Story by Gabriel Popkin Jan. 22, 2021 Maryland farmer Trey Hill pulled in a healthy haul of corn last fall and then immediately planted rye, turnips, clover and other species, which are now spreading a lush green carpet over the soil. While his grandfather, who started the family farm along the Chesapeake Bay, always planted […]
BY ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTIN OEGGERLI This story appears in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. THE MORE SCIENTISTS investigate the microbes living inside us, the more they learn about the surprising impact of these tiny organisms on how we look, act, think, and feel. Are our health and well-being really […]
As a child, Suzanne Simard often roamed Canada’s old-growth forests with her siblings, building forts from fallen branches, foraging mushrooms and huckleberries and occasionally eating handfuls of dirt (she liked the taste). Her grandfather and uncles, meanwhile, worked nearby as horse loggers, using low-impact methods to selectively harvest cedar, Douglas fir and white pine. They […]
Fungal toxins known as mycotoxins, including some thought lost to history, are claiming new territory as the Earth warms. Karen Jordan, a North Carolina dairy farmer and practicing veterinarian, knew she had trouble the minute her cows’ hair began to stand up on end. When a cow is healthy, she explains, their hair lays tight […]
Early in 2019, a year before the world shut its borders completely, Jorge A. knew he had to get out of Guatemala. The land was turning against him. For five years, it almost never rained. Then it did rain, and Jorge rushed his last seeds into the ground. The corn sprouted into healthy green stalks, […]
BY BRIAN KATEMAN It’s been over 25 years since food packaging started displaying its nutritional contents. It’s since become second nature to check the calorie, sugar, salt, and fat content of food or drinks before buying them. But this isn’t enough for consumers anymore. There’s rising demand for another type of food label as people […]
Steak from “old” cows is something of a national obsession in Spain. What Spaniards know is that even more than time spent in the dry-aging locker, great steaks come from time spent on the hoof. The country’s Rubia Gallega cattle can live for more than a decade munching grass, packing on muscle and developing layers of buttery golden […]
BY Chris Young This newly-patented ‘instant ice cream’ is an impressive feat of physics and engineering that is also greener. There’s always been a fine line between physics and magic; whether it’s demonstrations of the Bernoulli principle, Lichtenberg burning, or the Magnus Effect, masters of physics have often possessed the aura of a magician. Two […]
Long before coronavirus upended everyone’s lives, Pennsylvania dairy farmer Brenda Cochran had been living in near-perpetual crisis. Five years of low milk prices have had the farm operating in the red, the family avoiding calls from creditors, and sometimes struggling to buy groceries. “There has never been a period of worse financial losses and … […]
A mutant bacterial enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours has been created by scientists. The enzyme, originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, reduced the bottles to chemical building blocks that were then used to make high-quality new bottles. Existing recycling technologies usually produce plastic only good enough for clothing […]