Lifeboat Foundation

Understanding machine learning predictions by exploring the road not travelled.

Dry, hot regions are difficult places to grow plants because the soil dries out quickly. As a result, farmers in arid and semi-arid regions irrigate their fields with buried networks of irrigation tubing and cover the ground with plastic sheets. But plastic sheets are expensive and create waste. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Agricultural Science & Technology have developed a simple, biodegradable ground cover—wax-coated sand—which keeps soil wet and increases crop yields.

To irrigate crops, farmers usually get water from nearby waterways or underground aquifers. These supplies can be rapidly depleted when growing plants in arid regions, where the soil is comprised mostly of sand and can’t hold onto water well. One way to improve irrigated water’s efficiency is to make sure it stays in the soil long enough so that plants’ roots can take it up. Previous studies have shown that ground cover barriers, such as plastic sheets and engineered nanomaterials, can slow evaporation and enhance plant growth and crop yields. However, both could leach unwanted compounds into the soil with unknown long-term impacts. Some plants and animals naturally produce waxy substances that trap and pool water from fog or condensation so that they can access these moisture sources. Taking inspiration from nature, Himanshu Mishra and colleagues wanted to see if they could coat sand with wax, creating an environmentally benign ground cover to control soil evaporation.

The researchers chose purified paraffin wax, a biodegradable substance available in large quantities, for their experiments. They dissolved the wax in hexane and poured silica sand into the mixture. As the solvent evaporated, a 20-nm-thick coating of wax was left behind on the grains. When the team applied the wax-coated sand in a thin layer on an open field in Saudi Arabia, it decreased the loss of soil moisture up to 50–80%. Field trials revealed that tomato, barley and wheat plants mulched with the new material produced substantially more fruit and grain than those grown in uncovered soil. In addition, the microbial community around the plants’ roots and in the soil wasn’t negatively impacted by the waxy mulch, which could have acted as a food source for some of the microbes. This simple nature-inspired technology could make water use more efficient in arid regions, the researchers say.

The country’s very youngest are casualties of a hunger crisis.

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March 16 (Reuters) — Telecoms giant Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) said on Wednesday it had secured new business worth almost $1 billion from the U.S. Department of Defense to provide technical support and network modernization services.

The deal includes contracts for services to the Pentagon, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Fort Belvoir at a combined value of $966.5 million.

Verizon will provide internet-protocol-based services, voice and video services and network-related support aimed at accelerating the department’s digital pivot.

Her fur clothes were mixed with moose brains.

A full-body reconstruction of a Neolithic woman who lived 4,000 years ago is now on display at a museum in Sweden.

The NVIDIA hackers have now targeted Samsung. Here’s what Galaxy smartphone owners need to know.

Archaeologists have found an ancient lead sarcophagus under Notre Dame cathedral along with fragments of a rood screen, offering a new insight into the history of the building which is currently under reconstruction after a devastating fire in 2019.

While it may be too late for the breakthrough to allow mass adoption for consumer electronics and electric vehicles, Professor Chiang believe it could revolutionise energy storage for large-scale renewable operations.

He has founded a startup, Form Energy, to further develop and commercialise the technology, with the hope of rapidly pushing forward zero carbon energy solutions.