Bioengineering breakthrough paves the way for tomorrow’s superplants
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plants face a variety of stresses, whether it’s crops suffering as a result of climate change, or our new need to grow food on other planets, and this breakthrough makes engineering new plants faster. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote,...
MIT breakthrough creates glowing plants that could replace street lights
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Around a fifth of all the world’s energy production is consumed by lighting, but in the future glowing plants could help provide us all with an infinite, renewable source of light. Plants at the moment are getting the royal treatment. They’re being turned into...
DARPA wants to genetically engineer smart plants to act as surveillance devices
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Noone would suspect a plant of watching or surveilling them, but thanks to DARPA that’s all about to change. This week Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, the bleeding US research arm of the US Department of Defense, announced it’s working on a new...
A green energy revolution in the making, electric plants bring light to homes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every day we’re finding new ways to power our planet, but what if the plants around us could power our devices and cities, would we be more inclined to live in harmony with nature? Forget wind power. Forget solar power. What if you could...
DARPA wants to use genetically modified bugs to rejuvenate dead and dying crops
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Global food production is already being stretched by Earths growing population with the price of staple foods increasing by over 20% in just the past few years alone, as a consequence companies, governments and institutions are looking for new ways to increase yields in a...
Photosynthesis breakthrough crams millions of years of plant evolution into months
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Scientists have used gene editing to turn off specific plant genes to boost plant growth by 15%, if transplanted into rice, maize and wheat this could help reduce famine and hunger in the world without the need to use extra fertilisers or chemicals. Scientists...
Modern farmers grow bacteria to grow better crops
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Traditional chemical intensive farming methods change the ecology of our planet on a massive scale, by moving from chemicals to mocrobials farmers might be able to grow better crops, more productively and more sustainably. In the back of Indigo’s Boston headquarters, a start up whose...
Breakthrough lets researchers turn plants into electric circuits and connect them to the grid
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to turn plants into electric circuits could pave the way for a whole variety of biologically inspired electronics. A team of Swedish botanists and electrical engineers have unveiled a new method for growing and powering conductive wires inside living plants and integrating them with...
