Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air(nottingham.ac.uk)
nottingham.ac.uk
Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2013/july/world-changing-technology-enables-crops-to-take-nitrogen-from-the-air-.aspx
67 comments
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the condition of the grant was that any inventions should be commercialised, and some of the ownership of the invention transferred back to the funding body. If a charitable body like the Leverhulme Trust can recoup some of its investment, that enables it go on and fund even more research.
If the commercialisation involves extracting money from people who will gladly pay it to get better crop yields or lower fertiliser costs - like industrialised farmers in the first world - then it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
What would be a real shame is if the prices were set so that people in the third world could not use this advance to keep themselves and each other from falling into food poverty. However, food shortage is rarely about production capacity, and more often about allocation. Amartya Sen's work and all that.
If the commercialisation involves extracting money from people who will gladly pay it to get better crop yields or lower fertiliser costs - like industrialised farmers in the first world - then it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
What would be a real shame is if the prices were set so that people in the third world could not use this advance to keep themselves and each other from falling into food poverty. However, food shortage is rarely about production capacity, and more often about allocation. Amartya Sen's work and all that.
I agree that may be the case in general, but the Leverhulme trust explicitly doesn't fund research whose purpose is commercialisation (http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/RPG/RPG.cfm).
Your second and third points are very good ones; it all depends on the implementation. I join you in hoping for a licensing strategy that maximises the social benefit of the technology.
Your second and third points are very good ones; it all depends on the implementation. I join you in hoping for a licensing strategy that maximises the social benefit of the technology.
"Traditional" nitrogen fixing bacteria make their way to specialized nodules. Basically this is because the nitrogenase enzyme is incredibly oxygen-sensitive, and it's quite difficult to shield the interior of the enzyme selectively against oxygen (oxygen and nitrogen look awfully alike from a physical perspective). Inside a nodule, the plant maintains an anaerobic condition that protects the bacteria from oxygen, which for some reason plants like to produce. Added efficiency is critical, because nitrogenase is already a VERY inefficient enzyme. 16!! ATP + N2 -> 2ammonia + hydrogen! There are often enzymes in these bacteria whose purpose is to recycle the wasted energy from the hydrogen produced from nitrogenase.
And if you think there's a way to improve the efficiency of nitrogenase, that would be really welcome, since nature seems to have evolved it only once.
Upshot, without some serious plant engineering, at the very least using aggressive husbandry techniques, it's likely this tech will hit a hard ceiling in terms of usefulness.
And if you think there's a way to improve the efficiency of nitrogenase, that would be really welcome, since nature seems to have evolved it only once.
Upshot, without some serious plant engineering, at the very least using aggressive husbandry techniques, it's likely this tech will hit a hard ceiling in terms of usefulness.
This problem is already solved in C4 plants, which account for many crops (sugarcane, maize, sorghum, barley, etc.). C4 photosynthesis creates an anoxic environment in bundle sheath cells to stop RuBisCO wastefully fixing oxygen instead of CO2. So nitrogenase, suffering as it does from the same oxygen discrimination problem as RuBisCO, will operate efficiently in BS cells. C4 is being introduced to more crops, and that's what I'm working on. So, two birds with the same fistful of stones.
are you sure those bacteria can get into those cells or are the just hanging out interstitially? Plant cell walls are tough. Certainly, phytoplasma do it, so it's not impossible... But it may require some sort of plant-cell symbiotic communication which many not necessarily be evolved in the plants you want to use it, especially if at the moment the bacterium is semi-opportunistic.
Yes, the bacteria infect the apical meristem during embryo development and are included in all cell types and tissues of the mature plant simply by being present at all subsequent cell divisions. It's explained a bit in the patent [1], but there is other data scattered around the literature too.
1. http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20090106865
1. http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20090106865
Agreed. I've studied the impact of fertilizers on natural gas consumption, and the figures are stunning. If we were able to reduce fertilizer use by just 1%, we would save meaningful amounts of energy. If we could eliminate it entirely, it would be as big of a breakthrough as the green revolution.
It is a shame about the for-profit commercialization, but I think it's worth remembering that such things do sometimes result in faster implementation because the people working on it have more skin in the game. But either way, it will be public domain in 17 years worst case. I don't think that amount of time will make or break agriculture, and if you need 100% less fertilizer it's a pretty easy economic case.
