Science of the Future
Viewpoint — ‘Less food waste, lower carbon footprints and a socially sensitive food system’: Tech-enabled farming intensification is the only science-based path to sustainability
Several trends become quickly apparent when we engage the public about agriculture. Consumers across the industrialized world reject concepts like ...
‘Genetic engineering the wild’: Crucial questions to ask as we enter the era of gene drives
Gene drives are a technology through which a few individual genetically engineered organisms would be deployed to intentionally push new ...
Concerned about insect declines? AI pollinating robots could come to the rescue
Across the globe, startups are testing robots to pollinate everything from blueberries to almonds. And in Australia, one company is ...
How AI and gene editing can combine to revolutionize climate-smart farming
While precision agriculture promises to reduce indiscriminate use of water, fertilizer and pesticides, intensive efforts are also being made at ...
Exoplanets and alien life: Next generation orbital telescopes open windows to the universe
There are about 25 billion stars in our galaxy that are just like our sun, and astronomers suspect that about ...
Consistent global regulations essential to bring cell-based meat into the mainstream
Singapore's historical approval of cell-based meat late last year spurred industry momentum, but there remains a lack of clarity on ...
Foie gras without the guilt: Lab-grown duck and goose liver in the works
Foie gras, which is made from duck or goose liver, has long been public enemy No. 1 among those concerned ...
‘Precision microbiome analysis’ diets — based on almost no rigorous research — see surge in popularity
A crop of “precision nutrition” startups are racing to develop and engineer individualized diet programs, based on growing evidence that ...
Viewpoint: How COVID has altered the future of US agriculture and the role of biotechnology
The past year has been a doozy. Being locked up for a year and watching half a million Americans die ...
Crispy plant-based bacon is the alternative protein ‘holy grail’
[Beyond Meat’s] burgers, meatballs, sausage links and other plant-based meat products are projected to generate more than $500 million in ...
Does the public have an appetite for lab-cultivated meat?
Laboratory grown muscle cells from various animals are quickly becoming a commercial reality; they are already real food, at least ...
How AI could confer ‘digital immortality’
Researchers and entrepreneurs are starting to ponder how artificial intelligence could create versions of people after their deaths—not only as ...
Bird flu is a major threat to chicken farming and human health. A gene-editing solution developed by African scientists is in the works
Dr. [Alewo Idoko-Akoh], a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, is working on a project that uses genome editing ...
Can AI brain-computer interfaces replace depression pills?
Sometimes antidepressants stop working after prolonged use and for many people they don’t work at all... With such gloomy prospects, it ...
Viewpoint: Why the federal government should subsidize high risk, early stage research into alternative meats and other proteins
A record-breaking $3.1 billion was invested in alternative proteins — plant-based and cultivated meat — in 2020. However, we and other ...
‘Digital agriculture has the power to be truly disruptive’: How AI and robotics are helping Japan overcome land challenges and dramatically increase farm yields
Japan has one of the lowest food self-sufficiency rates out of all the major world economies. Caloric intake was 79% ...
Bionic bird? Meet Mia, rescued from certain death by a plug-and-play prosthetic foot
[Researcher Oskar Aszmann has given] Mia, a bearded vulture, a new foot. This is the first time a prosthetic of ...
Lab-grown meat promises to cut water and land use by more than 96%. Why are US regulators dragging their feet in approving this ‘sustainable innovation’?
Future Meat Technologies announced [recently] that it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale ...
With droughts escalating, and no current tools of use, scientists and farmers look to CRISPR gene editing
Scientists fear that we're entering a megadrought that could last decades. As agriculture consumes 80 percent of available water nationwide ...
The exabyte data solution? How we can store all of the world’s data in microscopic silica particles placed in DNA
On Earth right now, there are about 10 trillion gigabytes of digital data, and every day, humans produce emails, photos, ...
Russia positions itself as a world leader in genetically edited cows
Researchers from Ernst Federal Science Center for Animal Husbandry, Skoltech, Moscow State University and their colleagues have produced the first ...
Food from thin air? Transforming carbon emissions into protein could clean up pollution and reduce land needed to feed billions of people
Around the world, forests are being cut down to grow protein-rich soya to feed to animals. Using solar power to ...
Persuasion machines: AI can now debate humans. We still win — for now
Stand aside, Siri and Alexa. An IBM team led by artificial intelligence (A.I.) researcher Noam Slonim has devised a system ...
‘We create mosquito sex parties’: How an eco-friendly, AI-guided release of sterile mosquito females might control the scourge of disease-carrying insects
Jerusalem-based Diptera.ai has figured out a way to use AI to fight the growing threat of mosquitoes, which are spreading ...
Viewpoint: Eric Lander is the first geneticist to direct US science policy. Here’s how he can harness the biotechnology revolution
Eric Lander—geneticist, mathematician, president and founding director of the Broad Institute— took the helm on June 2 as director of the Office of Science and ...
How genetic engineering will help make fishing more sustainable
After an arduous process that took more than 25 years from time of conception to commercialization, the GMO salmon was ...
Forest of the future: Maine conservationists plant American genetically modified chestnut trees in hopes of reviving near-dead species
Though some are still scattered across the country, the [American] chestnut has been functionally extinct for 70 years. But science ...