Sensors and CRISPR driving productivity and sustainability

This edible sensor could reveal what our gut microbes are up to

“Wouldn’t it be nice if our microbiomes could serve up diet advice—some science-based assurance that our food and medicines act in harmony with our resident microbes to keep us healthy? For that to happen, scientists will need to better understand how the interaction between food and microbes affects the chemical composition of our guts.” - Science

Think of how this could be used to optimize rations in livestock!

Engineers make wearable sensors for plants, enabling measurements of water use in crops

More precise and never before possible measures of phenotype through sensors can aid genetic improvements....also "The technology could "open a new route" for a wide variety of applications, the authors wrote in their paper, including sensors for biomedical diagnostics, for checking the structural integrity of buildings, for monitoring the environment" - Science Daily

Meet the Woman Using CRISPR to Breed All-Male “Terminator Cattle”

"Van Eenennaam, in fact, got the funding for the cattle project from a U.S. Department of Agriculture program looking at the potential hazards of gene-modified organisms. The department wants ways to sterilize GM organisms, including catfish and poplar trees, so their DNA modifications don’t spread to wild relatives."

"Van Eenennaam’s long-term goal is to make beef production more efficient. Males yield more meat than females and don’t get pregnant or go into heat. She thinks the ersatz males should be about 15 percent more efficient at turning grass and grain into muscle than females."

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