It is a shame about the for-profit commercialization, but I think it's worth remembering that such things do sometimes result in faster implementation because the people working on it have more skin in the game. But either way, it will be public domain in 17 years worst case. I don't think that amount of time will make or break agriculture, and if you need 100% less fertilizer it's a pretty easy economic case.
If you had a memory leak in a software program, would you try to solve it by packing your structures 1% better?
Agriculture has been under constant optimization for 80 years, and a 1% reduction in ammonia consumption is equivalent to $1B a year worldwide.
I think your analogy is flawed.
I think your analogy is flawed.
You realize that world population is going to grow by 1% in a year, right? Congratulations, your 'optimization' was just undone. As were those of the previous 80 years.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many above-average intelligent people are moving quickly yet don't seem to wonder about where they are actually going. I guess they're just not as lazy as I am. Me personally, I'd rather have enough idle land and unpolluted water for free range beef and wild fish, but I guess some people set their sights quite a bit lower.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many above-average intelligent people are moving quickly yet don't seem to wonder about where they are actually going. I guess they're just not as lazy as I am. Me personally, I'd rather have enough idle land and unpolluted water for free range beef and wild fish, but I guess some people set their sights quite a bit lower.
Ah, I thought you were talking about waste in the actual food production process.
But who says I disagree? Suggesting that improving agricultural efficiency is useless because of population growth is just a logical fallacy, a version of a Straw Man. You're suggesting that I don't think we need to reduce population, when what I'm actually saying is that this is independently a big deal. I believe they call this particular version of the Straw Man an "Appeal to Worse Problems".
But who says I disagree? Suggesting that improving agricultural efficiency is useless because of population growth is just a logical fallacy, a version of a Straw Man. You're suggesting that I don't think we need to reduce population, when what I'm actually saying is that this is independently a big deal. I believe they call this particular version of the Straw Man an "Appeal to Worse Problems".
I think improving efficiency is indeed useless because it does not address sustainability. I don't care if its 99.999 'efficient', you're either depleting the earth or you're not. Something 10% efficient could be 100% sustainable.
And since nearly every post I see on here is about efficiency, and not sustainability, I'm compelled to offer another view point.
And since nearly every post I see on here is about efficiency, and not sustainability, I'm compelled to offer another view point.
Okay. I mean, I agree. But sustainable does need to be defined. I think the common definition is that sustainable means that it will work for the next hundred years, at which point conditions will have changed sufficiently that decisions made now will be poor.
But yes, point taken that work to decrease population in a humane way is very important and underrated by technology driven people.
But yes, point taken that work to decrease population in a humane way is very important and underrated by technology driven people.
Good point about possible faster implementation with patent incentive. I would love to see the research on that.
I believe that was the entire point of it. Keeping invention a personal use secret just wasn't cutting it.
Patents are good. Patent abuse is not. They need to be better regulated.
Patents are good. Patent abuse is not. They need to be better regulated.
You'd reduce fertilizer usage if you could prevent farmers from over-fertilizing. Simply following directions would be a huge step forward. Unfortunately there isn't a technical fix for stupid.
There is more to fertilizer than just Nitrogen compounds so you would still need a fertilizer, it just wouldn't need to be as nitrogen rich. And the farmers will continue to over fertilize.
There is more to fertilizer than just Nitrogen compounds so you would still need a fertilizer, it just wouldn't need to be as nitrogen rich. And the farmers will continue to over fertilize.
"And the farmers will continue to over fertilize."
The smart corporate farmers don't over fertilize, it costs real money. Research the technology that they use, satellites, GPS and automated tractors/spray rigs that adjust in real time for specific soil needs.
The smart corporate farmers don't over fertilize, it costs real money. Research the technology that they use, satellites, GPS and automated tractors/spray rigs that adjust in real time for specific soil needs.
Where do you get the idea that they are over fertilizing? The vast majority of them are on slim margins and watch everything like a hawk so I find it unlikely, given the costs, and their equipment that they are rampantly over fertilizing.
Not to mention the fact that over fertilizing will often reduce crop yields. The idea that the runoff of fertilizer products into groundwater, streams, lakes and oceans must be the result of over fertilization is false. It's the result of gravity.
