Major biotech breakthrough lets researchers grow plants without light
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF If you can grow plants without the need for light then it means you can grow plants anywhere and that they can keep on growing 24/7 which will increase crop yields. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, subscribe to the podcast, future...
Scientists developed a device that enables two way communication with plants
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plants are a rich source of information – if you can communicate with them that is … Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. In the past couple of years I’ve seen scientists...
Futuristic Spinach can send you emails about climate change, life, and stuff
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plants are getting more super powers than ever before and it’s all thanks to new tech and weird scientists … Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Over the past couple of years...
Scientists have visualised stress in plants for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As these sensors become more powerful one day we’ll be able to visualise the stress crops are under at scale and intervene to save them. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Today, thanks in part to climate change,...
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,...
First came robots, then robotic plants that grow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robotic plants could help find mines and pollutants buried in soil, or be used to explore alien planets for signs of organic material. Plants are getting a lot of attention all of a sudden, whether it’s from researchers who are trying to turn them...
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...
New research shows plants learn like dogs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Understanding how biological organisms function and respond to stimuli will help biologists find new ways to help them grow and improve yields. Pavlov’s conditioning experiments with dogs are among some of the most well known, and highly regarded, studies in scientific history, and now...
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...
