-and not just by promoting succulents. Zak Stone of GOOD Cities writes, Farmscape is proving that there's enough of an appetite for farming on residential land to turn the proposition into a high-growth business.
The coffee is only available for purchase at locations in the Northwest United states. Each of those 46 locations is equipped with a special Clover Brewing Machine. via TIME,
and a grasping big toe that was perfect for clambering branch to branch. She ate in the trees,
and Flower Show (MGFS) for his visionary exploration of water recycle uses. Equilibrium concept design The Equilibrium project,
tobacco leaf in Germany by Wertdinger via Flickr
Monsanto: Supreme court lifts ban on genetically modified seedsin a case involving agricultural giant Monsanto, the U s. Supreme court has lifted a ban on genetically modified alfalfa seeds.
The move will likely affect the regulation of other biotech crops, including genetically modified sugar beets, and could make it easier for GM CROPS to stay on the market,
Monsanto engineered the alfalfa seeds to be resistant to the weed killing herbicide Roundup Ready,
Some Roundup Ready seeds had already been planted before the ban was enacted. Today, GM alfalfa seeds make up 1 percent of the market.
Some 95 percent of beets grown in the U s. carry the Monsanto bacterial gene that resists the herbicide glyphosate, present in Roundup Ready.
Though the verdict of the Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farm case doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who had been following it,
The U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) approves the sale of GM alfalfa seeds. 2005 onward: More than 5, 500 farmers plant the GM alfalfa seeds. 2006:
The Center for Food safety sues the USDA for not investigating the impact of GM seeds on the environment. 2007:
Awaiting a verdict on the environmental impact of the seeds, the U s. District court for the Northern District of California bans the sale of GM alfalfa seeds on the grounds that the USDA violated federal law by not reviewing the seeds'environmental risk.
Monsanto appeals the ruling, sending the case to the Supreme court. 2010: Monsanto wins. The Supreme court rules 7 to 1. The decision means that farmers,
growers and seed producers can have a hearing before an injunction is put in place. In other words:
once a crop goes on sale, it can't be banned without a hearing. The environmental impact statement is still pending.
the decision on GM seeds is hardly final: Nothing in the Supreme court's decision affects that ongoing process.
That allows farmers to spray their fields to kill weeds while leaving the crop intact, making weed control easy.
Yet a number of so-called superweeds â weeds that have developed an immunity to Roundup, including pigweed and horseweed â are growing on millions of acres of farmland in 22 states,
including California. That, in turn, has farmers using far more potent herbicides on their land and chemical companies starting to sell old chemical compounds that posed more environmental risks than Roundup
and has a 10 times higher yield per acre than cotton. Want more? It does not uproot soil (harvesting involves cutting it as it's a grass)
Nicaragua's bamboo boom has given root to what the BBC claims is the world's first bamboo bond,
Stalks from Piergiorgio Rossi. House from Laurent Gilet de Bambou Habitat. Scaffolding from Chris 73.
the century-old nut company best known for its dry roasted peanuts, is teaching sustainable farming to cashew farmers in Africa.
and not every nut that comes in is suitable. So we weed out those that aren t suitable before we process them
Every different nut is roasted a little differently. Based on where it comes from, it gets roasted differently.
Scientists find fungi that could give next-gen biofuels a boostthe formula to low-cost biofuel might be found within mushrooms.
A team of scientists including researchers from the Energy department's Joint Genome Institute identified Thielavia terrestris
and Myceliophthora thermophilia--two types of fungi that thrive in the hot environments necessary to speed up the biofuel refining process,
Mushroom power Enter the heat-loving fungi. The Energy department has several research projects aimed at finding heat tolerant enzymes from fungi and microbes such as cellulases that break down plant cell walls and convert biomass into fermentable sugars.
Heat tolerance is the critical cost-reduction piece of the puzzle. Many cellulases used in biofuel production thrive at temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius to 35 degrees C, according to the DOE's Joint Genome Institute.
Now that the team of scientists has identified two heat-loving fungi, the information can be used to improve strains as well as simplify the indentification of other beneficial and harmful mutations, according to the DOE's Joint Genome Institute.
