Nitrogen fertilizers' impact on lawn soils
Nitrogen fertilizers from farm fields often end up in aquatic ecosystems, resulting in water quality problems, such as toxic algae and underwater 'dead zones'. There are concerns that fertilizers used on lawns may also contribute to these problems. All of the lawns in the United States cover an area almost as large as Florida, making turfgrass our largest 'crop' and lawn fertilizer use a legitimate issue. In a study funded by the National Science Foundation Ecosystem Studies and Long Term Ecological Research programs, researchers from Cornell University and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies have utilized recent technological advances to measure gaseous nitrogen emissions in home lawns.
50 Bodyweight Exercises You Can Do Anywhere
Who needs a gym when there’s the living room floor? Bodyweight exercises are a simple, effective way to improve balance, flexibility, and strength without machinery or extra equipment. From legs and shoulders to chest and abs, we’ve covered every part of the body that can get stronger with body resistance alone. Full Body 1.
Purple lights and math help PlantLab grow food more efficiently
We’ve had local food, organic food, slow food and even urban farming. Now get ready for disco farming. The Dutch “plant control freaks” behind PlantLab want to farm indoors under purple light. It’s not just for the looks, though.
Horticulture Discotech: LED Grow Lights Power Sustainable Farming
What if we could grow fruits and vegetables in half the time with no pesticides or hormones and use 90 percent less water to do it? What if we could grow those fruits and vegetables anywhere in the world, during any season? A Netherlands-based company called PlantLab believes we can.
Earliest known bug-repellant plant bedding found at South African rock shelter
Rare finds such as early ornaments, cave drawings and Middle Stone Age engravings are the subjects of a good deal of anthropological study and they provide clues. But in the journal Science, an international team of researchers report another find that could give additional insight. What's more, it could place the use of herbal medicines much earlier than previously known. Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, along with a team of archeologists, botanists and paleobotonists, recently dug up and analyzed the earliest known plant bedding at Sibudu, a South African rock shelter in Northern KwaZulu-Natal.
15 Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget
1. I wonder how I can keep the family in organic and gluten free food without spending quite as much? -Sadie H.
Experimental Recipes with Azolla, Super Plant (and Future Space Food?)
© Erik Sjödin If you've heard about duckweed (the pollution-cleaning, climate change-fighting super food) then maybe you've also heard of azolla, a family of seven species of edible water-dwelling ferns that grows lightning-fast and is packed full of nutrients. Scientists are now studying azolla's potential in space agriculture as a super food crop for Mars habitation. So what does a super plant taste like?
Manipulating plants' circadian clock may make all-season crops possible
Yale University researchers have identified a key genetic gear that keeps the circadian clock of plants ticking, a finding that could have broad implications for global agriculture. The research appears in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Molecular Cell. "Farmers are limited by the seasons, but by understanding the circadian rhythm of plants, which controls basic functions such as photosynthesis and flowering, we might be able to engineer plants that can grow in different seasons and places than is currently possible," said Xing Wang Deng, the Daniel C. Eaton Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale and senior author of the paper. The circadian clock is the internal timekeeper found in almost all organisms that helps synchronize biological processes with day and night. In plants, this clock is crucial for adjusting growth to both time and day and to the seasons.
