Science of the Future
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
‘Protein expansion’: Modified wheat developed in England and Chile could increase yields by 12%
Wheat is one of the most important food crops in the world, providing 20 per cent of human calories; with ...
Why technology alone will not save us from climate change — Book review: The Human Scaffold
Josh Berson, an independent anthropologist, invites readers into a world that turns upside down conventional arguments about how we are ...
To feed billions more people in coming decades, bugs will likely be on the global menu
Filling in the gaps in the world’s food web requires unlearning some tastes and preferences. Consider the insect. Around 1,900 ...
Switching from beef to chicken can have big environmental benefits — but it also means many more animals to miserable lives and death
We often talk about steak, lamb chops, bacon and chicken nuggets as if they’re on a level playing field. Just ...
What was there before the Big Bang? Here’s a theory that could satisfy both secular and religious viewpoints
There are a variety of conjectures in the scientific literature for our cosmic origins, including the ideas that our universe ...
How the nanotechnology revolution has transformed medicine and manufacturing
What the [National Nanotechnology Initiative] did was move nanotechnology into places it had not significantly ventured before, like the medical, ...
CRISPR making inroads in aquaculture — but commercial viability is still a ways off
The gene editing tool CRISPR is now being used to generate a range of traits in a variety of farmed ...
‘Neuromorphic computing is going to be a rock star’: How brain-inspired chips could may soon guide robots and drive cars
The algorithms that underlie everything from Alexa’s voice recognition to credit card fraud detection typically owe their skills to deep ...
Genetics and chemistry could make cow meat and milk extinct
Henry Ford, an early industrialiser of plant-based milks as well as a carmaker, production-system innovator and anti-Semite, saw animals as ...
Indigenous Chilean quillay trees offers hope for a new generation of vaccines
Quillay trees, technically known as Quillaja saponaria, are rare evergreens native to Chile that have long been used by the ...
Ectogenesis: How artificial placentas could aid premature babies, upend entrenched abortion views
Survival rates are likely to be improved for infants born prematurely, and those requiring invasive treatments -- including surgery, cell ...
Novel artificial intelligence (AI) as good as physicians at reading ultrasound images and detecting breast cancer
Doctors often use ultrasound, mammograms, MRI, or biopsy to find or diagnose breast cancer. In a new study, researchers from ...
Vertical farming and sustainability: We can now grow fruits and vegetables in urban areas without soil or sunlight
Most vertical farms share a few attributes. One is a lack of soil. Their stacked rows of crops are grown ...
Viewpoint: Industry consolidation — Large meat and dairy companies dominate nascent plant-based and cellular meat industry
Nearly every week a major media outlet publishes a headline announcing that a giant meat or dairy processor has acquired ...
Smokers are less likely to get COVID: French researchers explore whether nicotine might prevent transmission
As we are hopefully exiting the third coronavirus pandemic of the last 17 years, it is time to consider that ...
‘There will be no robo-apocalypse’: Why AI is no match for human creativity and ingenuity
Improvements in machine intelligence will not lead to runaway machine-led revolutions. They may change the kind of jobs that people ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR gene edited crops ‘mimic nature’ — but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be regulated
Legislators around the world are being asked to reconsider how to regulate the latest developments in gene technology, genome editing ...
Powerful argument for lab-grown meat: Although low- and middle-income countries contain only 40% of the world population, they make up 75% of deaths from food-borne illnesses
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition found that low- and middle-income countries make up 75% of the deaths from food-borne ...
Can biotechnology extend your life? A Russian-born billionaire is betting he can make it happen
[Yuri] Milner is a Russian-born billionaire who made a fortune on Facebook and Mail.ru and previously started the glitzy black-tie ...
When will we reach a future in which meat no longer requires animal slaughter? There are still some barriers to that goal
Nearly 100 firms are vying to be the first to bring cultured meat to market. Select locations—including a private club ...
Should lab-grown beef be labeled ‘meat’? USDA denies cattle lobby petition to limit definition to animal sources
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has responded to petition sponsors with differing opinions about how lab-grown “meat” and ...
Radiotherapy can ‘fix’ arrhythmia without heart surgery
New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that radiation therapy can reprogram heart muscle cells ...
With 80% of the global population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, is vertical farming a viable way to increase sustainable food production?
The agriculture industry is facing a wide range of challenges, trying to keep up with ever-changing markets and, of course, ...
How artificial intelligence (AI) can help prevent the next coronavirus from jumping from animals to humans
New research by scientists at the University of Glasgow suggests that machine learning (ML) models developed using viral genomes can ...
Gene drive revolution: How genetically tweaked mosquitoes could tip the balance in the battle to contain malaria
It has been said that malaria breeds poverty, and poverty breeds malaria. This is the reality in many parts of ...
Microneedle vaccine patch delivers stronger immune response than a shot
Scientists at Stanford University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have created a 3D-printed vaccine patch that ...
We have little relief for poison ivy rashes — but a vaccine is in the works
According to some older studies, poison ivy and its cousins poison oak and poison sumac cause 10 percent of lost-time ...