Their system is a simple network of polyethylene plastic tubing with strategically placed holes that allow just enough water to drip into to the roots of crops.
using cover crops like rye to maintain year round production. This is a green space that contributes to the overall health
turtle pond and planting areas for each grade to grow flowers. Photo: Georgina Abella We really thought it appropriate to expand into something that could be an entirely new curriculum,
And nearly all of it will come from corn-and sugarcane-based ethanol. Meanwhile,  less than one-tenth of 1 percent of renewable fuels produced next year will come  from cellulosic ethanol-- the transportation fuel panacea expected to wean the U s. off of foreign oil
The U s. will continue to rely on sugarcane -and corn-based ethanol to meet the national mandate for renewable fuels in 2012.
Scientists find fungi that could give next-gen biofuels a boost
Next-gen toilets that could change the worldflush toilets get the job done. They also require a network of piped water, sewer and electrical connections,
 Nowadays, a lot of people are repairing valuable broken porcelain with a resin that's almost impossible to detect at first.
or years later when the resin begins to change color that you can detect it Â
The so-called Cellic CTEC3 enzyme--like other enzymes on the market--is used to break down biomass pulp--from corn husks
partner with DSM Bioengineering e coli to turn seaweed into fuel Next-gen biofuels in 2012:
Underneath the 405, ivy was growing. Nature clings, nature will adapt, nature will find a way to live.
Lemnis light bulb shipper The incandescent bulb is on its way out in the European union and its future in the U s. is shaky Too bad the performance of energy-sipping LED bulbs has not been universally stellar,
as Mark Halper reported earlier this year. Nevertheless, the bulk packaging design that the marketing
and branding company Celery Design devised for shipping multiple Lemnis LED bulbs is definitely a bright idea.
and the space required to safely ship multiple bulbs, Celery dreamed up a modular system that can accommodate just one or up to six bulbs.
Each bulb is placed in a triangular package that fits snugly with others, forming a hexagon
when six are placed together. The material is recycled 100 percent card stock too. Brian Dougherty, Celery Design cofounder, says Lemnis ultimately opted to use an overseas packager that went with a different bulk shipping solution.
Celery also developed a super-smart primary packaging solution for the bulbs that could be converted into a light shade.
If successful, the smart irrigation system would give the tubers precisely the amount of water they require for optimal growth,
 Once the stovers, husks and leaves are collected and milled, they are broken further down by  enzymatic hydrolysis,
and biochemicals, will contribute its enzyme and yeast technologies. If successful the joint venture plan to replicate
Bioengineering e coli to turn seaweed into fuel Fed-backed Range Fuels sells plant for pennies on the dollar Chemical giant BASF invests in biomass-to-sugar startup Next-gen biofuels in 2012:
Potato blight and flu have much in commonin 1846 the first of my ancestors arrived in America.
In fact the crop failed due to a potato blight, whose genome scientists have decoded just now. Which turns out to have a lot in common with a disease stalking my family (and yours) today, the flu.
and the potato blight is capable of similar changes. Senior author Gene Nusbaum of Harvard described its ability to change as exquisite.
Fay Wray thought the same thing of King kong. Something else about the potato blight. It's ba-ack.
Phytophthora infestans, once thought to be a fungus, is in fact a water mold that thrives in cold,
wet weather and can wipe out a crop in days. It's now threatening potato and tomato crops throughout the U s. Flu has similar adaptability.
Here again the potato blight offers some clues. Nearly three-quarters of the blight's genome consists of junk DNA,
and a 16-story building in the 13th arrondissement that will be wrapped with a vegetal envelope to promote spontaneous seeding.
Vadan Less and Jacob Ellenberg, cofounders of Dark Rye. If it weren for the fine print,
 On the entire Dark Rye website, the Whole Foods logo is nowhere to be seen.
whose team developed Dark Rye, says the online magazine does not mean to hide that it published by Whole Foods Market.
but use inspirational storytelling to bolster the cultural ideologies of Dark Rye parent brand. Is this the future of advertising?
Dark Rye is a home for these people. I â â¢m wondering if you think this moment in media in unique.
I â â¢m a little loathed to describe Dark Rye as advertising, but at the same time from what I â â¢ve seen in the business journals,
and pursuing Dark Rye as a passion project? How do you realistically manage those two sides?
Dark Rye is currently not being tasked with being a profit center and there are no plans to make it so.
but it moving toward producing content like Dark Rye? Vadan Less: We want to tell the Whole Foods Market story
and we believe Dark Rye is part of that. And so it hasn increased the budget at all. We can do a surprising amount of production in-house
If you look at our cost producing Dark Rye and you compare it to other company campaigns,
So Dark Rye is an innovation in the field trying to answer the question: â Å How can we communicate in a relevant way with a small budget?
