Tag Archives: Agriculture

kung_tom/shutterstock David Rose, University of Reading and Charlotte-Anne Chivers, University of Gloucestershire Depending on who you listen to, artificial intelligence may either free us from monotonous labour and unleash huge productivity gains, or create a dystopia of mass unemployment and automated oppression. In the case of farming, some researchers, business people and politicians think the effects of AI and other …

The most effective means of controlling locusts is to prevent the swarms from forming. shutterstock Frances Duncan, University of the Witwatersrand Seven million people in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been affected by a migratory locust outbreak currently ravaging crops and pastures across southern Africa. Professor Frances Duncan, whose research work involves investigating the survival strategies of brown locusts, …

Pulverized ancient bone can provide DNA to scientists for analysis. Xin Xu Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CC BY-ND Melinda A. Yang, University of Richmond The very first human beings originally emerged in Africa before spreading across Eurasia about 60,000 years ago. After that, the story of humankind heads down many different paths, some more well-studied than others. Eastern …

Wouter Taljaard/Shutterstock Michael Obersteiner, University of Oxford; David Leclère, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and Piero Visconti, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate. Wildlife populations have fallen by more than two-thirds over the last 50 years, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund. The sharpest declines …