DON’T FORGET: One more last-minute application day for recipients of The Era’s Less Fortunate (ELF) Fund will be held from noon to 4 p.m. today at the Bradford Area Public Library.

The Christmas season is coming up quickly.

PARASITIC PLANTS: Sometimes nature is stranger than anything we could make up.

Researchers — including some at Penn State University — are studying parasitic plants in the broomrape family, which includes varieties that can be quite destructive to agriculture.

According to researchers, the parasitic plants may be able to steal DNA from their victim plants to use in their evil plots against them.

OK, so Penn State didn’t actually use the word “evil” in a release on the research.According to Penn State, “Sneaky parasitic weeds may be able to steal genes from the plants they are attacking and then use those genes against the host plant.

“In a study, researchers detected 52 incidences of the nonsexual transfer of DNA — know as horizontal gene transfer, or HGT — from a host plant to members of a parasitic plant family known as the broomrapes,” said Claude dePamphilis, professor of biology, Penn State.

The group’s findings were released Monday in the scientific journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

The process of DNA transfer was explained in the press release: “The roots of the parasite contact and enter the host, and then begin extracting water, sugars, mineral nutrients and even nucleic acids, including DNA and RNA.”

DePamphilis further explained, “So they are stealing genes from their host plants, incorporating them into the genome and then turning those genes back around, very often, as a weapon against the host.”

Weird.

The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding research efforts of the Parasitic Plant Genome Project.

The goal of the research is to learn about parasitic plants to better protect agriculture.