Renowned seed scientist dies
Reading Time: < 1 minuteRENOWNED Professor Emeritus Chin Hoong Fong passed away on March 19 at the age of 83. Chin has always attracted a full house of enthusiastic audience whenever he spoke. Other than being a devoted and highly respected “teacher” in Malaysia, Chin was also an internationally renowned seed scientist who pioneered storage of recalcitrant seeds in […]
How South Africa is keeping its worst invader – famine weed – at bay
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY BLAIR COWIE, PhD Candidate Invasive Species Management, University of the Witwatersrand THE poisonous herb, Parthenium hysterophorus, is one of the world’s most destructive invasive plants. It threatens biodiversity, national food security and human health. Native to parts of Central and South America (Gulf of Mexico) it has spread to more than 40 countries including […]
Protecting cassava from disease? There’s an app for that
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY AMANDA RAMCHARAN Postdoctoral Researcher, Pennsylvania State University CASSAVA is one of the developing world’s most important crops. Its starchy roots and leaves are a staple food for more than 500 million people in Africa each day. And Africa produces half of the world’s total cassava output; the continent’s main growers are the Congo, Côte […]
Fungal enzymes could hold secret to making renewable energy from wood
Reading Time: 2 minutesAN international team of researchers, including scientists from the University of York, has discovered a set of enzymes found in fungi that are capable of breaking down one of the main components of wood. The enzymes could now potentially be used to sustainably convert wood biomass into valuable chemical commodities such as biofuels. As an […]
Warm temperatures turning sea turtle population almost entirely female
Reading Time: 2 minutesAS temperatures continue to rise, sea turtle demographics are changing to the point where the long-term sustainability of the species may be in question. New data analysed by researchers in the United States and Australia suggests that warming temperatures are turning one of the world’s largest sea turtle colonies almost entirely female, putting the future […]
Minister: Brace up for 2050’s digital agriculture
Reading Time: 2 minutesSERDANG: The agriculture sector has to remain strategically important as a food provider and must keep pace with a fast changing world moving towards digital technology, says Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based industries, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek. “New digital and biotechnologies will impact on the livelihood of millions of farmers worldwide. We need to […]
Why do some animals hibernate?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteDURING the cold winter months, nothing seems more inviting than a warm bed. But for some animals in the wild, crouch down in their comfort zone when the nights are long and the temperatures are low is not just a matter of temporary comfort, its necessary for survival. Certain animal like bears and squirrels have […]
Why throw out the cup when you could just eat it?
Reading Time: 3 minutesDrink it an eat it – Yes, you heard that right. It is a cup that you can actually eat and it comes in different flavours too. This edible cup is not a new concept. The reason behind the invention is to revolutionise the use of plastic and reduce the number of disposable cups into […]
What causes left-handedness?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteBY SCIENCE BRIDGE ACADEMY Life for a left-handed person isn’t easy! There are some undeniable bummers associated with a left-handed proclivity: desks and spiral notebooks pose a constant battle, scissors are all but impossible to use and some studies reported shorter life-expectancy among the lefties. Researchers who study human hand preference agree that the side […]
How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSOME of us may be wondering, how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Well in order to become a butterfly, the caterpillar needs to go through four stages which are egg, larva, pupa and adult. In the first stage, the butterfly eggs are usually laid on the leaves of plants. The egg shape depends on the […]