Hi Deep Look and Science Fans, With their bright golden faces, sunflowers seem to beam back at you on sunny days. But before they even bloom, young sunflower plants do something fascinating at night. They spend all night growing toward the east, to be in place to greet the sunrise. Then they spend their days tracking the sun – angling their leaves and bending their stems toward it until it sets in the west. Scientists think they have an internal circadian clock that guides their movements day after day. Then, when they are ready to bloom, they fix themselves facing east to attract some special friends – bees and other pollinators. Bees love a sunflower lit up and warmed by the morning sun. So the sunflowers make sure they are in place to catch the first morning rays. Check out the inner workings of a sunflower in our new episode and in this newsletter.
Josh Cassidy, Deep Look lead producer and cinematographer
Sunflower seeds are a snack beloved by many. To make their tasty seeds, sunflowers need to attract bees with a warm, bright bloom. So, the plants spend their youth preparing to face the sunrise just as the pollinators fly by.
The sunflower’s head looks like one giant flower but it is actually an inflorescence — a collection of hundreds or thousands of individual flowers, called florets.
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Science Stories You'll Love
Photo: Courtesy of Zihui Zhou
KQED SCIENCE This Yellow Powder Made at UC Berkeley Can Suck Carbon From the Air UC Berkeley chemists developed a material that absorbs carbon dioxide — a key part of the battle against climate change — but whether it can do this cheaply and at scale remains to be seen.
☀️ Before they bloom, young sunflower plants track the sun all day as it travels across the sky. This behavior is called heliotropism, after the Greek word for the sun, helios. 🌙When the sun sets, these young sunflower plants do something curious: They spend all night growing back toward the east, in anticipation of the sun’s return the next morning. 🌻Once the sunflower blooms, it gives up moving back and forth and only faces east to attract bees for the rest of its days. 💮The sunflower's florets mature and release pollen. After each floret has released its pollen it becomes receptive to pollen from other plants. 👩🍳 Each pollinated floret grows into a nutritious sunflower seed. The seeds make tasty snacks and are used to make cooking oil.
PLAY
Name That Plant
Since before the dinosaurs roamed and plants grew flowers, this plant has been reproducing without the help of pollinators. It has rows of brown dots on the underside of its leaves that are the secret to its reproductive success. What plant is it? Find the answer at the bottom of this newsletter.
EVENT
Livestream: How Innovation Can Save the Living Ocean
Deep Look Producer Rosa Tuirán (far right) moderates a conversation with some of the world’s leading experts in ocean health and sustainability. The event’s panelists, left to right, are Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium; Fiorenza Micheli, chair of the oceans department at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability; and Julie Bert, director of SRI’s Hardware Research and Technology Lab. The event was held at SRI’s PARC Campus in Palo Alto, California on Tuesday, Oct. 15. If you missed attending, the livestream recording of the event is now available.
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We hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Thank you for your support! Until next week! - The Deep Look Team and Science Teams Deep Look is KQED’s award-winning wildlife video series that reveals the tiny dramas playing out in the natural world. We’re a member-supported YouTube series from KQED and PBS Digital Studios. Learn more. KQED’s award-winning science coverage brings you the latest climate, environment and health news from the Bay Area and beyond. KQED Science is supported in part by the members of KQED. Learn more.
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Fern! Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of *that* next time you’re hiking in the forest. Find out more in our video: Watch Ferns Get Freaky.
