Researchers in the Biology-Science Teaching Department at the University of Haifa-Oranim have succeeded in deciphering the unique "self-watering" mechanism of the "desert rhubarb" plant that allows it to use an amount of water 16 times greater than expected based on the amount of rain in the desert. As far as is known, this is the only plant in the world that waters itself.
Researchers in the Biology-Science Teaching Department at the University of Haifa-Oranim have succeeded in deciphering the unique "self-watering" mechanism of the "desert rhubarb" plant that allows it to use an amount of water 16 times greater than expected based on the amount of rain in the desert. As far as is known, this is the only plant in the world that waters itself.
Desert rhubarb grows in the desert, in the Negev Mountains, in an area with an extremely low average precipitation (about 75 mm of rain per year). Unlike most species of plants in the desert, which have small leaves that reduce the loss of water from them, this plant is unique in that its leaves are very large and the diameter of its rosette reaches up to one meter. When prof. The leaves are covered with a slippery protective layer and are hardworking so that they resemble a miniature topographical model of the mountains that surrounded them.
According to the researchers, the deep grooves in the large and wide leaf create a mountain-like "topography" whose function is to drain the rainwater, similar to the wadis created by the real mountains, and inject it into the ground right next to the deep root of the plant. An oily mantle covers the leaf and also helps to drain the water efficiently. In contrast to this unique method of "self-watering", the rest of the desert plants are satisfied with the rainwater that seeps into the soil in their immediate environment.
The findings show that the processes of natural selection caused the evolution of the plant's leaves to develop in a way that improves its ability to survive in the harsh and arid climate of the desert. The results of the experiments and the analysis of the growth model of the leaves showed that with this method the "desert rhubarb", which lives in a regime of about 75 mm of rain per year, succeeds in enjoying an amount of water as if it lived in a Mediterranean region with about 426 mm per year, the largest amount 16 times more than its small-leaved counterparts. When the researchers "watered" the plant with artificial rain, they discovered that the water flows from the leaves to the area around the root and penetrated there to a depth of 10 cm or more, this is in contrast to the depth of about one centimeter to which the water normally penetrated throughout the desert.
"We don't know of any other desert plant in the world that behaves in this way," concluded the researchers.
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All the best to Prof. M'Oranim 🙂
Now I just know it's going to show up on the test on Friday…
Have fun 🙂
If so then it is clear.
Thanks.
Ishkhash:
You probably really didn't understand.
A normal plant can only benefit from the water flowing near its roots.
This plant has built itself a system for transporting water from points far away from the roots to the roots (note the size of its draining leaves) - this is exactly "moving water from one place to another".
This is exactly what we do when we start.
We also cannot transport water from places where our water transportation system does not reach.
I repeat and emphasize what they tried to explain already in the article. It overcomes water scarcity by transporting water that would otherwise be lost (in its view).
He does not overcome the lack of water but only a shortage and he does not even overcome a shortage that he suffers from because he does not suffer from a shortage - he "takes care" of his own lack!
These plants - obviously - do not grow at a high density because every plant needs a place to spread its drainage leaves.
The deficiency that the plant overcomes is the sparseness of the precipitation in the area and it does this by simply storing precipitation from a larger area.
Because the plant cannot move water from one water source to another, like the watering I do for it.
It can only transfer water from the area it covers during a rainfall or from the ground it comes in contact with after a rainfall.
So the discovery here is a drain of the plant? Apparently I didn't understand how he overcomes the lack of water since the channeling of water is essential only in cases where there is water.
straw man:
It is rightly said that he waters himself.
When we say we water plants we do not require ourselves to make it rain or recycle water to meet this definition.
We also take water that has fallen in one place and transport it to another place.
This is all our watering so why do you demand more from the plant?
The news is important and interesting, but: every botanist who has worked in the desert and anyone who has learned from those botanists in the last forty years knows and knows the rhubarb and its uniqueness in its ability to "water itself",
The uniqueness of the research is in the unique quantification!
That is, by turning general information into a detailed and measured explanation and giving the information a scientific cover.
Too simplistic.
What is this coating? And why is it said that he waters himself? He does not recycle water or make it rain, but rather concentrates water that falls on him at a certain point.
I'm guessing that the same coating works on the principle of super hydrophilicity and it drains the morning fog vapors with the same hydrophilic channels, straight towards the root.
I would be happy to confirm/cancel the guess.
Because it's not who knows what a breakthrough is.
post Scriptum. For all commenters, the site has an order of priorities and news items that need to be entered because of their date are pressing news items that won't sleep for them in another week. Our resources are limited, and we need to take care to share them correctly.
You can refer by email.
As for the level of the articles, we try to strike a balance between articles that can appear anywhere and writing about difficult topics that probably have no choice, what's more, these are relative things. They will understand (part of this is the fault of the Ministry of Education, which constantly lowers the level of education).
