Video: When peat goes POP
When nature calls, and kingdom Plantae is whipped into a reproductive fervor, peat moss doesn't merely release its spores -- it explodes them. For the first time ever, researchers using ultra high speed video have recorded in exquisite detail the volatile burst of spore capsules in several species of __Sphagnum__ moss, and they've noted quirks of fluid dynamics, called "vortex rings," previously associated only with animals or machines. (For example, when squid and jellyfish propel themselves th
Written byBob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.
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Video courtesy of Clara Hard, Joan Edwards, and Dwight Whitaker __Sphagnum magellanicum__ achieves "spore launch." The gene carrying particles reach a height of 143 mm.
Video courtesy of Nora Mitchell and Joan Edwards Whitaker, DL and J. Edwards, "__Sphagnum__ Moss Disperses Spores with Vortex Rings," __Science__, 329:406, 2010.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:A mossy renaissance;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/57103/
[February 2010]*linkurl:Moss makeup;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/56257/
[January 2010]*linkurl:Dennis Wall: From moss to autism;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55644/
[May 2009]
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Meet the Author
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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