Freshwater heavily polluted with microplastics

According to the United Nations, up to 150 million tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans every year. A sad testament to the scale of pollution are the five giant plastic islands floating on the surface. The gradual breakdown of plastics into microplastics is a global problem and increasingly endangers the lives of marine life. However, the pollution of the environment by plastic waste no longer affects only seas and oceans.

Nitric oxide metabolizing bacteria cultivated

Nitric oxide - NO for short - is a gas that is both important and deadly to living things. Researchers speculate that it may have been involved in the origin of life as a precursor to oxygen in prehistoric times. However, it damages the ozone layer and can react to form nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Reactive nitric oxide is also a signaling molecule that is toxic to many organisms. However, some microorganisms can feed on the energy-rich gas.

Revitalize wheat fields with herbs

Wheat is one of the most important foods in Germany. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 22 million tons of winter wheat were harvested in Germany last year - around five percent more than the year before. But the grain is sensitive to environmental influences, as the past heat years have shown. In Hesse alone, a third of the harvest was lost to heat and drought in 2018. Technology, fertilizers and artificial irrigation also reached their limits.

Sustainable management of grassland in the Alps

Whether heat, drought or heavy rain, climate change is presenting agriculture with ever greater challenges. Even in the Alpine region, where it is often cooler and rains more frequently, the effects on meadows, pastures and alpine pastures are noticeable. But what does climate change mean for so-called grassland production? And above all, how can farmers in the Alpine region react to these changes? Researchers led by Ralf Kiese from the Campus Alpin of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) dealt with these questions in the BonaRes project SUSALPSII.

“Queensland pushes its Biofutures industry”

The German government has formed research alliances with the state of Queensland in northeastern Australia on future topics such as green hydrogen and the bioeconomy (e.g. Bioeconomy International). Ian O'Hara is a professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Queensland University of Technology. He led the development of the Mackay Renewable Biocommodities Pilot Plant (MRBPP) – a unique publicly accessible biomanufacturing pilot scale research facility.

With Fungilyzer to the Bioengineering World Cup

It is a challenge that young researchers have been taking up with enthusiasm for years: the international student competition for synthetic biology iGEM. This year, the world championship in bioengineering celebrates its 20th anniversary. 350 teams from around the world will again travel to Boston in October to compete with their projects. Fourteen teams from colleges and universities in Germany are also entering the race for the coveted places, including young researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU).

When bacteria communicate with fungi

Humans, animals, plants and single-celled organisms use small biomolecules as signaling substances to send messages or trigger reactions. "Microorganisms produce a variety of such substances, and we are just beginning to understand this language," says Axel Brakhage, director of the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology and professor at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He and his research group have found that representatives of the bacterial genus Streptomyces are particularly capable of communication.

Veganz relies on Fraunhofer indoor farming system

Already to be found in some supermarkets: glass mini-farms in which lettuce or herbs grow on several floors in a special nutrient solution without pesticides under LED light and are sold freshly harvested directly on site. This controlled and resource-conserving plant cultivation in so-called vertical farms is not only sustainable, but the yields are also significantly higher, according to experts. For companies in the food industry, urban plant cultivation thus opens up entirely new opportunities.