulation of humus at the bottom is excellent for plant growth. In some ponds, however, the bottom consists largely of sand or gravel that must be covered with a thick layer of rich soil. If the pond is very large, it is often easier to root the plants in earth-filled boxes or pots than to place a thick layer of soil over the entire bottom of the pond. Most aquatic plants require large amounts of light and should not be grown in shaded areas. In some regions, it is also important to protect the plants from strong winds by growing shrubbery or other windbreaks near the edge of the pond. The depth of the water should be determined by the size of the plants. In many cases,
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4 Major Groups of Aquatic Plants

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Aquatic Plants are plants that grow in water. Such plants occur in almost every major group of the plant kingdom and are widely distributed throughout the world, inhabiting oceans and brackish lakes as well as freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams. Although most aquatic plants live only in water, some species may also live on land. In these species, however, the land-dwelling form often differs in appearance from the aquatic form. The aquatic arrowhead, for example, has limp, ribbonlike leaves, while the terrestrial form bears the stiff, arrowhead-shaped leaves from which the plant's name is derived. Major Groups Aquatic plants are generally divided into four major groups. Plants of the first group float freely on or below the surface of the water and have no connection with the soil. Among the best known of these plants is the salvinia, a small ornamental plant with whorls of oval leaves that are covered with stiff, bristly hairs on their upper surface. The salvinia is grown
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Paleoclimatology: A Window to Past and Future

Paleoclimatology, the study of past climate patterns, is urgently being pursued in order to unravel the mysteries of current climate upheavals, such as droughts, floods, and global warming. Instrumental temperature records do not go back beyond the mid-1800s, but paleoclimatologists can investigate climate changes over past decades, centuries, and millennia. Through the study of tree rings, coral reefs, ice cores, and sediments in lakes and oceans, paleoclimatologists can help to determine what amount of climate variability is normal or natural for the earth.
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Orchids: Nature's Con Artists and Codependents

Orchids are arguably the largest family of plants. Examples of the family Orchidaceae appear in virtually every climate on six continents. Yet, for all their survival prowess, orchids have proven for centuries to be among the most challenging flowers for botanists to cultivate. Moreover, even in the wild, orchids rely on a dazzling array of unique and specialized pollination strategies by which to reproduce. These ploys place many types of orchids at the mercy of a single partner species of insect.
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Muriqui: The Peace-loving Primate

Humans can learn a lot from monkeys, especially the muriquis. Also known as woolly spider monkeys, they are the largest primates in the Western Hemisphere. They are also one of the world's most endangered species. Captivatingly beautiful, muriquis are long limbed, lanky, and golden furred. They measure about 5 feet (1.5 meters) from the tip of a pink nose to the end of a prehensile tail.
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Looking for an Ebola Vaccine

Viral infection has been a scourge to humankind since before recorded time. The 1918 influenza pandemic led to the death of over 20 million people; smallpox was a virulent killer for thousands of years; the fear of polio, the crippler of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, cleared American public pools and school playgrounds in the 1950s. The hope against viruses remains vaccines. For polio, the saviors were doctors Jonas Edward Salk and Albert Bruce Sabin, both of whom developed polio vaccines, while the collective efforts of the medical establishment worldwide led to the eradication of smallpox. Now the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., has announced a potential vaccine breakthrough against one of the modern world's most feared viral foes, Ebola.
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In Search of the Polar Dinosaur

The idea that continents have not always been fixed in their present positions was suspected as early as 1596. At that time, Dutch mapmaker Abraham Ortelius noticed and described the close geometrical fit of different continents. A century later the same observation was made by the English natural philosopher Francis Bacon. Their voices were not heeded at the time. It was only in 1912 that the idea was introduced as a full-blown scientific theory--called continental drift--by a young German geophysicist named Alfred Lothar Wegener. He contended that around 200 million years ago a single supercontinent, Pangaea, began to split apart into the smaller continents that exist today.
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