Hello father
I enjoy the website very much and I don't understand the controversy surrounding the publication. It doesn't matter at all who posted first. The articles on the site are very interesting and enriching, although I must point out that sometimes the terms are beyond the understanding of the reasonable reader.
Is it possible to direct questions to the site and how?
Actually response number 2 was definitely enough for me.
I didn't think it would cause such controversy.
As someone who happens to be a faithful stake every day, I identify with some of the things in response 7...
post Scriptum
I did not write this in order to disparage the site or the very interesting and intelligent articles.
So what if it was published somewhere else - nowhere else in the general press will they bring it in the proper way like here. And by the way - I also read an article on the subject about a week ago (in Ma'ariv or one of the freebies).
My people and my father:
Apparently, where it says 16, there should have been only 6 and the one on the left was simply distributed to someone.
Moshe (4):
It was said about your exact words, "He who rejects Momo rejects"
75X16 = 426
Little, no, as far as I know, the animal known as Marbo lives in Africa and not in Israel (but in zoos).
On this it is said: How many are your works, O Lord?
Moshe from response 4,
I take responsibility for my reaction (reaction 3), and please leave Avi Blizovsky alone who did his job here...
If you really believe what you wrote (and I find it hard to believe that a person with an honest mind and a pure heart would believe things, unless it is extreme innocence) your reaction is the 'cry of the robbed Cossack'.
Try once to read what is written in this propaganda from a clean, balanced judgement, without any prior commitment and identification. Then you will discover things that you normally did not think about, things that have a terrible halachic meaning.
I doubt if you've ever read anything from the Stirmer (the Scots also like to mention it a lot, about every little thing, without understanding what they're talking about) but I tell you that the propaganda Yad Neman is the closest thing to the Stirmer of anything written in Israel.
Until about 30 years ago, I seriously thought that the ultra-Orthodox crowd (and I do not mean the Karta Neturi and the Faithful Guards and the Toledot Aharon and all those close to them) could be a 'Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Gentile'. But since then, things have taken completely negative directions: extreme protectionism, nepotism of courts and businessmen, proactive ignorance, tribalistic oligarchy, sclerotic and petrified leadership that perpetuates its oligarchic nature because of the most natural and justified interests of the crowd, 'Torah lives' based on circumcision and parasitism, hypocrisy And living for appearances, physical misery and spiritual misery and mental reduction, and racism, yes racism in the most blatant form that has existed in Israel and the Western world in general - and more and more.
One of the most powerful locomotives leading in these negative directions is the 'Yeded Na'eman' propaganda, which is nothing more than a false house, a device for gross and violent propaganda to perpetuate the leadership, the businessmen and all the possessors and interests and all the negative regimes that are being led in all areas of ultra-Orthodox life, to the detriment of true Torah life. In his conduct, the propaganda oozes with contempt and contempt as well as venom and hatred towards anyone who does not belong to the 'correct circle', and I am not talking only about secularists, or about 'mizrohanics'!
And you still dare to accuse me of stupidity?! In race theory?! Bush and all!
I read this news in ScienceDaily a few days ago. The use of the name "Haifa-Oranim" is puzzling but nevertheless understandable when the news is in English for an audience that does not know Oranim. What I don't understand is why the same nomenclature is also preserved in the Hebrew translation? After all, there is no such university as "Haifa-Oranim"...
Here is another thing that nature can teach us about fully utilizing its resources and how to save energy!
I only hope that the scientists will wise up and make something out of it that all of humanity can enjoy!
This is exactly the simplest thing you can come up with and say "how come they didn't think of this before..."
Avi Blizovsky, the distinguished editor
Your site preaches hatred in the Stirmer style for example the previous comment
It is just as scientific as race theory
Avi,
'Yeded Na'am' is not a newspaper - it is a propaganda mouthpiece (see the 'Scotland' entry, just for one example of many) 'horrifying' (literally). He is not a 'stake' and he is not at all 'faithful'. Every word that is written in it is in the possession of the slip from its grasp if not one twist or another, and information on scientific subjects may also be included in this scope.
Therefore, the appearance of any information in it is not evidence of anything. I am surprised that you even rely on a 'newspaper' that is not such a newspaper.
We need a site like the scientist to publish it so that we know there are things in the world...
In scientific research, a week here or there doesn't matter much, unlike the media, and everyone saw an example of this in the sticker case where the newspapers rushed to publish an unfounded scientific report without checking it, and without even thinking about the logic of the things they were told.
Is this supposed to be news??!
It was in the "Yedad Na'am" newspaper last week!... on Sunday or Monday!
And I know that "Yad Ne'am" doesn't really pay attention to news...