Topiary is a shrub you trim, so you have only one color and one texture.
For us, the best way to create a special event was with flowers. We gave flowers to the planet.
What have been some of the biggest changes since the competition's early days? When we did the event in 2000,
We've also done several projects for clients in the U s. We did 14 exhibits for the conservatory at the Bellagio Hotel in Las vegas. We had clients in New york who built the One Bryant Park atrium space.
I always loved flowers. When I was a child, our house was in a wildflower field and
I made a lot of bouquets with those. My mother also loved flowers. I think that it is genetic in my case.
I have a master's degree in landscape architecture and I decided to study that because I like horticulture.
The flowers, the plants and the trees cannot grow faster than nature permits. Planting Plane trees to Attract the Phoenix (Beijing) All in a Row (Madagascar) The Man Who Planted Trees (Mosaã Â cultures Internationales de Montrã Â al) Photos by Guy Boily
Concrete sidewalks block the resources that tree roots need to grow and as a result,
the roots grow higher up toward the surface. Eventually, they break through the concrete. This causes obvious problems for the landowner,
Lindsay Smith It was such a loss--sidewalk-slicing ficus trees cut down in her Gardena, California,
and water to percolate down into the tree roots, which in turn grow thinner, less aggressive roots than trees hemmed in by concrete do.
And as roots grow below them the rubber sidewalks rise evenly. Ten years and more than 140 installations later, the company now has three main products.
The original Rubbersidewalk, made from used vehicle tires; Terrewalk, a second-generation version which uses a less energy-consumptive manufacturing process,
Rubbersidewalks is made with a method that is fairly traditional crumb rubber tires that have been chopped up into granules the size of sand) is mixed with polyurethane resin
On your blog you mention that it tastes like a sweet, succulent, hearty meal in a glass,
What makes Soylent different from Ensure, protein shake or Plumpy'nut. Why would people choose Soylent over what is already on the shelves now?
and if you fertilize them there might be more blooms. SP: What about some of the more crazy schemes?
and others are studying flowering plants and all of the thousands of other distinctive species. How will the Open Tree of Life project unify them?
from December through February, putting seedlings in the ground. This time of year I â â¢m just wrapping up prescribed burns.
to encourage natural legumes and weeds; and to discourage certain woody growths that are competing with the forest and not very helpful to wildlife.
These days when we plant seedlings, we plant on the order of about 600 trees per acre.
and salad rocket (arugula), along with useful desert plants around the seawater greenhouse. Another key element of the facility is concentrated the solar power plant:
This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus.
The focus is the company's $49 million investment in equipment and renewable energy technologies related to an upgrade of its pulp recovery boiler and related equipment.
to measure global topography, vegetation, the mass of ice sheets and the height of aersols and clouds.
and measuring tree trunks He filled in gaps in his data (since lidar pulses are so tiny) with data from an instrument on Terra and Aqua called MODIS
which is used by honeybees to recognize flowers. The paper, which requires registration and is available for free for 30 days,
At a testy meeting last fall between government representatives and farmers from Sukagawa and Soma,
to power blasting the bark off fruit trees or water sweeping with Karchers (high-pressure, industrial strength cleaning machines) are primitive at best,
and berry shrubs, climbing vines, herbaceous plants, and vegetables closer to the ground. Further down the path an edible arboretum full of exotic looking persimmons, mulberries, Asian pears,
and Chinese haws will surround a sheltered classroom for community workshops. Looking over the whole seven acres, you'll see playgrounds
In a food forest, everything from the tree canopy to the roots is edible or useful in some way.
In addition to pollinating flowers on their grounds and throughout the region, the two companies use the honey in the employee  cafeteria Â
For instance, there Â's a conservatory complex that houses a temperature-controlled flower dome and a replicated cloud forest.
Meanwhile, the design allows the structures to work as air vents for local conservatories. The trees can even be used to collect rainwater.
ranging from tropical flowers to ferns. With it Â's scope, the park was designed undoubtedly as a premier destination for eco-tourists.
and create a computerized model of the vines, figure out the canes'orientation and the location of buds all to decide which canes to cut down.
