Environment & Biology

Soil biodiversity in danger: why it is crucial to protect what lies beneath our feet

Soil biodiversity in danger: why it is crucial to protect what lies beneath our feet

When we think about protecting our environment, we often think of what lives above the land; we think of the trees, the wildlife on our moorlands, and removing plastic from our oceans. But we need to start looking further down, to what truly lies beneath our feet and beyond what our eyes can see; we need to look to what inhabits our soils.

Study into toxic plants could lead to new treatments for human diseases

Study into toxic plants could lead to new treatments for human diseases

Many plants use toxins as a defense against being eaten. But why do these toxins not harm the plants themselves? Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Münster have investigated the mechanisms involved in defensive toxins in plants, and their findings may lead to new treatments for human diseases.