New Atlas

Around The Home Audio available

iHarvest adds a vertical garden to your living space

Paul Ridden April 18, 2019

Imagine being able to harvest fresh veggies precisely when you need them without leaving the house. That's the promise of indoor gardens like the OGarden Smart and the Cell One. Now IGWorks is making a bid for your living space with a vertical hydroponics garden called the iHarvest.

The iHarvest fully automated indoor hydroponics garden is currently raising production funds on Kickstarter

Science Audio available

Ancient pee helps archaeologists track the rise of farming

Michael Irving April 17, 2019

One of the most important transitions in human history was when we stopped hunting and gathering for food and settled down to become farmers. Now, to reconstruct the history of one particular archaeological site in Turkey, scientists have examined the salts left behind from human and animal pee.

The Aşıklı Höyük site in Turkey, where researchers have studied urine salts to estimate human and ...

Around The Home

Cell One grows organic microgreens and sprouts in your kitchen

Paul Ridden April 15, 2019

Not everyone has access to enough land for growing veggies, making indoor garden devices quite attractive prospects for those looking for year-round fresh produce. The latest is a multi-tier setup called the Cell One.

The Cell One puts an indoor garden on your kitchen countertop

Around The Home

Circular garden makes growing veggies indoors even easier than before

Paul Ridden February 14, 2019

Living in a crowded inner city means that many residents don't have a garden of their own, so are unable to grow their own veggies. Last year's OGarden moved gardening indoors, mounting plants on a ferris-like wheel. The design has now been updated, resulting in the OGarden Smart.

The OGarden Smart has launched on Kickstarter to raise production funds

Environment Audio available

Promising sugar-based natural herbicide targets same pathway as glyphosate

Rich Haridy February 4, 2019

A team of scientists from Germany’s University of Tübingen has discovered a novel and unusual sugar molecule that shows great potential as a natural herbicide. It is harmless to animals and humans but can effectively disrupt the growth of various plants and microorganisms.

The newly discovered natural molecule could be as effective as Roundup but potentially safe and non-toxic ...

Biology Audio available

Pigs genetically-engineered to resist deadly swine virus

Michael Irving December 16, 2018

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is a highly infectious and deadly disease among pigs, with outbreaks leading to huge livestock losses. Now, researchers from Jilin University in China have genetically modified pigs to be resistant to the virus, which will also pass that down to their offspring.

Chinese researchers have genetically engineered pigs to be resistant to a widespread and deadly virus

Environment Audio available

The inconvenient truth about the environmental impact of organic farming

Rich Haridy December 13, 2018

A new international study into the impact of agricultural land use on climate change has found organic food production is worse for the climate than conventional farming, due to the fact that it needs greater areas of land to grow produce.

New research suggests organic farming has a greater impact on carbon emissions and the climate than ...

Electronics Audio available

Swarms of bionic bees could monitor farms with electronic backpacks

Michael Irving December 11, 2018

Our drones are pretty handy, but nature’s drones – bees – are far more efficient. Rather than building our own from scratch, researchers at the University of Washington have created tiny suites of sensors that bees can wear like backpacks, to help gather data from their environment.

Researchers have fitted bees with electronic backpacks that can sense their surroundings and collect data

Wearables Audio available

Smart ear tag may save ranchers time and money

Ben Coxworth November 20, 2018

Australian cattle stations (aka ranches) can be huge, so checking on all the cows is a big task. With that in mind, the CSIRO national science agency has teamed up with agtech startup Ceres Tag to develop an ear tag that not only tracks the animals' whereabouts, but also detects unusual activity.

Plans call for the Ceres Tag to be made smaller and lighter, and to also incorporate ...

Environment

Sensors buried in farmers' fields may help prevent algae blooms

Ben Coxworth November 1, 2018

Toxic algae blooms can be nasty, killing fish, other wildlife and sometimes even people. One of the main causes of such blooms is excessive amounts of fertilizer running off of fields and into waterways. A new type of buried sensor, however, could help address that situation.

Toxic algae blooms are at least partially caused by fertilizer that runs off of farmers' fields ...