In Southern California, engineers with the Spanish company Agrobot are taking on the challenge by working with local growers to test a strawberry harvester.
The machine is equipped with 24 arms whose movement is directed through an optical sensor; it allows the robot to make a choice based on fruit color, quality and size.
The new warehouse, located 15 miles from Chicago, grows more than one million pounds of greenery such as herbs
arugula, watercress and other micro greens, per year. The greenery is sold to local restaurants and stores in Chicago, including Whole Foods and Green Grocer.
Production is based on two systems, aquaponics and aeroponics. Several types of fish, mainly tilapia, are grown in the tanks that feed the aquaponic system
and East Malling Research have come up with a novel way of using bumble bees to deliver minute quantities of bio-fungicide to strawberry flowers.
Symptomless infections can develop in strawberry flowers and cause fungal growth on fruit as they ripen and after picking.
and conventional crop protection products applied to flowers to protect against infection. ADAS and East Malling Research have been using bumble bee pollinator hives
and begin pollinating they transfer the powder directly to the flowers, allowing a very precise application of this bio-fungicide throughout flowering.
which is itself a fungus, competes for living space with the grey mould on the flower parts,
preventing the latent flower infection which causes the fruit to rot. During the last two years of field trials this harmless bee-delivered control system was demonstrated to be a practical alternative to fungicide applications
and regularly achieved levels of grey mould control equivalent to areas treated with fungicides while significantly decreasing any residue left on the fruit itself.
and grow your favorite vegetables, herbs and flowers without any hassle. Not only does this hydroponic system provides healthy and chemical-free produce,
Superweedsfarmers Cope with Roundup-Resistant Weeds For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture,
and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted. Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms,
pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing. oewe re back to where we were 20 years ago,
with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.
Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields.
However, if Roundup doesn t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.
Roundup originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers.
It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.
allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed.
and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United states . But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. oewhat we re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,
Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State university, said. Now, Roundup-resistant weeds like horseweed and giant ragweed are forcing farmers to go back to more expensive techniques that they had abandoned long ago.
Mr. Anderson, the farmer, is wrestling with a particularly tenacious species of glyphosate-resistant pest called Palmer amaranth,
or pigweed, whose resistant form began seriously infesting farms in western Tennessee only last year.
Pigweed can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more, choking out crops;
By combining Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, farmers did not have to plow under the weeds to control them.
a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said. In addition, some critics of genetically engineered crops say that the use of extra herbicides,
So far, weed scientists estimate that the total amount of United states farmland afflicted by Roundup-resistant weeds is relatively small seven million to 10 million acres, according to Ian Heap, director of the International
Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds, which is financed by the agricultural chemical industry. There are roughly 170 million acres planted with corn, soybeans and cotton, the crops most affected.
Roundup-resistant weeds are also found in several other countries including Australia, China and Brazil, according to the survey.
Monsanto, which once argued that resistance would not become a major problem, now cautions against exaggerating its impact. oeit a serious issue,
and Roundup Ready seeds. oeyou re having to add another product with the Roundup to kill your weeds,
Monsanto argues that Roundup still controls hundreds of weeds. But the company is concerned enough about the problem that it is taking the extraordinary step of subsidizing cotton farmers purchases of competing herbicides to supplement Roundup.
Monsanto and other agricultural biotech companies are also developing genetically engineered crops resistant to other herbicides.
Bayer is already selling cotton and soybeans resistant to glufosinate, another weedkiller. Monsanto newest corn is tolerant of both glyphosate and glufosinate,
saying that the emergence of resistant weeds jeopardized the substantial benefits that genetically engineered crops were providing to farmers and the environment.
Weed scientists are urging farmers to alternate glyphosate with other herbicides. But the price of glyphosate has been falling as competition increases from generic versions,
a cotton grower whose great-great-grandfather started his farm in Moultrie, Ga.,in 1830. Georgia has been one of the states hit hardest by Roundup-resistant pigweed,
and Mr. Perry said the pest could pose as big a threat to cotton farming in the South as the beetle that devastated the industry in the early 20th century.
it going to be like the boll weevil did said to cotton Mr. Perry, who is also chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission. oeit will take it away
iphone doctorbrendan Mcelroy living room in an apartment on the top floor of an East Village walk-up is crowded with anxious patients,
But primarily, she envisions aquaponics as catnip for oethe LOHAS market, she said. oethat means Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability the green crowd.
