According to a new study, colonies of ants began farming fungi when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. This asteroid impact caused a global mass extinction but also created ideal conditions for fungi to thrive. Innovative ants began cultivating the fungi, creating an evolutionary partnership that became even more tightly intertwined 27 million...

Conventional robotic grippers struggle to adapt to complex shapes and sizes, such as those found in crops. This has created a demand for more adaptable robotic grippers that can be utilized in agriculture. In a new study, researchers introduced an innovative soft robotic gripper named ROtation-based Squeezing grippEr (ROSE) and optimized its unique...

It's important to eat your veggies, but some essential vitamins and nutrients can only be found in animals, including certain amino acids and peptides. But, in a proof-of-concept study, researchers developed a method to produce creatine, carnosine and taurine -- all animal-based nutrients and common workout supplements -- right inside a plant. The system...

As the global population surpasses 8 billion, the challenge of producing sufficient food becomes increasingly pressing. The Netherlands stands as the world's second-largest food exporter, efficiently cultivating a wide variety of crops. However, plant diseases such as downy mildew pose significant threats, potentially spoiling farmers' harvests. Researchers...

Wheat is the world's most important grain. But it has high environmental costs due to the need to fertilize with nitrogen. Researchers have now determined that new wheat varieties produce better crops with the same quantities of fertilizer.

New research suggests that pigs may function as a transmission vehicle for a strain of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) common in rats that has recently been found to infect humans.