{"id":72089,"date":"2025-11-05T13:08:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=72089"},"modified":"2025-11-06T10:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:26:17","slug":"cycad-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/cycad-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycad Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Cycad Plant Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar has initiated a research on Cycad, over concerns that the plant contains BMAA, a potential neurotoxin.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Cycad Plant<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>palmlike woody gymnospermous plants<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an ancient plant species that is believed<\/span><b> to have coexisted with dinosaurs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for over 300 million years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Habitat: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They occupy a <\/span><b>variety of habitats<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Some are native to <\/span><b>wet rainforests<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> while others are from <\/span><b>semidesert climates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; others grow in <\/span><b>grasslands or seasonally dry forests.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Distribution:<\/b> <b>Tropical and subtropical latitudes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Americas, Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, eastern India, China, Japan, southeast Asia, Oceania and Australia.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Features of Cycad Plant<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are woody, long-lived, <\/span><b>unisexual plants a<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nd their main roots thickened, fleshy and often tuberous.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are distinguished by crowns of large <\/span><b>pinnately compound leaves<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and by cones.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cycads in <\/span><b>general are fire-adapted<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, losing leaves to the blaze but soon restoring them in a growth flush.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Soil:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They may be <\/span><b>found growing in rich<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, organic soils, <\/span><b>sand, or rock<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in swampy soils or even in halophytic (salty) soils.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cycads are long-lived, <\/span><b>don\u2019t reproduce frequently,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and most populations are small, putting them at risk of extinction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Threats:<\/b> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><b>Habitat conversion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> through agriculture or development, illegal removal of wild plants for horticultural collection, and <\/span><b>climate change.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/city\/bhubaneswar\/aiims-bhubaneswar-investigates-neurological-risks-linked-to-cycad-plant-based-foods\/articleshow\/125066732.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TOI<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cycad Plant is an ancient gymnosperm species linked to possible neurotoxin BMAA. Found in tropical regions, it is long-lived but threatened by habitat loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":72079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3566,246,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-72089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-cycad-plant","9":"tag-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-prelims-pointers","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}