Plants have intrigued people for thousands of years. They provide aesthetic beauty as well as materials for our basic needs. Moreover, the application of plant sciences improves the yield and supply of medicines, foods, fibres, building materials and other plant products.

What’s this career about?

Botany can be a rewarding career option in India for those who have a passion for plants, the environment, and research. Botanists study all aspects of plant life, including their structure, growth, genetics, and interactions with the environment.

They could be: identifying, recording, monitoring or breeding a plant species or searching for a new species, studying plant populations at a number of sites across different locations, to investigate the effects of pollution, drought or agricultural pests, studying plant cells, structure and function, extracting any useful chemicals, working in conservation, protecting plant life in a local area, promoting public awareness through activities or managing plant collections at a botanic garden, using specialist laboratory equipment and techniques such as electron microscopes, digital imaging analysis and satellite imaging, exploring the use of plants in medicine; for example, finding out if a plant has anti-bacterial or anti-oxidant properties, studying plant evolution or genetics, collecting and analysing data, writing reports and making recommendations based on the results of experiments or observations.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post From Roots to Research: Exploring a Career as a Botanist appeared first on The Teenager Today.

There are many benefits to having pets and plants. If you are a pet lover and a plant lover, too, you definitely get incredible love, joy, happiness, and peace from both of these sources. Pets and plants are excellent companions that require care, while they provide so much in return. Having both pets and plants at home can create a lively and enriching environment, but it’s essential to consider the needs and interactions between them to ensure their well-being. Here are some tips for harmoniously co-existing with pets and plants in your home:

1. Pet-Friendly Plants: Choose houseplants that are safe for pets in case they decide to nibble on them. Some common pet-safe plants include spider plants, Boston ferns, African violets, and certain types of palms. Be sure to research any plant before bringing it into your home to confirm that it is non-toxic for your specific pet.

2. Plant Placement: Keep plants out of reach of curious pets, especially if you have cats who may like to climb or dogs who might chew on leaves. Consider placing plants on high shelves, hanging them from the ceiling, or using plant stands to elevate them.

3. Avoid Toxic Plants: Some common household plants can be toxic to pets if ingested; they may lead to symptoms ranging from mild gastrointestinal upset to more severe reactions. Examples include lilies, philodendron, aloe vera, and certain types of ivy. Make sure to research any new plant purchases to ensure they’re safe for your furry friends.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Pets and Plants in Your Home appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Indoor gardening is still enjoying a surge in popularity. It may endure longer than most because of the many ways houseplants improve health and well-being. Many people are taking to indoor gardening as there are long-standing benefits of the same.

Major benefits of indoor gardening

1. Indoor plants may help reduce stress levels
Plants in your home or office can make you feel more comfortable, soothed and natural. It has been found that the indoor gardening task lowered the stress response in people. Researchers have found that working with plants could reduce both physiological and psychological stress.

2. Real plants may sharpen your attention
Students who studied with real, live plants in the classroom were more attentive and better able to concentrate than students who did not have real plants in their classrooms.

3. Working with plants can be therapeutic
For people experiencing the symptoms of mental illness, indoor gardening can be helpful. Gardening increases feelings of well-being among people with depression, anxiety and other psychological conditions. Many therapists prescribe potted plants to patients with depression or anxiety symptoms.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Indoor Plants for Health and Wellness appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Dead succulents here, dead cactuses there
The life in the plants seems to vanish into thin air.
Did the sun glare too much?
Or did the water stay out of touch?
There’s nothing on Earth that can help me deduce;
Unless it’s the glaring fact that I am a serial plant killer on the loose!
And yes, I’ve admitted to the crimes that I have done,
The water and manure were second to none.
I have killed more plants than those thieving little worms!
And it’s understandably late that I have come to terms;
Houseplants may be beneficial.
But right now, let’s stick with the artificial.
The serial plant killer has remorse of his own,
Wouldn’t it be better for him to be left alone?

The post The serial plant killer appeared first on The Teenager Today.

The Lua Smart Plant Pot transforms your favorite houseplant into a virtual pet combined with the thrill of actually keeping something real alive. An accompanying app lets users generate information specific to that plant.

Lua uses a range of sensors to monitor moisture, light and temperature and detect how the plant is feeling, and conveys that by way of a cartoon face on a 2.4 inch LED screen. For example, if light exposure isn’t enough a vampire face will appear. If you forget to water your friend, a thirsty face displays or a face with chattering teeth appears if the plant is too cold, a sweating face if the plant is too hot, a squinting face for too much light and a sick face for too much water. When all is well, Lua has a serene smile. It even goes to sleep and wakes up when it detects movement, following objects with its eyes.

The post The smart planter with feelings appeared first on The Teenager Today.

The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants (the Glass Flowers) is a collection of realistic glass botanical models at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Commissioned by Harvard to introduce botany students to the beauty and complexity of the plant kingdom, it was created by glass artisans Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a Czech father-son team, from 1887 to 1936. This collection of over 4,300 models representing more than 780 plant species, includes 847 life-size models and 3,000 detail models of plant parts and anatomical sections. Each corolla, leaf, stamen, fruit pod, hair, vein, bracht and petal was handmade by the artists, who moulded glass warmed by a heat lamp with ordinary pincers and tweezers and created each groove and line with a needle. The Glass Flowers are viewed by more than 210,000 visitors annually.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions for more facts like this.

The post Blaschka Glass Models of Plants appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Taming the shrew

You’ve probably heard of the pitcher plant and its clever mechanism to trap and eat insects.

But what is more interesting is the relationship one species of the pitcher plant has developed with the tree shrew, a small rodent.

The plant badly needs nitrogen, it doesn’t matter in which form, and for that purpose, it readily transforms into a mini toilet. The shrew feeds on the nectar without falling inside the pitcher and returns the favour by defecating right into the pitcher, thus providing the nitrates that the plant needs!

Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.

The post Peculiar fauna and their strange ways appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Welwitschia mirabilis is the last remaining plant in its genus, the last in its family, the last in its order. It comes from a community of plants that thrived more than 200 million years ago. All of them slowly vanished, except for Welwitschia.

The plant can live up to 1,500 years and is only found in the Namib Desert between Namibia and Angola. It survives on moisture from fog and dew.

It has two main leaves and a deep taproot. It is actually a tree with a very short trunk and it grows extremely slowly. Over the years the leaves become enormous and often split into several lobes. When they get to a couple of metres long, the ends curl up and fray into gray, whiskery threads, so it is only their continual renewal from the centre that allows the plant to carry on growing and photosynthesizing.

The post Welwitschia mirabilis lives up to 1500 years appeared first on The Teenager Today.