green plants chloroplast cyanobacteria microbial mergers

Green plants trace part of their history to two microbial mergers

Complex cells appear to have formed when two kinds of microbes entered a lasting partnership. Much later, the ancestors of green plants took in another bacterium able to use sunlight. That second partner eventually became the chloroplast found inside plant cells.

Some flowers show patterns humans cannot see

Some flowers have ultraviolet patterns that human eyes cannot see. Many insects can see them, and the patterns can guide pollinators toward the flower. To the plant, these invisible signals may matter more than the colors humans notice.

An Indigenous slavery historian challenges the usual account of Caribbean deaths

Disease devastated Indigenous communities after European colonization of the Americas. But historian Andrés Reséndez argues that enslavement, forced labor and displacement played an even larger role in some early Caribbean population collapses than commonly acknowledged. The interpretation highlights how epidemics and colonial exploitation interacted rather than operating as separate causes.

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green plants chloroplast cyanobacteria microbial mergers

Green plants trace part of their history to two microbial mergers

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