A balanced diet is important for reducing hunger and malnutrition. Researchers thus advocate that small farmers in low- and middle-income countries should try to produce as many different foods as possible for their own consumption. However, a new study is now questioning this recommendation to some extent. It suggests that good access to regional markets is more important than farmers growing a large diversity of crops on their own smallholding. Better-functioning markets increase the variety of foods available locally, which benefits the population as a whole. The results are being published in the journal “Nature Food.”

Researchers have opened a transformative chapter in agricultural biotechnology by unveiling virus-induced genome editing (VIGE) techniques for Solanaceous crops, a group that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants.

A research team from the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has developed an explainable AI method to observe the splashing drops of different liquids while impacting a solid surface. This achievement provides important insights into the phenomenon of splash, which is important for various applications, such as aeronautics, biology, chemical and mechanical engineering, materials, acoustics, and combustion.

An often-overlooked mechanism of gene regulation may be involved in the failure of antifungal drugs in the clinic. This has been discovered by a German-Austrian research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans Knöll Institute (Leibniz-HKI). The study focused on the mold fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, which can cause life-threatening infections, especially in immunocompromised people. Targeted changes to the fungal RNA allow a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms, which are responsible for the development of resistance and the fungus' defense mechanisms against drugs.

It´s been long known that bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. The risk of no longer being able to successfully treat bacterial infections is constantly increasing. Equally critical - although not in the public focus - is the resistance of fungal pathogens to antimycotics, which is exacerbated by the massive use of similar active ingredients in agriculture. This problem is reflected in alarming data: With over one billion infections and around 3.75 million deaths per year, fungal infections are a significant threat to humans - the trend is rising.

The treatment of fungal infections is currently based on a few groups of medical active substances such as echinocandins, polyenes, azoles or the synthetic molecule fluorocytosine. The team led by Matthew Blango, head of a junior research group at the Leibniz-HKI, used the known mode of action of fluorocytosine on A. fumigatus as the basis for the investigation of the development of fungal resistance.

Research is advancing knowledge about why nanobubbles don’t burst in a solution, which has real-world applications ranging from batteries to agriculture. One application of this knowledge is in hydroponics—where nanobubbles can lead to larger, healthier crops.

Plants produce special molecules that act like natural pesticides to help defend themselves against pests. Unfortunately, they don’t make enough of these molecules, leaving plants vulnerable to pests such as the Colorado potato beetle, which can result in damaged crops and economic losses for farmers.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri may have found a solution.

In a recent study, scientists discovered that a scaffold protein — a protein that helps organize and regulate other proteins — acts as the plant’s unsung hero to help facilitate the production of these protective molecules.