While it’s clear that crises caused by economic and political decision makers are most easily solved by “un-deciding” them, until those decision-makers develop empathy, the rest of humanity will need to create and implement other solutions to starvation. And fortunately, researchers in the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego are doing just that.
In their ACS Materials Letters paper “Polynorbornene Spray Coating to Enhance Plant Health,” lead author Patrick Opdensteinen and colleagues reveal that their new tool for global food security is a polymer functioning as a spray-on armor that helps plants fight destructive bacteria while surviving drought.
Just as human beings face illness and death from a range of bacteria, so too do plants (even though, as New Atlas has reported, some bacteria also help plants and humans). But when those plants are the crops that humans need to survive, that bacterial threat means chaos for global security and individual lives.
Bacterial plant diseases include speck (a winter-surviving infection that attacks tomatoes), canker (which damages fruit trees including those producing apples and peaches), and blight (which rots melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, beans, and more). Even worse, climate chaos allows such bacteria to invade territories whose previously low temperatures would have stopped cold.
International Plant Scientist Awards:
Website: plantscientist.org
Nomination Link
Registration Link
Here with connected:
Follow the Plant Scientist Awards channel on WhatsApp:
Comments
Post a Comment