Agriculture and Food News

April 30, 2024

Top Headlines

Discovery of Mechanism Plants Use to Change Seed Oil Could Impact Industrial, Food Oils

Apr. 30, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a new mechanism of oil biosynthesis and found a way to genetically engineer a type of test plant to more efficiently produce different kinds of seed oil that it otherwise ...

Fading Lights: Multiple Threats to North America's Firefly Populations

Apr. 29, 2024 — Scientists have applied a data-driven approach to understanding firefly population dynamics on a continental scale. Key findings from this new study indicate that fireflies, part of the beetle order, are sensitive to various environmental factors, ...

More Plants on the Menu of Ancient Hunter-Gatherers

Apr. 29, 2024 — It has long been thought that meat played an important role in the diet of hunter-gatherers before the Neolithic transition. However, due to the scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Paleolithic sites, little information exists about the ...

Fixin' to Be Flexitarian: Scrap Fish and Invasive Species Can Liven Up Vegetables

Apr. 29, 2024 — Greening the way we eat needn't mean going vegetarian. A healthy, more realistic solution is to adopt a flexitarian diet where seafoods add umami to 'boring' vegetables. A gastrophysicist puts ...

Latest Headlines

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Hornets Found to Be Primary Pollinators of Two Angelica Species

Apr. 29, 2024 — Researcher discovered that two species in the genus Angelica are pollinated primarily by hornets. This overturns the conventional belief that Angelica species are 'generalists,' meaning that there is ...

Barley Plants Fine-Tune Their Root Microbial Communities Through Sugary Secretions

Apr. 25, 2024 — Different types of barley recruit distinct communities of soil microbes to grow around their roots by releasing a custom mix of sugars and other ...

Genetic Hope in Fight Against Devastating Wheat Disease

Apr. 26, 2024 — Fungal disease Fusarium head blight (FHB) is on the rise due to increasingly humid conditions induced by climate change during the wheat growing season, but a fundamental discovery could help reduce ...

Scientists Replace Fishmeal in Aquaculture With Microbial Protein Derived from Soybean Processing Wastewater

Apr. 25, 2024 — Scientists have successfully replaced half of the fishmeal protein in the diets of farmed Asian seabass with a 'single cell protein' cultivated from ...

Scientists Released Long-Term Data of Ground Solar-Induced Fluorescence to Improve Understanding of Canopy-Level Photosynthesis

Apr. 25, 2024 — A recent study utilized ground-based instruments to measure solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) that reflect plant health and ...

World's Chocolate Supply Threatened by Devastating Virus

Apr. 23, 2024 — A rapidly spreading virus threatens the health of the cacao tree and the dried seeds from which chocolate is made, jeopardizing the global supply of the world's most popular treat. Researchers have ...

No Bull: How Creating Less-Gassy Cows Could Help Fight Climate Change

Apr. 23, 2024 — A new study has revealed breeding less-flatulent cows and restoring agricultural land could significantly reduce rising methane emission levels, which play a considerable role in climate ...

The Spiciness of Mustard May Depend on Soil Microbes

Apr. 22, 2024 — New study finds microbes may influence the taste of mustard ...

Honey Bees Experience Multiple Health Stressors out-in-the-Field

Apr. 17, 2024 — It's not a single pesticide or virus stressing honey bees, and affecting their health, but exposure to a complex web of multiple interacting stressors encountered while at work pollinating crops, ...

Probiotic Feed Additive Boosts Growth, Health in Poultry in Place of Antibiotics

Apr. 17, 2024 — The growing need for antibiotic-free products has challenged producers to decrease or completely stop using antimicrobials as feed supplements in the ...

Plant Sensors Could Act as an Early Warning System for Farmers

Apr. 17, 2024 — Using a pair of sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers discovered signals that help plants respond to stresses such as heat, light, or attack from insects or bacteria. Farmers could use ...

Making Crops Colorful for Easier Weeding

Apr. 17, 2024 — To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy ...

