Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. This tiny weed performs real arithmetic in the dark. Here’s ...

The thale cress may be a humble weed, but to science, it’s an important model organism. Researchers use the plant as a proxy in experiments to represent other plants, animals and even humans—thanks to ...

Watch how China Shenzhou 14 crew cultivated plants using rice and Thale cress seeds on the Tiangong space station during ...

Forget talking to plants to help them grow, gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease, a new article reveals. Gently rubbing the leaves of thale cress plants ...

This release is available in German. It would appear reasonable to assume that two closely related plant species would have similar genetic blueprints. However, scientists from the Max Planck ...

Thale cress has a complicated defence technique against insects and microorganisms that use the plant as a source of food. The plant hormone jasmonic acid plays a major role during the immune response ...

Thale cress seeds survived but grew more slowly than those planted in volcanic ash, developing stunted roots The prospect of growing crops on the moon has edged a little closer after researchers ...

There’s always something new to discover in the world, even in things you have seen a million times. For us, it might be an interesting tidbit in the background of a fave film or a sound in a popular ...