The battle for the future of farming: What you need to know
Reading Time: 3 minutesBY MICHEL PIMBERT Professor and Director, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University & RATANA CHUENPAGDEE Senior Research Fellow, Coventry University IT is widely agreed that today’s global agriculture system is a social and environmental failure. Business as usual is no longer an option: biodiversity loss and nitrogen pollution are exceeding planetary limits, and catastrophic risks of climate change demand immediate action. Most concede that there is an urgent need […]
Researchers develop self-contained planters that grow in space
Reading Time: 2 minutesFRESH food is so attractive to astronauts that they toasted with salad when they were able to cultivate a few lettuce heads on the International Space Station three years ago. In 2021, beans are on the menu to be grown in space, planted in high-tech planters developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology […]
A lung-inspired design turns water into fuel
Reading Time: 2 minutesSCIENTISTS at Stanford University have designed an electrocatalytic mechanism that works like a mammalian lung to convert water into fuel. Their research, published December 20 in the journal Joule, could help existing clean energy technologies run more efficiently. The act of inhaling and exhaling is so automatic for most organisms that it could be mistaken […]
Scientists grow perfect human blood vessels in a Petri dish
Reading Time: 2 minutesBreakthrough technology advances research of vascular diseases like diabetes SCIENTISTS have managed to grow perfect human blood vessels as organoids in a Petri dish for the first time. The breakthrough engineering technology, outlined in a new study published recently in Nature, dramatically advances research of vascular diseases like diabetes, identifying a key pathway to potentially […]
Majestic Offshore has a mission to keep the pipelines flowing
Reading Time: 2 minutesMOHD RAZALI MOHD NAZIR must have chosen the right business path. His experienced at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and General Electric (GE) has shaped him to be a successful oil and gas entrepreneur today. During his years at PwC, Mohd Razali’s knack for accounting propelled him forward. After leaving PwC , he climbed the corporate ladder at […]
Molecular insights into spider silk
Reading Time: 2 minutesTHEY are lightweight, almost invisible, highly extensible and strong, and of course biodegradable: the threads spiders use to build their webs. In fact, spider silk belongs to the toughest fibres in nature. Based on its low weight it even supersedes high-tech threads like Kevlar or Carbon. Its unique combination of strength and extensibility renders it in particular attractive for industry. Whether in […]
A robust fuel cell that runs on methane at practical temperatures
Reading Time: 2 minutesFUEL CELLS have not been particularly known for their practicality and affordability, but that may have just changed. There’s a new cell that runs on cheap fuel at temperatures comparable to automobile engines and which slashes materials costs. Though the cell is in the lab, it has high potential to someday electrically power homes and perhaps cars, say the researchers at […]
Scientists apply gene editing on Chinese kale
Reading Time: < 1 minuteBRASSICA vegetables are economically important vegetables with high nutritional value. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing has been demonstrated in several crops but not in Brassica vegetables. For the first time, researcher Haoru Tang from Sichuan Agricultural University in China and colleagues demonstrate the applicability of CRISPR-Cas9 in editing genes in Chinese kale, a Brassica vegetable that has […]
World govts set targets for sustainability development by 2050
Reading Time: < 1 minuteONE HUNDRED and ninety-six Governments have agreed to scale up investments for sustainable development and harmonious coexistence of all life on Earth by 2050. This was during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference held from Nov 17-29, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Addressing the convention, His Excellency, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of […]
Courting business partners and playing cupid
Reading Time: 4 minutesMalaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) talks about a trait that it is good at – forging business partnership for companies under their wings. Here Dr Zainul Fadziruddin Zainuddin, Director, Office of CEO shares his thoughts with The Petri Dish’s Shamira Shamsuddin. Define partnership in business. Business operation between two or more individuals who share management […]