The kapok connection -- Study explains rainforest similarities

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Kapok trees are challenging the notion that African and South American rainforests are similar. Credit: Zina Deretsky National Science Foundation
Kapok trees are challenging the notion that African and South American rainforests are similar. Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

Celebrated in Buddhist temples and cultivated for its wood and cottony fibers, the kapok tree now is upsetting an idea that biologists have clung to for decades: the notion that African and South American rainforests are similar because the continents were connected 96 million years ago.


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All News summaries for June 16, 2007

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