Category: Plants & Technology

A new material to capture carbon dioxide comes from a surprising green source: spruce cones (Click on title for full story)

team of scientists overwintering at a remote station in Antarctica has harvested crops grown in a high-tech greenhouse designed to test technologies that could one day feed explorers on the moon and Mars. (Click on title for full story.)

There were large differences in performance with the best apps identifying >50 % of samples tested to genus or better. (Click on title for full story)

Still in its early stages, the idea is akin in some ways to cultured meat — an opportunity to streamline the production of biomaterials. The team demonstrated the concept by growing structures made of wood-like cells from an initial sample of cells extracted from zinnia leaves. (Click on title for full story)

Switching to transparent wood could prove to be cost efficient as well. It is approximately five times more thermally efficient than glass, cutting energy costs. It is made from a sustainable, renewable resource with low carbon emissions. It’s also compatible with existing industrial processing equipment, making the transition into manufacturing an easy prospect. (Click on title for full story.)

There are multiple ways you can look at it, but one option might be to use what’s already there as a potting medium, and figure out if that’s a viable way to do it or if you have to bring all the plant materials with you,” Fackrell said. “The question of whether we can use Mars soil to provide that food will go a long way toward determining the feasibility of manned missions.” (Click on title for full story)

After seeing forest fires endanger lives and cause destruction year on year, they wanted to do something about it. Rajnish began to explore the idea of harnessing energy from the abundant pine needles. (Click on title for full story.)

Declines in the number of global pollinator insects, the heavy labor of conducting artificial pollination manually, and the rising cost of pollen grains are considered to be significant worldwide problems. Here we show that chemically functionalized soap bubbles exhibit effective and convenient delivery of pollen grains to the targeted flowers thanks to their stickiness, softness, high flexibility, and enhancement of pollen activity. (Click on title for full story.)