The ancient Maya were an innovative people. They constructed intricate cities throughout the tropical lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula, communicated using one of the world’s first written languages, and created two calendar systems by studying the stars. But despite their achievements, the thriving Mayan civilization…
Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest evidence of bread-making at a site in northeastern Jordan. Dating back some 14,400 years, the discovery shows that ancient hunter-gatherers were making and eating bread 4,000 years before the Neolithic era and the introduction of agriculture. So much for the “Paleo Diet”…
It’s no secret that modern humans, with our fuel-burning cars, massive ranching and agriculture practices, and penchant for disposable goods, have had a huge impact on nearly every environment across the globe. But new research shows that even our ancestors in the Bronze Age changed the chemistry of the soils they…
Row after row of blackened wood barrels are piled 30 feet high in a dim warehouse on Avery Island in southern Louisiana. Harold “Took” Osborn leads me through the endless stacks, in a setting reminiscent of the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The recycled bourbon casks are filled with Tabasco mash, laid to…
By 2050, the world’s population will top ten billion people. As industrial capitalism evolves across the globe like no time in human history, will our planet’s ecosystem be able to sustain itself during this rapid transformation? Will human beings be able to support themselves with agriculture and survive on this…
Only in Japan would the solution to an ecological problem involve a robotic wolf. But when that problem is the proliferation of wild boars, the furry, fanged, red-eyed “Super Monster Wolf” might actually do the trick.
If you’re anything like me, you wouldn’t survive a workday without that steaming, morning cup o’ Joe. And the four to five cups that follow it. Okay, maybe I have a problem but who doesn’t these days?
California air pollution often conjures images of smoggy Los Angeles skies, but farms—not city streets—might be the actual culprits behind the state’s air pollution.
So much of our extremely online lives now revolves around things like the president of the United States threatening to either nuke North Korea or show them his genitals (not sure which!) or worrying about massive security breaches. But hey, some of it also rules.
The civil war in Syria and unrest in Iraq and other parts of the world has spawned a huge humanitarian crisis. It’s the largest mass migration in history, and the shock waves will reverberate for decades to come. Climate change may even have played a role, particularly in destabilizing Syria.
When almost 200 nations signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 to address global climate change, the real work was just beginning. At this month’s UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany, negotiators made critical progress towards addressing the source of up to nearly a third of globe-warming emissions: agriculture. After…
Buying an organic avocado at Whole Foods may make you feel warm, fuzzy, and morally superior to conventional avocado-buying friends. But can that feeling of moral superiority also feed the entire world?
If you were to ask all of your friends what an ideal society looks like, I’m sure you’d receive vastly different answers. Maybe someone will suggest a society without war where everyone works together to solve problems. Your friend who just finished an Ayn Rand book will say something stupid. And maybe your vegan…
Cannabis—for obvious reasons—has always been a lucrative crop in the U.S. As state-by-state legal landscapes have warmed to the use and production of medical and recreational cannabis, the market has mushroomed, with an upcoming seismic shift in the national market associated with California’s start of recreational…
The National Chicken Council and some Republican lawmakers want to kill rules that limit how many chicken carcasses poultry plants can process per minute, and they’re hoping President Donald Trump’s disdain for Obama-era red-tape will help them feed America’s growing bird-blood lust.
Last week at the biotech conference SynBioBeta, I swiped one of Okanagan Specialty Fruits’ Arctic Apples and put it in my purse. The Arctic Apple is the first genetically engineered apple, modified so that when it is cut, it doesn’t turn an unappetizing shade of brown. When I got home, I sliced it up and stuck it in…
A new NASA-sponsored study shows that global methane emissions produced by livestock are 11 percent higher than estimates made last decade. Because methane is a particularly nasty greenhouse gas, the new finding means it’s going to be even tougher to combat climate change than we realized.
President Donald Trump managed to sneak a few minutes from his busy schedule of threatening federal investigators to make official his nominee for the United States Department of Agriculture’s top scientific position on Wednesday. Given the tough choice between filling the role with a scientist or someone who is not a…
Diamondback moths may be a mere half-inch in length, but their voracious appetite for Brussels sprouts, kale and cauliflower make them a major pain for farmers. This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a potential solution: moths genetically engineered to contain a special gene that makes them gradually…
Trump’s 2018 budget proposal is out, and unsurprisingly, the cuts are huge. Some anticipated crazy cuts to the United States Department of Agriculture’s social program. Those cuts still exist, of course—this is President Donald Trump, after all. But what the new budget really shows as far as agriculture goes is that…
