http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (AP) -- These gardeners would have green thumbs - if they had thumbs. http://www.physorg.com/news158587240.html Electronics Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:01:30 EST news158587240 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the middle of MIT`s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) sits a platform of fake grass with tomato plants nestled in terra cotta pots, growing under the light of an artificial sun. But this urban, indoor garden has a twist: the caretakers of the plants are entirely robotic. http://www.physorg.com/news155904807.html Electronics Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:54:22 EST news155904807 How a bacterium overcomes a tomato plant's defences and causes disease, by sneakily disabling the plant's intruder detection systems, is revealed in new research out today (4 December) in Current Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news147616827.html Biology Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:40:27 EST news147616827 Why do poppies and sunflowers grow as a single flower per stalk while each stem of a tomato plant has several branches, each carrying flowers? In a new study, published in this week's issue of the open access journal PLoS Biology, Dr. Zachary Lippman and colleagues identify a genetic mechanism that determines the pattern of flower growth in the Solanaceae (nightshade) family of plants that includes tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant, tobacco, petunia, and deadly nightshades. Manipulation of the identified pathway can turn the well known tomato vine into a highly branched structure with hundreds of flower-bearing shoots, and may thereby result in increased crop yields. http://www.physorg.com/news146220203.html Biology Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:43:23 EST news146220203