For the past decade, researchers have been experimenting with switching individual genes on and off to determine what effect they have on growing trees. But they say they can now model the effects of switching all 21 lignin genes on or off in the lab, which will greatly reduce the amount of time needed to âdesignâ trees that are suitable for particular purposes.
We Americans could use âa population shift in knowledge and positive engagement in the issue of climate change,â as environmental scientist  and media guru Anthony Leiserowitz and colleagues have characterized it. While people and governments of other nations, believing their survival is at stake, have rushed to codify mitigation and adaptation measuresâonly 15% of the US
The deadly plant pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine of the 1840s â Phytophthora infestans â is actually more virulent now than ever before, as the result of the arms race between the pathogen and modern agriculture, new research has found. Over $6.2 billion dollars are spent every year in an attempt to stay
The very-common âred tideâ algae Karenia brevis is regularly responsible for a very large number of fish deaths through large-scale fish kills. And now new research has revealed that these large fish kills are partially a result of the algae purposefully becoming more poisonous as a result of limited nutrients, as a survival mechanism. When
 Nano-flowers, newly created structures composed of germanium sulfide (GeS), have the potential to open the door to next-generation solar cells and energy storage devices. These âflowersâ, created by researchers from North Carolina State University out of a semiconducting material, feature an enormous surface area, thanks to being covered in many extremely thin petals. âCreating
