Modern Meadow aims to print raw meat using bioprinter 21 January 2013Last updated at 04:28 ET By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News In the future, your beef may come from a printer, not a cow When you buy some beef at the butcher's, you know it comes from cattle that once mooed and chewed. But imagine if this cut of meat, just perfect for your Sunday dinner, had been made from scratch - without slaughtering any animal. US start-up Modern Meadow believes it can do just that - by making artificial raw meat using a 3D bioprinter. Peter Thiel, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capitalists, Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor, has just backed the company with $350,000 (£218,000). Set up by father-son team Gabor and Andras Forgacs, the start-up wants to take 3D printing to a whole new level. For three-dimensional printing, solid objects are made from a digital model. Continue reading the main story Bioink containing various types of cell is printed into moulds made from agarose gel. Continue reading the main story
California blackberry grower takes soilless route EDUARDO GARCIA is a first-generation farmer growing blackberries in coir instead of soil in the Santa Clara River Valley near Santa Paula, Calif. (Ventura County) California blackberry grower Eduardo Garcia of Ventura County sees the writing on the wall as government regulators continue to clamp down on the use of crop protection materials in agriculture. Garcia is a crop consultant, pest control adviser, and first-generation berry grower. Preplant fumigants kill soil-borne diseases including verticillium wilt and fusarium wilt — key diseases in berry production - plus soil-borne pests and weeds. Regulators contend methyl bromide emissions enter the air and deplete the Earth’s ozone layer. “The future of the California berry industry is under threat due to the loss of methyl bromide,” Garcia said. This spring, Garcia, 27, launched his commercial blackberry farm in the Santa Clara River Valley in Santa Paula. “We have to look for different ways to grow berries,” said the young farmer.
Aquaponics: the potential to produce sustainable food anywhere | Guardian Sustainable Business Aquaponics offers flexibility of design - fish and plants can be produced almost anywhere, including roof tops.They Photograph: Adrian Bradshaw/EPA What is aquaponics? Aquaponics is the marriage between aquaculture and hydroponics. As a result no fertilisers are required, the water is continually recycled rather than being lost in the soil and no pesticides or herbicides are used. What's more, aquaponics offers one more magic ingredient - flexibility of design. Why is aquaponics so important? On 7 March the British Aquaponic Association CIC (BAQUA) hosted its annual aquaponic conference at Bicton EaRTH, an educational farm that aims to operate without dependence on fossil fuels. The first speaker - Kevin Frediani, the head of sustainable land use at Bicton College - opened the conference by highlighting the changing world we live in; a world with a booming global population, declining resources and increasingly demanding diets. The speakers that followed provided a solution; aquaponics.
urbanfarmers Aug 6, 2013: +++ UrbanFarmers delivers into MParc Dreispitz (a major MIGROS supermarket store). Fresh.Revolution. July 2, 2013: Fresh speciality tomatoes harvested and delivered to our UF001 restaurant partners this morning! May 25, 2013: The calm before the storm...we are looking forward to opening our doors and welcoming everyone to our first farms GRAND OPENING from 14.00 today!! May 2, 2013: Arrived live today: our bumble bees for tomato pollination!! March 12, 2013: Our tomato seedlings at UF001 are snug in their very own poly tunnel. Feb. 19, 2013: Our UF001 just reporting 23 degrees and a lush green vista inside the greenhouse! Feb. 7, 2013: Try the UrbanFarmers menu at Restaurant Schmatz tomorrow! Jan. 16, 2013: Planting seedlings for winter harvest...Check! Jan. 12, 2013: Water is circulating now at UF001! Dec 21, 2012: We are delighted to confirm that Kulturrestaurant Parterre will be enjoying the Revolution. Dec. 20, 2012: Welcome BaselCityStudio!
Driverless Tractors Till High-Tech Farm As the harvest nears, the employees of German farmer Klaus Muenchhoff are busy making the final checks on imposing tractors ready to roll into the golden fields. But these tractors are steel monsters with a difference -- driverless and satellite-guided, they can operate on the fields with an accuracy of a few centimeters (inches). Impervious to fatigue and indifferent to poor visibility, they reduce distances traveled by each vehicle, saving their owner fuel costs and improving crop yields. VIDEO: Urban Farms Grow Up Muenchhoff converted his farm in Derenburg, in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, a decade ago following a high-tech trend that is drawing growing interest. "My job now is management," he says. With a gray beard and thin glasses, the robust 60-year-old reigns over a 1,000 hectare (2,500 acre) farm that grows wheat and rapeseed, continuing a long family tradition. "Twenty years ago, for a field of 100 hectares, we needed 10 tons of phosphorus.
Biochar stimulates more plant growth but lowers plant defence against pests and pathogens Research at the University of Southampton has cast significant doubt over the use of biochar to alleviate climate change. Biochar is produced when wood is combusted at high temperatures to make bio-oil and has been proposed as a method of geoengineering. When buried in the soil it could potentially lock-up carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar has also been shown to stimulate crop growth and yield but the mechanism enabling this to happen is unknown. Professor Gail Taylor, Director of Research at the University's Centre for Biological Sciences and research colleagues, in collaboration with National Research Council (CNR) scientists in Italy and The James Hutton Institute in Scotland, have found that when thale cress and lettuce plants were subjected to increasing amounts of biochar mixed with soil, using the equivalent of up to 50 tonnes per hectare per year, if applied in the field, plant growth was stimulated by over 100 percent.
Increasing the longevity of seeds with genetic engineering A study developed by researchers of the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMCP), a joint center of the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in collaboration with the Unit for Plant Genomics Research of Evry, France (URGV) has discovered a new way of improving the longevity of plant seeds using genetic engineering. The key is the overexpression of the ATHB25 gene. This gene encodes a protein that regulates gene expression, producing a new mutant that gives the seed new properties. “The seed coat is responsible for preventing oxygen from entering the seed; the increase in gibberellin strengthens it and this leads to a more durable and longer lasting seed,” explains Eduardo Bueso, researcher at the IBMCP (UPV-CSIC). Researchers compared the longevity of genetically modified Arabidopsis seeds and seeds which were not modified. Story source: Asociación RUVID news release via AlphaGalileo, 27 Mar 2014 Journal Reference: E.
Eating Insects - New Proteins for Farm Animals Printer friendly version Share 01 April 2014 youris.com It may not become your favorite dish, but in some parts of the world insects are considered a healthy and tasty source of food. When on April 7th World Health Day is celebrated, most experts will be blaming insects for the rising problem of vector-borne diseases. What’s good for humans can’t be bad for animals. Watch video: Attached files insects_450x320
New ‘Smart’ Gel Tags Aim To Prevent Leftovers From Becoming Science Experiments Most of us aren’t scientists, but every once in awhile, nearly everyone unintentionally runs a science experiment in their refrigerator. If left long enough, for example, milk turns into a foul smelling yogurt analog. Empirical fact. Researchers at China’s Peking University want to save you a few retch-inducing moments in your life with a new simple measurement method. The Peking University gel tags contain metallic nanorods specially calibrated to change color at about the same rate microbes grow in food. “In addition, all of the reagents in the tags are nontoxic, and some of them (such as vitamin C, acetic acid, lactic acid and agar) are even edible,” Zhang says. The group calibrated the tags using milk, but they can be adjusted for any food, even medicine. The nanorods, made of gold, are naturally red in color, but over time they react with silver chloride. Though the tag is small, about the size of a corn kernel, it is thick. Maybe. Image Credit: American Chemical Society/YouTube