Using plant biology to address climate change
A Climate Grand Challenges flagship project aims to reduce agriculture-driven emissions while making food crop plants heartier and more nutritious.
How molecular biology could reduce global food insecurity
Mary Gehring is using her background in plant epigenetics to grow climate-resilient crops.
Q&A: Latifah Hamzah ’12 on creating sustainable solutions in Malaysia and beyond
Alum seeks reliable and environmentally sensitive water and sanitation solutions for the developing world.
A life-changing fertilizer for rural farmers in Kenya
MIT spinout Safi Organics uses farmers’ crop residue to make an organic fertilizer that can increase yields and improve soil health.
Bringing climate reporting to local newsrooms
Inaugural MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative Journalism Fellows reflect on their experiences telling local climate stories.
A dirt-cheap solution? Common clay materials may help curb methane emissions
With special treatment, minerals called zeolites — commonly found in cat litter — can efficiently remove the greenhouse gas from the air, researchers report.
Reducing food waste to increase access to affordable foods
MIT alumni-founded Spoiler Alert matches major food brands with discount grocers to sell perishable products.
Meet the Oystamaran
Working directly with oyster farmers, MIT students are developing a robot that can flip heavy, floating bags of oysters, helping the shellfish to grow and stay healthy.
SMART researchers develop method for early detection of bacterial infection in crops
The Raman spectroscopy-based method enables early detection and quantification of pathogens in plants, to enhance plant disease management.
J-WAFS launches Food and Climate Systems Transformation Alliance
Announced at the UN Climate Change Conference, the initiative aims to make food systems more resilient and sustainable by better connecting research to practice.
Saving seaweed with machine learning
PhD candidate Charlene Xia is developing a low-cost system to monitor the microbiome of seaweed farms and identify diseases before they spread.
New “risk triage” platform pinpoints compounding threats to US infrastructure
Modeling tool showcases emerging MIT Joint Program research focus on multi-sector dynamics.
Research collaboration puts climate-resilient crops in sight
MIT professors Dave Des Marais and Caroline Uhler combine plant biology and machine learning to identify genetic roots of plant responses to environmental stress.
Researchers design sensors to rapidly detect plant hormones
SMART nanosensors are safer and less tedious than existing techniques for testing plants’ response to compounds such as herbicides.
J-WAFS announces 2021 Solutions Grants for commercializing water and food technologies
This year’s projects address mobile evaporative vegetable preservation, portable water filtration, and dairy waste reduction.