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Bee-based maths is helping teach swarms of drones to find weeds, while robotic mowers keep hedgerows in shape.
Our food accounts for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, yet shorter supply chains, food maps, and sharing leftovers could help cities put cheaper and more climate-friendly produce on citizens’ plates, a conference on food security heard.
An on-demand style of farming inspired by the Toyota car manufacturing lines of the 1950s could be the key to improving efficiency on farms, which would in turn lead to cheaper food in European supermarkets, according to Dr Manoj Dora from Brunel University London in the UK.
As the world’s population rises, scientists want to edit the genes of potatoes and wheat to help them fight plant diseases that cause famine.
More nutritious versions of staple crops could increase daily vitamin and mineral intake for millions of people with poor diets, helping to overcome undernourishment that can cause blindness, brittle bones, feeble muscles and brain damage.
Local farmers and researchers are foraging through forgotten crops to recover long-lost flavours.
Farmers who grow single crops are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but now researchers are resurrecting ancient crop varieties to encourage diversity and offset the risks of extreme weather.
General fish labels like snapper, sole and seabream take away the power to accurately assess stocks and then distort fishing quotas, but by identifying individual species we could prevent illegal catches ending up on our plates.
Fields of yellow flowers across Europe could soon be producing a harvest of rubber and nickel for use in industry, helping to reduce reliance on imports by creating a home-grown source of raw materials.
From fungal spore spray to insect egg dispensers, unleashing an army of living enemies on crops to keep pests and diseases in check may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s part of a more natural approach to agriculture, designed to decrease reliance on chemicals.
Astronomers could use giant radio telescope from 2025.
New tech could help shrink shipping emissions.
New wave of subsea tech includes pulsed-laser camera.
The EU’s research chief on his new role.
Open access to scientific publications must be reality by 2020, says Robert-Jan Smits.
Research and innovation can generate the knowledge and solutions to tackle urgent international problems like the Ebola outbreak or the refugee crisis.
