Azolla is a floating aquatic fern with a very fast growth. That’s important for multiple reasons, the first being that the fern shows “great promise as a biofuel,” says Rothfel. While it’s been used ...

FIFTY million years ago the Earth was overheated by greenhouse gases and the future of life seemed bleak. But a little green fern saved the day. Can it do it again? Behind the shift which created the ...

If you ever watch a duck float across a pond, gobbling up the vegetation coating the surface, that bird is way ahead of its time. The buoyant greenery is azolla, a tiny fern that grows like crazy, ...

Is the floating freshwater fern commonly called Carolina azolla the potential answer to global food insecurity or a possible threat to humanity? On the heels of a study published earlier this year by ...

As the cost of animal feeds continues to rise in Uganda, many farmers are searching for affordable and sustainable alternatives to feed their livestock. One solution that is gradually attracting ...

Kathleen Pryer is professor of biology at Duke University and president of the American Fern Society. Fifty million years ago, the Earth was so warm that turtles and alligators thrived in lush forests ...

When you’re a tiny fern in a big, cruel world, how do you survive insect attacks and stay fed? Teaming up with bacteria might do the trick! Biologists have sequenced the genomes of ferns for the first ...

Behind the shift which created the balmy climate of the past few million years was a geological coincidence: The isolation of the Arctic Ocean. At this critical point in history, the newly enclosed ...