While she boasted about picking fresh basil the other day for a risotto, she has lately been preoccupied with exotic fish.
and shrubs near his home in Martin, thought it was crazy that he could not eat local produce."
Are vegetables the new flowers? A Lancashire town is experimenting with using traditional floral displays,
including hanging baskets and herbaceous borders, to grow slightly less colourful but more practical greens.
The idea taking shape in Clitheroe is to replace flowers with edible vegetables and offer a modest"pick-your-own"service of plantings to anyone passing by.
The most striking feature will be tiered three flower/vegetable structures in the centre of the town,
and given free vegetable seeds to social housing tenants. Schools use local produce and the long-term aim is complete self-reliance for food by 2018.
drone aircraft and rockets. But what about biology? Might biohacking tinkering with the DNA of existing organisms to create new ones lead to innovations of a biological nature?
We employed artificial intelligence algorithms combined with animal longevity assays to screen for wide-spectrum herbal extracts that extend lifespan;
I decided to test mixtures of medicinal herbal extracts, as these have had a long history of success in Chinese
I focused on complementary herbal extracts that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and metabolic potential (known factors in driving aging) along with a positive effect on longevity genes and a proven history of use in traditional herbal medicine to treat a wide spectrum of diseases.
In selecting a group of herbal extracts, I did not take the traditional route of choosing an existing herbal mixture
or the normal scientific route of choosing a mix of herbal extracts that target a particular disease or target.
While there are many claims that a particular herbal extract is oeanti-aging I found that these claims were too anecdotal to be believed.
The screen for herbal extracts I used was novel in several ways. First, I tried to identify the best wide-spectrum herb in Chinese, Indian,
or Western medicine based on its long term traditional use and data indicating that the herbal extract can target multiple longevity genes identified by Genescient or by other research groups.
In Chinese traditional medicine, Astragalus membranaceus (Huang Qi) appeared to be the best Chinese herb because of its many traditional uses
and recent studies demonstrating stem cell activation and inhibition of mtor. The mtor inhibition has extended mouse mean lifespan by 33%.
%In traditional Chinese medicine astragalus is considered a true tonic that can strengthen debilitated patients and increase resistance to disease in general.
Modern herbal treatments with Astragalus membranaceus root (often in concert with other herbs) are partly based on clinical trials showing benefits in strengthening immune function during viral (e g. chronic hepatitis)
In western herbal medicine Astragalus root is used to enhance immunity and to help in wound healing.
Astragalus compounds have also been shown to stimulate stem cells, promote peripheral nerve regeneration in rats,
Crude extracts of Pterocarpus marsupium (Indian keno tree) bark naturally have high concentrations of pterostilbene (more than 4%by weight
and have been used as a traditional herbal treatment for diabetes in India for thousands of years.
As an herbal medicine, Pterocarpus marsupium is popular in India for its diverse health benefits. Besides diabetes, the herb is reported also to cure a wide spectrum of ailments like skin diseases, fractures, bruises, constipation, hemorrhages, and rheumatoid arthritis.
These diverse health benefits of Pterocarpus marsupium make it a clear favorite to include in a preventive herbal cocktail along with Astragalus.
Having selected two of the biggest stars in the traditional herbal medicines of China and India
I looked for an effective herb with wide-spectrum health effects from the Western herbal tradition.
In this case, pine bark proanthocyanidins stand out as the best wide-spectrum herbal extracts in the Western herbal medicine tradition.
Most of the research and commercial success with proanthocyanidins has come from extracts of a French maritime pine bark called Pycnogenol (65 to 75%proanthocyanidins) and various grape seed extracts (80-90%proanthocyanidins.
These diverse health benefits make Pine Bark proanthocyanidins another perfect candidate to combine with wide-spectrum herbal extracts from Astragalus membranaceus and Pterocarpus marsupium bark.
I wanted an herbal compound that provided neural protection in the brain. L-theanine (also known as gamma-glutamylethylamide,
All of these neuroprotective properties of L-theanine make it a strong complementary addition to the three essential core herbs of the herbal mix.
We named the final 4-herb mix Stemcell 100 because of its positive effects on adult stem cells
Drosophila Longevity Studies Using Treatment with Stemcell 100 The current Stemcell 100 herbal blend has gone through extensive longevity testing with Drosophila fruit flies.
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