Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers know how to make precise genetic changes within the genomes of crops, but the transformed cells often refuse to grow into plants. One team has devised a new solution.

Scientists who want to improve crops face a dilemma: it can be difficult to grow plants from cells after you’ve tweaked their genomes.

A new tool helps ease this process by coaxing the transformed cells, including those modified with the gene-editing system CRISPR-Cas9, to regenerate new plants. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Specialist Juan M. Debernardi and Investigator Jorge Dubcovsky, together with David Tricoli at the University of California, Davis Plant Transformation Facility, Javier Palatnik from Argentina, and colleagues at the John Innes Centre, collaborated on the work. The team reports the technology, developed in wheat and tested in other crops, October 12, 2020, in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Continue reading “New Technology Accelerates Crop Improvement with CRISPR” »

Edible packaging from sea weed. 😃

The plastic-like seaweed packaging made by Notpla is biodegradable within six weeks, compared to hundreds of years for synthetic plastics.

* Unsecured home security cameras hijacked * Stolen images circulate on Discord * Everyone needs to take IoT security more seriously.

In Singapore it’s not at all uncommon today for people to have IP cameras all over their homes.

And, of course, the more people who installed internet-connected cameras throughout their private residences the more you would be considered odd if you hadn’t jumped on the bandwagon, and put cameras in your living room, kitchen, bedroom, sometimes even with a view of even more private areas of your house.

Circa 2015

A look at the application of fluctuating magnetic fields, especially the Cells Alive System (CAS), in food refrigeration.

In Switzerland researchers are trying to help tackle the food waste challenge using nanotechnology.

IKEA Poland has gathered a multidisciplinary team to imagine how we can integrate a more eco-friendly lifestyle into our future homes. In the centre of Szczecin, Poland, the results are showcased in the Home of Tomorrow — a spacious, plant-filled living environment where visitors can get inspired on how to turn their own homes into healthier and more sustainable spaces.

Autonomous tractors for farming.

OSAKA — Kubota has partnered with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to develop highly sophisticated self-driving farm tractors, the Japanese machinery maker said Tuesday.

The tractors will be equipped with Nvidia graphics processing units and artificial intelligence, coupled with cameras to instantly process collected data.

Continue reading “Kubota taps Nvidia tech for smart-farming autonomous tractors” »

It looks like our food for the future will be bugs. A factory in France will grow bugs as a food source.

Enter the insects. Or, more appropriately in this case, enter Ÿnsect, the French company with big ambitions to help change the way the world eats. Ÿnsect raised $125 million in Series C funding in early 2019, and at the time already had $70 million worth of aggregated orders to fill. Now they’re building a bug-farming plant to churn out tiny critters in record numbers.

You’ve probably heard of vertical farms in the context of plants; most existing vertical farms use LED lights and a precise mixture of nutrients and water to grow leafy greens or other produce indoors. They maximize the surface area used for growing by stacking several layers of plants on top of one another; the method may not make for as much space as outdoor fields have, but can yield a lot more than you might think.

Continue reading “A New Factory in France Will Mass-Produce Bugs as Food” »

After several other plastic eating enzymes have been discovered, a super enzyme further increases the speed at which it eats plastic.