Agriculture

Maple Syrup Farmers Can Now Vacuum Sap Out of Trees

A new technology helps sugarmakers get every last drop

Marijuana Grow Ops Are Drying Out California's Water Supply

Illegal marijuana grow ops use thousands of gallons of water a day

Organic chicken feed.

Walmart's About to Do for Organic Food What It Did for Every Other Consumer Product

Walmart's going to give organic food a big push

The Midwest aglow with a visualization of photosynthetic fluorescence.

Under the Summer Sun, the Corn Belt Is the Most Biologically Productive Place on Earth

During the peak growing season, the corn belt outproduces the Amazon

Panicum miliaceum, or broomcorn millet.

Ancient Wandering Shepherds Spread Crops Across Eurasia

The nomadic shepherds of central Asia joined east and west

Zebrafish embryo

A Scan of a Mechanical Heart Pump Fitted in a Live Human and Other Eerily Beautiful Scientific Images

From a photo of a tick biting flesh to a closeup of a kidney stone, the 18 winners of the 2014 Wellcome Image Awards highlight objects we don't usually see

Compost

New York Is Turning Its Leftovers Into Natural Gas, With the Help of Hungry Bacteria

Some cities are taking table scraps and turning them into fuel.

A pastoral cattle herder in near the Meatu district in Tanzania.

Africans' Ability To Digest Milk Co-Evolved With Livestock Domestication

Lactose tolerance spread throughout Africa along human pastoral migration routes, say scientists

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New York Could Grow All Its Own Food

Theoretically, New York City could become largely self-sufficient

"I began to wonder," says Smithsonian researcher Dolores Piperno, who studies the ancestor of the corn plant, "what did the plants actually look like between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago? Did they look the same?"

To Decode the Mystery of Corn, Smithsonian Scientists Recreate Earth as it Was 10,000 Years Ago

As part of a groundbreaking study, researchers built a greenhouse "time machine"

The Hetch Hetchy reservoir is one of California's crucial reservoirs.

California's Crucial Reservoirs Are Running Low, And That's Even Worse Than It Sounds

An ongoing drought has drained California dry

GM Purple Tomatoes Could Actually Be Good for You

These tomatoes are stuffed with anthocyanins (but they're not the only source of the healthy pigment)

Climate Change Is Already Causing Mass Human Migration

When temperatures are high, Pakistani men are 11 times more likely to move out of town

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Hunter-Gatherers Ruined Their Teeth by Eating Too Many Acorns

Wild nuts such as acorns, pine nuts and pistachios are highly cariogenic, or those "producing and promoting the development of tooth decay"

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Just Because Farmers Grow Fresh Produce Doesn’t Mean They’re Eating It

Without the help of a farm wife (or husband) who can take responsibility for running the household's kitchen, farmers often subsist on processed snacks

A memorial to the Irish famine in Dublin.

160 Years Later, Scientists Grow a GM Potato That Could Have Prevented the Irish Potato Famine

Genetically modified potatoes resistant to potato blight were designed in Ireland

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered a way to turn a small mixture of algae and water into a kind of crude oil in less than an hour.

Scientists Turn Algae Into Crude Oil In Less Than An Hour

Researchers believe they have figured out a way to make a promising biofuel that is cheap enough to compete with gasoline

We've Done So Well by Chesapeake Oysters, We Can Start Eating Them Again

Perhaps this time we can keep ourselves from eating them to oblivion

Stop Freaking Out About Lead in Backyard Chicken Eggs

Urban hens' eggs have elevated levels of lead, but the levels are still pretty low

How One Chinese Corporate Spy Dodged the FBI to Steal Inbred Corn Seeds from Iowa

Mo Hailong faces a decade in prison for allegedly trying to steal millions of dollars-worth of corn seeds

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