Agriculture
How Our Food System Could Be Radically Better in 2032
Fast forward 20 years. How will we get our food? What delicacies will stock our fridges and appear on restaurant menus? Will our diets be significantly different, or will we have simply found new things to stuff in yet-undiscovered pockets of our pizzas? Andrew Purvis of Green Futures Magazine ponders the question, with an optimistic slant: [...]
July 07, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
1931′s Remote-Controlled Farm of the Future
The farmer of tomorrow wears a suit to work and sits at a desk that looks oddly familiar to those of us here in the year 2012.
July 02, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
70 Percent of Illinois Is In A Drought (And It’s Better Off Than Indiana)
The U.S. Drought Monitor has determined that most of Illinois is in a drought. So is most of Arkansas (71%), Ohio (77%), Missouri (82%), and Indiana (85%). The drought’s bringing to mind the last bad one, which happened in 1988. The Jacksonville Journal-Courier talked to the Illinois Farm Bureau’s John Hawkins, who says it’s not [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Sarah Laskow
Fritz Haber’s Experiments in Life and Death
The German chemist helped feed the world. Then he developed the first chemical weapons used in battle
June 06, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The Peas that Smelled the Leaky Pipe
In 1901, a 17-year-old Russian discovered the gas that tells fruits to ripen
June 01, 2012 |
By Peter Smith
The World’s Most Expensive Vegetable
Long before hops cones were used to make beer bitter, hops shoots were eaten as a spring green
April 23, 2012 |
By Peter Smith
The Legumes of War: How Peanuts Fed the Confederacy
Food shortages were a problem for both military and civilians. But even in these hard times, people could find relief in peanuts
April 19, 2012 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Food and Video Games
Video games may be the art medium of the 21st century, but they're also an advertising medium. Here are five notable games that promoted foods
March 13, 2012 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Super-Sized Food of the Future
How do you eat an eight-foot-long ear of corn?
March 09, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
The Aftermath of Mountain Meadows
The massacre almost brought the United States to war against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but only one man was brought to trial: John D. Lee
February 29, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
1970s Children Draw Robot Presidents and Nuclear Apocalypse
Kids predict the darndest things
February 23, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Fruits and Vegetables Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before
Microscopy artist Robert Rock Belliveau says, "I couldn't believe the things I found on the things we eat every day"
February 22, 2012 |
By Peter Smith
General Grant in Love and War
The officer who gained glory as a warrior in the Civil War also had a domestic side.
February 14, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
Jose Andres and Other Toques of the Town Honor Alice Waters
What do you cook for famed chef Alice Waters? Washington's culinary celebrities faced this challenge at the unveiling of her portrait at the Smithsonian
January 31, 2012 |
By Jeanne Maglaty
Sunday Funnies Blast Off Into the Space Age
When Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus met President Kennedy in 1962, JFK told him, "The only science I ever learned was from your comic strip."
January 27, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Friends in the House, Hostility at Home
Coya Knutson won a seat in the U.S. House in 1954 but was undone by a secret she brought to Washington
December 29, 2011 |
By Gilbert King
Five Ways to Eat Persimmons
Both fuyu and hachiya persimmons are usually available in late fall and early winter. Here are a few ways to use either variety
December 02, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Artisanal Wheat On the Rise
Giving factory flour the heave-ho, small farmers from New England to the Northwest are growing long-forgotten varieties of wheat
December 2011 |
By Jerry Adler
A Thanksgiving Meal (in-a-pill)
The future of food was envisioned by many prognosticators as entirely meatless and often synthetic.
November 23, 2011 |
By Matt Novak
Five Ways to Eat Cabbage
It's versatile and found in cuisines throughout the globe. Stuff it, fry it, shred it and more
November 02, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen


