High-tech crops designed to glow when they need help

It can be difficult for farmers to determine exactly when their crops need watering, or when they're getting infested with bugs or fungus. InnerPlant technology was created to help, by getting the plants to "glow" when they're in distress.

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Germ-killing, wound-healing, low-cost bandage made from durian husks

Although not a huge seller everywhere, durian fruit is consumed in great quantities in countries like Singapore. Scientists there have now developed a method of using its husks to create cheap, eco-friendly, antibacterial hydrogel bandages.

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Brazilian green H2 plant to (briefly) be world’s biggest CO2 reducer

Enegix Energy is moving forward with plans to build a huge clean hydrogen plant on the North-East coast of Brazil. The US$5.4-billion Base One project would transform solar and wind power into more than 600 million kg of green hydrogen annually.

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Paleomagnetism suggests supercontinent cycle began two billion years ago

Geologists have pieced together an uncertain part of Earth’s ancient history. A team in Australia has found new evidence that suggests the cycle of supercontinents forming and breaking up only started about two billion years ago.

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Powerful protostars may not be responsible for ending their own growth

Fresh research has cast doubt on the theory that energetic outbursts from young stars blows away the cocoon of gas from which they formed, which in turn prevents them from growing any further.

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Glow of “cosmic web” filaments directly imaged for the first time

On a scale that’s hard to fathom, the universe is structured like a “cosmic web." Astronomers have now directly observed light from filaments in this web, by staring at a patch of sky with a deep-field telescope to detect faint dwarf galaxies.

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White button mushroom extract suppresses prostate cancer growth in mice

Scientists continue to search for increasingly powerful drugs to take on cancer cells and inhibit tumor growth, and nature continues to provide them with rich source of inspiration, with the latest example coming from white button mushrooms.

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Conductive hydrogel could find use in soft robotics and more

Ordinarily, if you want to build a device that's highly electrically conductive, you have to use rigid metals. Now, however, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have created a soft and flexible material that fits the bill.

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Prehistoric “eagle shark” combined traits of sharks and rays

The whale shark and the manta ray are perhaps two of the ocean's most fascinating large fishes. Well, scientists have now announced the discovery of a prehistoric ancestor of both, that looked like a cross between the two.

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