Microbial Food as a Strategy Food Production of the Future

Apr. 12, 2024 — Scientists have summarized microbial food production ...

Biofortified Rice to Combat Deficiencies

Apr. 11, 2024 — Vitamin B1 is an essential micronutrient for human beings. Its deficiency is the cause of numerous diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Researchers have achieved a significant advance ...

Economist: Tens of Billions of Dollars in Forest Products Are Being Overlooked

Apr. 11, 2024 — Are we missing the forest for the trees? More than timber grows in forests -- including products worth many tens of billions of dollars. Because these goods go unrecorded in official trade ...

Food Security in Developed Countries Shows Resilience to Climate Change

Apr. 11, 2024 — A study has found that market forces have provided good food price stability over the past half century, despite extreme weather ...

Method to Extract Useful Proteins from Beer-Brewing Leftovers

Apr. 11, 2024 — Researchers have created a method that extracts over 80 percent of the available protein in grain leftovers from brewing beer, commonly known as brewers' spent ...

Deforestation Harms Biodiversity of the Amazon's Perfume-Loving Orchid Bees

Apr. 10, 2024 — A survey of orchid bees in the Brazilian Amazon, carried out in the 1990s, is shedding new light the impact of deforestation on the scent-collecting pollinators, which some view as bellwethers of ...

Integrated Dataset Enables Genes-to-Ecosystems Research

Apr. 8, 2024 — A new dataset bridging molecular information about the poplar tree microbiome to ecosystem-level processes has been released. The project aims to inform research regarding how natural systems ...

Rusty-Patched Bumblebee's Struggle for Survival Found in Its Genes

Apr. 4, 2024 — The rusty-patched bumblebee, once common in the United States, has declined from about 90% of its former range. Researchers conducted the first range-wide genetic study of the endangered species to ...

'Diverse' Agriculture Benefits People and the Environment at the Same Time

Apr. 4, 2024 — A new analysis from 2,655 farms on five continents suggests that moving away from industrial, monoculture farming could benefit both the planet and ...

Nudging in a Virtual Supermarket for More Animal Welfare

Apr. 4, 2024 — It may be possible to change the purchasing behavior of consumers noticeably using some simple strategies. At least this is what a new study indicates. The researchers investigated the effect of ...

Plastic-Free Vegan Leather That Dyes Itself Grown from Bacteria

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers have genetically engineered bacteria to grow animal- and plastic-free leather that dyes ...

Golfers' Risk from Pesticides Used on Turfgrass Is Likely Low

Apr. 1, 2024 — For many, spring heralds fresh air and exercise on the golf course. But do players risk exposure to unsafe levels of pesticides used to beautify and maintain a golf course's green grass? To find ...

TB Vaccine May Enable Elimination of the Disease in Cattle by Reducing Its Spread

Mar. 28, 2024 — Vaccination not only reduces the severity of TB in infected cattle, but reduces its spread in dairy herds by 89%, research ...

Researchers Discover Key Gene for Toxic Alkaloid in Barley

Mar. 28, 2024 — Barley is one of the most important cereal crops on a global scale. Many barley cultivars produce a toxic alkaloid called gramine that affects the suitability of barley as fodder, but also helps to ...

Understanding Cattle Grazing Personalities May Foster Sustainable Rangelands

Mar. 27, 2024 — New research finds that not all cattle are the same when it comes to grazing, and knowing that could lead to better animal health and range ...

Sweet Success: Sugarcane's Complex Genetic Code Cracked

Mar. 27, 2024 — Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants. Exploring sugarcane's ...

Bees Use Antennae to Decode Hive Mates' Dances in the Dark

Mar. 25, 2024 — Scientists have discovered how honeybees can decipher dances by their hive mates that relay directions to ...

Honey Bees at Risk for Colony Collapse from Longer, Warmer Fall Seasons

Mar. 25, 2024 — The famous work ethic of honey bees might spell disaster for these busy crop pollinators as the climate warms, new research indicates. Flying shortens the lives of bees, and worker honey bees will ...