Photosynthesis

One argued silver lining of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is that plants will be better off. But a new study has found that the more extreme heat and drought brought on by climate change would cancel out most of the benefits for trees.

Researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology have fine-tuned an artificial leaf design and used it to produce drugs for the first time.

A new study is raising concerns over the effects of plastic pollution in our oceans. For the first time researchers investigated how a common ocean bacteria, responsible for producing over 10 percent of oxygen in the atmosphere, is impaired by chemicals that can leach out of plastic products.

Over the last few years humans have tried to mimic nature with artificial leaves, but they’re never quite up to scratch. Now, researchers have designed a new version that could work under real-world conditions, sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and creating oxygen and synthetic fuels.

Research has demonstrated a novel technique to enhance photosynthetic efficiency in rice crops can increase grain yields by up to 27 percent. The study follows other recent demonstrations of food bioengineering designed to enhance worldwide food productivity by improving the photosynthesis process.

A team of researchers has, for the first time, demonstrated that by fixing a common glitch in photosynthesis, a crop’s yield could be improved by around 40 percent. The landmark study suggests optimizing a plant’s photosynthetic efficiency could significantly increase worldwide food productivity.

Artificial photosynthesis devices can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but they still suffer from some efficiency issues. Now a new hybrid device may be able to recover some of the energy that would otherwise go to waste, by producing both hydrogen and electricity.

It’s not enough to reduce our carbon output – we need to actively remove some from the atmosphere. On a small scale MIT engineers have developed a new material that can suck carbon out of the air and use it to get stronger or patch itself up.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have now developed “spacesuits” that wrap around bacteria to not only protect them from the elements, but turn them into biohybrids that capture carbon dioxide and turn it into useful chemicals.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have developed a new way to build solar cells containing bacteria, which are more efficient than similar systems and can even work on dim, cloudy days.

Recently Goodyear has rolled into the Geneva Motor Show with new tire designs that could be described as intriguing concepts at best and crazy, outlandish ideas at worst. This year's rendition is no different, hiding living moss inside to cleanse the surrounding air as the car rolls down the road. ​

A University of Cambridge team has developed a new design for an algae-based fuel cell that is apparently five times more efficient than existing devices, and much cheaper to make and easier to use.