Ethanol from Corn Stalks: Can It Slow Climate Change?
The next generation of ethanol plants could play a large role in reducing the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. DuPont, the Delaware-based chemical and seed giant, is opening a cellulosic plant that will begin production next year, using corncobs, husks, and stalks to make ethanol fuel for cars and trucks.
 
A New Leaf
As industrial land-based agriculture becomes increasingly untenable, we are being pushed out to sea. Seaweed, which requires neither fresh water nor fertilizer, is one of the world’s most sustainable crops. It absorbs dissolved nitrogen, phosphorous, and carbon dioxide directly from the sea and proliferates at a terrific rate. It seems that kelp farming can rehabilitate the ocean’s threatened ecosystems, mitigate the effects of climate change, and revive coastal economies.
 
Bread Is Broken
For nearly a century, the US has grown wheat tailored to an industrial system designed to produce nutrient-poor flour and insipid, spongy breads soaked in preservatives. The Bread Lab’s mission is to make regional grain farming viable once more, by creating entirely new kinds of wheat that unite the taste and wholesomeness of their ancestors with the robustness of their modern counterparts.
 
A Secure Food Future Is Not All about Tomato-Plucking Robots and Hydroponics
In 2030, we’ll be grazing on algae and hydroponic lettuce, gorging on tomatoes plucked by robots, and snacking on crickets. Or maybe we’ll be dining on organic beef from grass-fed cattle, supplemented with vegetables preserved by centuries-old traditional pickling. Or more likely, both—if the glimpses of food futures on show in Milan’s Expo 2015 are anything to go by.
 
SupermealX, India’s Soylent, May Be Nutritious, but Will It Make the World a Better Place?
What if India procures or makes a food like Soylent and distributes it at a great discount to all its malnourished? SupermealX, which has been certified by Indian regulators as fit for human consumption, is yellowish and has a tinge of vanilla flavor. Like Soylent, it derives proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins and minerals from both regular food and synthetic sources.
 
Accounting for Taste
Scientists have long known that whether a strawberry tastes sweet or bland depends on the organic molecules detected by olfactory receptors in the nose. Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, had been wondering whether taste might be similarly shaped by sound: Would a potato chip taste different if the sound of its crunch was altered? To explore that question, he needed a chip with a reliably uniform crunch: the Pringle.