Gene-edited cacao plants could save the chocolate industry
Reading Time: 3 minutesBY SHAWN KENG IMAGINE a world without chocolate? Put melting ice cap aside for a while, chocolates may melt away from your hands and its very existence. While this seems extreme, devastating effect of climate change should not be undermined. Climate change threatens the survival of cacao plants in West Africa and the rest of […]
Engineers make wearable sensors for plants to measure water use in crops
Reading Time: 3 minutesIOWA State University plant scientist Patrick Schnable quickly described how he measured the time it takes for two kinds of corn plants to move water from their roots, to their lower leaves and then to their upper leaves. This was no technical, precise, poster talk. This was a researcher interested in working with new, low-cost, […]
Breakthrough in wheat disease
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn a world first, science has leaped a step ahead of an old foe that has recently re-emerged in some parts of the world, where it has devastated crops because of its ability to evolve, undoing much of the hard work that began in earnest with the Green Revolution – using natural techniques to isolate […]
iWarner: The latest flood warning system
Reading Time: 2 minutesBY ASMAHANIM AMIR BANGI: Intelligent Weather Station and Flood Warning System (iWarner), developed by UKM Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation, Prof Dr Mohd Ekhwan Toriman (pix) is a system which provides warning if there is a flood in one area. Mohd Ekhwan said the system was developed in 2015 after getting the top down […]
High-tech plant factories: Challenges and way forward
Reading Time: 7 minutes BY PAUL TENG & STELLA LIU WIDESPREAD flooding in Indonesia, Japanese tropical cyclones that caused force winds of 63 km/h, and intense heat waves that led to thousands of deaths in India. Natural disasters in the Asia Pacific region have set a global record. In the 2015 Natural Disasters report, the United Nations Economic […]
Bio-based balls
Reading Time: 2 minutesWorld Cup 2018 scores big for eco-sustainability with remodelled soccer balls MAASTRICHT, Netherlands: The new official soccer ball for World Cup 2018 contains the bio-based EPDM rubber Keltan Eco material. The material comes from Arlanxeo, one of the world’s first leading suppliers of synthetic rubber. The EPDM rubber (ethylene-propylene-diene monomer) Keltan Eco 6950 is the […]
Space farms will feed astronauts and earthlings
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY MICHAEL DIXON Professor and Director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility, University of Guelph CANADIAN researchers are leading an effort to grow crops in space, paving the way for humanity to live on other worlds and push the frontiers on Earth. Food is the main obstacle to long-term space exploration. It limits how […]
S’pore University develops microfibre sensor for healthcare
Reading Time: 4 minutesA RESEARCH team from National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a soft, flexible and stretchable microfibre sensor for real-time healthcare monitoring and diagnosis. The novel sensor is highly sensitive and ultra-thin with a diameter of a strand of human hair. It is also simple and cost-effective to mass produce. Wearable and flexible technology has […]
Cyanobacteria: The Versatile Superhero
Reading Time: 2 minutesCYANOBACTERIA are simple, primitive life forms related to bacteria. They’re often bigger than bacteria and live either as single cells or in colonies. You can find them in the soil as well as terrestrial, freshwater and marine bodies of water. Check out what they can do below: Biodegradable bioplastic Scientists from Michigan State University altered […]
Envisioning Malaysia 2050
Reading Time: 9 minutesThis is a recently presented foresight narrative (full text) by PROF DATUK DR ASMA ISMAIL FASc President, Academy of Sciences Malaysia WE LEARN from history, glean from present insights and forge ahead to the future. The question is what is the future that we desire? The Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) embarked on the Envisioning […]