How Adding Rock Dust to Soil Could Help Get Carbon into the Ground
On a hot and humid August day near Geneva, New York, Garrett Boudinot stands in a field of hemp, the green stalks towering a foot or more over his 6-foot,…
Can Synthetic Palm Oil Help Save the World’s Tropical Forests?
Tom Jeffries and Tom Kelleher met at Rutgers University in the 1970s while studying industrially useful microbes. Jeffries went on to run a yeast genomics program at the U.S. Department…
From Fertilizer to Fuel: Can ‘Green’ Ammonia Be a Climate Fix?
In Minnesota, there’s a research farm peppered with wind turbines that, when in full swing, boasts an astonishingly low carbon footprint. The wind powers a chemical plant that makes ammonia,…
Edible Extinction: Why We Need to Revive Global Food Diversity
In August 2020, inside the cupping room of a London roastery, a team of botanists and baristas gathered to taste a coffee species that most believed had been lost forever.…
Salt Scourge: The Dual Threat of Warming and Rising Salinity
The Mekong Delta is under a chemical threat arguably more deadly for the long term than the Agent Orange deployed across it during the Vietnam War half a century ago.…
The Three Cricketeers: Betting on Bug Food to Help the Planet
For Claire Simons and her husband, Chad, it all started when their son brought home a snickerdoodle made of cricket flour one Earth Day. The cookie was delicious, and the…
Warming Waters Challenge Atlantic Salmon, Both Wild and Farmed
Whether roaming wild or enclosed in floating feedlots on the ocean, Atlantic salmon are cold-water fishes. But as the climate crisis warms the world’s oceans and waterways, cold water is…
From Lab to Market: Bio-Based Products Are Gaining Momentum
In the 1930s, the DuPont company created the world’s first nylon, a synthetic polymer made from petroleum. The product first appeared in bristles for toothbrushes, but eventually it would be…
In Cambodia, a Battered Mekong Defies Doomsday Predictions
Among the many ailments plaguing Southeast Asia’s Mekong River, “hungry water” stands out with particular clarity. In recent dry seasons, the Mekong has in places turned a pristine blue as…
Are Sea Cucumbers a Cleanup Solution to Fish Farm Pollution?
Off the coast of the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, an underwater metropolis bustles. Sea turtles glide lazily through the surf while schools of fluorescent yellow butterflyfish weave between basketball-size sea…