Food & Agriculture

Boosting bee diversity can help stabilise crop production

The Conversation: There are over 20,000 bee species and together they help pollinate more than 75% of the world’s leading food crops. Honeybees tend to hog the limelight, but few realise how important diversity is to this process. Having lots of…

A common soil pesticide cut wild bee reproduction by 89% – here’s why scientists are worried

The Conversation: When you think of bees, a hive humming with activity probably comes to mind. But most of the world’s 20,000 bee species don’t call a hive home. These…

Scientists are growing grapes in space to save Earth’s wine supply

Wired UK: At approximately 8pm EST on Wednesday, January 13, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Florida. Having successfully dropped off its three tons of hardware and supplies to the International…

Vertical farms nailed tiny salads. Now they need to feed the world

Wired UK: Gartenfeld Island, in Berlin’s western suburb of Spandau, was once the bellows of Germany’s industrial revolution. It hosted Europe’s first high-rise factory and, until World War II, helped make Berlin, behind London and New York, the third-largest city on…