> they do OK in very nutrient poor soils
I generally agree with your comment, but I'd maybe say that "they can thrive in nitrogen-deficient soils". There are still other variables that affect the growth of nitrogen-fixers especially: soil pH; the quantity of other macro (and micro) nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, calcium, etc; and availability of water and sunlight.
Soybeans are a major crop that can fix nitrogen, but they may still need supplemental applications of phosphate, and the crop will die if not irrigated during a drought.
In other words: this is not a silver bullet that will magically make the problems of the world's crop-growers disappear overnight.
I generally agree with your comment, but I'd maybe say that "they can thrive in nitrogen-deficient soils". There are still other variables that affect the growth of nitrogen-fixers especially: soil pH; the quantity of other macro (and micro) nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, calcium, etc; and availability of water and sunlight.
Soybeans are a major crop that can fix nitrogen, but they may still need supplemental applications of phosphate, and the crop will die if not irrigated during a drought.
In other words: this is not a silver bullet that will magically make the problems of the world's crop-growers disappear overnight.
Indeed, I was nonspecific, and I agree with your details.
20 years of patent protection seems fair, considering the potential good that would come out of it. Maybe it would have taken another 20 years without the patent incentive.
The whole point of fertilizers is to grow plants on soil with too little Nitrogen for the desired yield. If these bacteria can lower the amounts of fertilizer per yield, that's good enough.
It might be hard to patent though. As far as I understood it you just need to infect the plants with the bacteria, and once the bacteria are out in the open, it will be hard to stop others from using them with or without intent...
It might be hard to patent though. As far as I understood it you just need to infect the plants with the bacteria, and once the bacteria are out in the open, it will be hard to stop others from using them with or without intent...
Perhaps Professor Cocking should have read James Lovelock's "Gaia: A new look at life on earth" first.
"The day came for the tropical trial at the field station in Northern Queensland. A culture of P. eegarii was without ceremony sprayed in diluted form upon a small patch of experimental rice paddy. But here the bacterium forsook its contrived marriage with the cereal plants {40} and formed a more exciting but adulterous union with a tough and self-sufficient blue-green alga growing on the water surface of the paddy field. They grew happily together, doubling in numbers every twenty minutes in the warm tropical environment, the air and soil providing all they needed. Small predatory organisms would normally have ensured a check on such a development, but this combination was not to be stopped. Its capacity to gather phosphorus rendered the environment barren for everything else.
Within hours, the rice paddy and those around it took on the appearance of a ripe duck pond covered with lurid iridescent green scum. It was realized that something had gone badly wrong and the scientists soon uncovered the association of P. eegarii and the alga. Foreseeing the dangers with rare promptness, they arranged that the entire paddy area and the water channels leading from it be treated with a biocide and the growth destroyed.
That night, Dr Eeger and his Australian colleagues went late to bed, tired and worried. The dawn fulfilled their worst fears. The new bloom, like some living verdigris, covered the surface of a small stream a mile away from the paddies and only a few miles from the sea. Again, every agent of destruction was applied wherever the new organism might have travelled. The director of the Queensland station tried desperately but in vain to persuade the government to evacuate the area at once and use a hydrogen bomb to sterilize it before the spread was beyond all possibility of control.
In two days the algal bloom had started to spread into the coastal waters, and by then it was too late. Within a week the green stain was clearly visible to airline passengers flying six miles above the Gulf of Carpentaria. Within six months more than half of the ocean and most of the land surfaces were covered with a thick green slime which fed voraciously on the dead trees and animal life decaying beneath it."
EDIT: Added full title of the book.
"The day came for the tropical trial at the field station in Northern Queensland. A culture of P. eegarii was without ceremony sprayed in diluted form upon a small patch of experimental rice paddy. But here the bacterium forsook its contrived marriage with the cereal plants {40} and formed a more exciting but adulterous union with a tough and self-sufficient blue-green alga growing on the water surface of the paddy field. They grew happily together, doubling in numbers every twenty minutes in the warm tropical environment, the air and soil providing all they needed. Small predatory organisms would normally have ensured a check on such a development, but this combination was not to be stopped. Its capacity to gather phosphorus rendered the environment barren for everything else.
