Palm oil and soy are two of the world’s largest drivers of deforestation, with the former destroying almost 25 million acres of forests in Indonesia and 47% of tree cover in Malaysia. A new method from agriculture company Terviva offers a climate-friendly alternative to both palm oil and soy by using the resilient pongamia trees. Capable of growing with minimal resources on degraded land, the …
Led by Dorian Leger and Milena Ivanisevic from Connectomix Bio, researchers are turning agricultural waste into oils in order to fight a future of food insecurity and to reduce methane emissions. To achieve this, they first break down waste (like corn husks) into a gas which is then fed to microbes. The new mixture inspires a process of fermentation that grows lipids, a crucial fat …
Researchers at Melbourne, Australia’s RMIT University developed an acoustic device that can remove performance-inhibiting rust from batteries, tripling their lifespan and, hopefully, reducing how frequently they are discarded. The researchers used MXene, a nano-material that holds promise as an alternative to lithium batteries, yet is prone to rust. They discovered that high-frequency sound waves cause the MXene battery to vibrate with enough force for the …
