A brand new crop of biotech startups, armed with carbon-guzzling micro organism and loads of capital, are promising one thing that appears too good to be true. They are saying they will make meals out of skinny air.
However that’s precisely how sure soil-dwelling micro organism work. In nature, they survive on a meager weight loss plan of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor drawn instantly from the ambiance.
Within the lab, they do the identical, consuming up waste carbon and reproducing so enthusiastically that their populations swell to fill huge fermentation tanks. Siphoned off and dehydrated, that bacterial biomass turns into a protein-rich powder that’s chock-full of vitamins and primarily infinitely renewable.
The last word objective of those corporations is to engineer a meals supply far decrease in emissions than typical farming. However in an effort to do this, they’ll want to beat some very actual challenges. Learn the complete story.
—Claire L. Evans
This story is from the subsequent print concern of MIT Know-how Assessment, which comes out on Wednesday and delves into the bizarre world of meals. When you don’t already, subscribe to obtain a replica as soon as it lands.
The race to seek out new supplies with AI wants extra knowledge. Meta is giving huge quantities away without cost.
What’s new: Meta is releasing a large knowledge set and fashions, known as Open Supplies 2024, that would assist scientists use AI to find new supplies a lot sooner. OMat24 tackles one of many greatest bottlenecks within the discovery course of: knowledge.