Category: SciencePage 16 of 33

Latest science blog posts from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

The IMPRESSIONS project: Our climate future?

Developing strategies to manage high-end climate change in Scotland and Europe IMPRESSIONS (Impacts and risks from high-end scenarios: Strategies for innovative solutions) is a 5-year EU project that…

Comparative Editions: Ryff’s ‘Kurtzes Handbüchlein und Experiment vieler Artzneyen durch den gantzen Cörper des Menschens…’

By Hannah Swan While browsing our Rare Book Collection, we recently came across a boxed book that was as of yet uncatalogued in our online system, Kurtzes Handbüchlein…

A Mystery of Provenance: Boccone’s ‘Recherches et Observations Naturelles’

By Hannah Swan Paolo Boccone’s Recherches et Observations Naturelles de Monsieur BOCCONE, Gentilhomme Sicilien…, published in the translated French in 1674 in Amsterdam, offers several tantalizing clues of…

Alternative Methods for Collecting Plant Material for Future DNA Extraction – Part I

Quality and quantity of DNA recovered from stored plant material is becoming more important as DNA sequencing technologies change from the relatively simple Sanger sequencing, to next generation…

Hybrid capture from degraded DNA: test Begonia sample quality

Keen to see the effects of different specimen preservation techniques on DNA quantity and quality, we have assessed extractions of DNA from nine Begonia accessions x seven preservation…

Hybrid capture from degraded DNA: Squashing Begonia

In order to look at the effects of herbarium preservation methods on DNA quality, Hannah Wilson and Mark Hughes took a trip down to our research glasshouses, and…

Hybrid capture from degraded DNA: choosing Begonia

The megadiverse genus Begonia L. is one of the world’s largest plant genera, comprising over 1,800 species, an estimated 200 of which are endemic to New Guinea. A…

Hybrid capture from degraded DNA: stockpiling Begonia DNA for protocol testing

When working out new protocols, it’s very useful to have a big stash of DNA to test them on. Just now, in a collaborative project with Dr Michelle…

What’s the matter with Nardia?

The leafy liverwort genus Nardia has five species that are known to occur in Scotland. Of these five species that occur in Scotland, four are described in Smith’s…

Alpine blue-sow-thistle conservation

Reintroduction of the rare and threatened alpine blue-sow-thistle to the Cairngorms Natioanl Park is described in a short film by Dr Aline Finger.

In memory of Private James Christopher Adam (1882-1918), and his brother Lt. Robert Moyes Adam (1885-1967)

The 21st March 2018 marks the centenary of the death of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) Helper James Christopher Adam. He was the older brother of RBGE’s photographer…

Rhododendron leaves in winter: A moving tale

If you’re ever in the Garden when the temperature is near or below freezing, you may notice that some of the evergreen rhododendrons look rather sorry for themselves….

Untangling asetate Weissia species in the UK

Dr Des Callaghan spends rather a lot of his time chasing after rare things. He’s an environmental consultant with many strings to his bow, but a particular specialisation…

The Battle of Glen Tilt

“was ye at the Glen o’ Tilt, An’ did the shindy see, man? John Hutton Balfour, Regius Keeper at the RBGE and Professor of Botany at the University…

Project Soothe is Three

Last week Project Soothe celebrated their third birthday by launching a film celebrating the exhibition we held together here at the Botanics in 2017 – a double celebration!…

Botanical discovery in Nepal

In August 2017 Dr Colin Pendry led an expedition to Bajura, a remote district of Nepal. This short film is about the challenges of reaching the higher altitudes…

Unlocking the power of poo

A short video by Dr Linda Neaves about the challenges of finding giant panda poo in the mountains of China, and how poo samples can unlock the mystery…

The liverwort genus Haplomitrium

Life gets littered with untold stories; here’s one that did get told, briefly, and then got forgotten. It was told at the Botany meeting in Austin in August…

Bryologising at Benmore

Four years ago, we took an overnight trip to one of the four gardens of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh: Benmore, in Argyll (Sunday 2nd – Monday 3rd February…

The Systematics Association 2019 Biennial meeting (or, Things to do in Bristol)

I can fairly safely predict that next summer’s top UK destination for the discerning systematist will be the English city of Bristol. Having never been before, I headed…