Agriculture
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Agriculture
Cold plasma could transform the sustainable farms of the future
Physicists have been working on ways to use the power of plasma to boost plant growth and kill pathogens.
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Earth
Mixing trees and crops can help both farmers and the climate
Agriculture is a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. But integrating trees into farming practices can boost food production, store carbon and save species.
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Plants
How Romanesco cauliflower forms its spiraling fractals
By tweaking just three genes in a common lab plant, scientists have discovered the mechanism responsible for one of nature’s most impressive fractals.
By Nikk Ogasa -
Agriculture
A tweaked yeast can make ethanol from cornstalks and a harvest’s other leftovers
By genetically modifying baker’s yeast, scientists figured out how to get almost as much ethanol from cornstalks as kernels.
By Nikk Ogasa -
Animals
Focusing on Asian giant hornets distorts the view of invasive species
2021’s first “murder hornet” is yet another arrival. This is the not-so-new normal.
By Susan Milius -
Agriculture
Nanoscale nutrients can protect plants from fungal diseases
Applied to the shoots, nutrients served in tiny metallic packages are absorbed more efficiently, strengthening plants’ defenses against fungal attack.
By Shi En Kim -
Plants
Modified genes can distort wild cotton’s interactions with insects
In a Yucatan nature park, engineered genes influence nectar production, affecting ants’ and maybe pollinators’ attraction to the wild cotton plants.
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Agriculture
How does a crop’s environment shape a food’s smell and taste?
Scientific explorations of terroir — the soil, climate and orientation in which crops grow — hint at influences on flavors and aromas.
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Tech
Bubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination
Drones are too clumsy to rub pollen on flowers and not damage them. But blowing pollen-laden bubbles may help the machines be better pollinators.
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Animals
Insects’ extreme farming methods offer us lessons to learn and oddities to avoid
Insects invented agriculture long before humans did. Can we learn anything from them?
By Susan Milius -
Life
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Tailored microbes defend bees with a gene-silencing process called RNA interference that takes on viruses or mites.
By Susan Milius -
Ecosystems
Can forensics help keep endangered rosewood off the black market?
Timber traffickers are plundering the world’s forests, but conservationists have a new set of tools to fight deforestation.