Scientists have long known that certain fungi can pressurize the fluid in their cells and use that ability to shoot spores as far out as possible. Some researchers have photographed the process, but ...

Anyone who’s ever done a bit of gardening or hiking is probably aware of sphagnum moss—it’s estimated to cover about one percent of the Earth’s surface, and is harvested for use as a potting material.

Many fungi, including the destructive Sclerotinia, spew thousands of spores at once to give the spores an extra boost into their host plants. Researchers now show how this works. The near-simultaneous ...

The tree-strangling pathogen that causes sudden oak death is baffling scientists even after 14 years on its trail. The latest puzzle for sleuths in the field and laboratory is how the microscopic ...

Bacterial spores store information about the individual growth history of their progenitor cells, thus retaining a "memory" that links the different stages of the bacterial life cycle. The spore ...

Here’s a spooky conundrum: Is a spore alive or dead? Gürol Süel, a biologist at the University of California, San Diego, wouldn’t blame you if you voted for dead: “There’s nothing to detect: no ...

Jackson Ryan was CNET's science editor, and a multiple award-winning one at that. Earlier, he'd been a scientist, but he realized he wasn't very happy sitting at a lab bench all day. Science writing, ...

They look like lifeless green dust, but the spores of spiky horsetail plants can jump about 200 times their body length. That’s true even though they lack legs. Equisetum spores trail long, ...