A home-brewing technique used to extract morphine from unwashed poppy seeds can produce lethal doses of the drug, according to research at Sam Houston State University. Madeleine Swortwood, an assistant professor in the Department of Forensic Science, began investigating the issue after being contacted by the father of a 21-year-old man who died after ingesting […]
How poppy flowers get those vibrant colors that entice insects
With bright reds and yellows — and even the occasional white — poppies are very bright and colorful. Their petals, however, are also very thin; they are made up of just three layers of cells. University of Groningen scientists Casper van der Kooi and Doekele Stavenga used microscopy and mathematical models describing how light interacts […]