Whether cereal, fruit or vegetable cultivation: agriculture is dependent on pesticides in many places. They should secure yields and thereby the supply of food to the people. But the use of pesticides is controversial because they not only kill off pests, but also harm people and nature. Now researchers have identified bacteria that can break down the herbicide linuron.

During the brewing of beer, many residues accumulate. For example, an average of 20 kilograms of spent grains are produced per hectoliter of beer.  With regard to the annual beer production in Germany, this is about two million tons of spent grains and about one million tons of spent grains press water. These residues contain valuable substances, some of which are used in agriculture as animal feed, but the majority ends up in waste. Researchers want to change that.

In nature there is a permanent, seemingly invisible battle: Whether in the soil, in water or on our skin - microorganisms compete for nutrients almost everywhere. Some microbes use chemical weapons and secrete substances that harm other microbes. For example, bacteria of the genus Streptomyces produce azalomycins, which kill other unicellular organisms, but also cells of higher organisms such as the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. However, it has found an unusual protector, as a German research team now reports in

Wheat is one of the most important food plants. Many foods from bread to pizza to beer are made from the grain. But many people suffer from a wheat intolerance, the coeliac disease. They are allergic to the wheat protein gluten. The number of people suffering from coeliac disease has risen sharply in recent years. Up to 1% of adults are affected.