Within hours, the rice paddy and those around it took on the appearance of a ripe duck pond covered with lurid iridescent green scum. It was realized that something had gone badly wrong and the scientists soon uncovered the association of P. eegarii and the alga. Foreseeing the dangers with rare promptness, they arranged that the entire paddy area and the water channels leading from it be treated with a biocide and the growth destroyed.
That night, Dr Eeger and his Australian colleagues went late to bed, tired and worried. The dawn fulfilled their worst fears. The new bloom, like some living verdigris, covered the surface of a small stream a mile away from the paddies and only a few miles from the sea. Again, every agent of destruction was applied wherever the new organism might have travelled. The director of the Queensland station tried desperately but in vain to persuade the government to evacuate the area at once and use a hydrogen bomb to sterilize it before the spread was beyond all possibility of control.
In two days the algal bloom had started to spread into the coastal waters, and by then it was too late. Within a week the green stain was clearly visible to airline passengers flying six miles above the Gulf of Carpentaria. Within six months more than half of the ocean and most of the land surfaces were covered with a thick green slime which fed voraciously on the dead trees and animal life decaying beneath it."
EDIT: Added full title of the book.
Firstly, it's extremely likely that Cocking has read Lovelock's Gaia.
Secondly, Lovelock made that story up: there is no Dr Eeger nor a P. eegarii. It's a fantastical situation unmatched by anything ever recorded in nature (except cancer, which is exactly what it was supposed to be a metaphor for).
Thirdly, the technology is being extensively tested, and will be more so before it gets regulatory approval.
Secondly, Lovelock made that story up: there is no Dr Eeger nor a P. eegarii. It's a fantastical situation unmatched by anything ever recorded in nature (except cancer, which is exactly what it was supposed to be a metaphor for).
Thirdly, the technology is being extensively tested, and will be more so before it gets regulatory approval.
> except cancer, which is exactly what it was supposed to be a metaphor for
To add to that: cancer works by tricking the body into continously feeding it. It's not an appropriate analogy to what these bacteria add to the process.
To add to that: cancer works by tricking the body into continously feeding it. It's not an appropriate analogy to what these bacteria add to the process.
Using blue-green algae was a bad decision in the fictional design. Its really old. There seems to be something of a "law" that if its technically possible, evolution, given enough time, will evolve it. Since it hasn't happened naturally in billions of years, its not going to work artificially because it surely already happened at least a couple times and didn't work in the long run.
Now pick a species thats "new" like humans, and give us something weird like direct atmospheric nitrogen fixing for our proteins, or photosynthesis, now that could have some interesting consequences. Or instead of us, horses, or mules, or domestic dogs or something.
Now pick a species thats "new" like humans, and give us something weird like direct atmospheric nitrogen fixing for our proteins, or photosynthesis, now that could have some interesting consequences. Or instead of us, horses, or mules, or domestic dogs or something.
There are good reasons why evolution will never converge on many types of solutions to problems in many lineages in planetary lifetime timescales. Essentially, it's because future evolution is constrained by past evolution, and many complex solutions require diverse pre-adaptations that are precluded by accident. These are places where engineering beats evolution, and there's scope for us to make improvements on what nature has achieved.
Surface area to volume ratio of humans and other animals is way too small to allow anything interesting to come of us photosynthesising (e.g. see [1] for crude calculations). Although a healthy green glow would be nice.
[1] - http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/photosynthe...
Surface area to volume ratio of humans and other animals is way too small to allow anything interesting to come of us photosynthesising (e.g. see [1] for crude calculations). Although a healthy green glow would be nice.
[1] - http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/photosynthe...
The writeup is pretty good, but I read an much older writeup which diverged in some ways:
1) The assumptions from the article I read long ago were you'd ideally have a topical UV sunscreen that magically gradually "infected" the skin, which wipes out both the UV problem and the application problem, and it would be cheap enough to distribute to war refugees, starving famine farmers, hurricane areas, that kind of thing. Temporary emergency rather than lifetime green glow. So depending on your math, laying around in the sun would only generate a couple apples worth of energy for a person. Not impressive for a hungry dude in Wisconsin in 2013, but a handful of apples is actually a pretty good day for someone in (insert every war torn drought famine area throughout the ages)
2) The article I read a long time ago was of a vintage where the jokes would revolve around Federation Starship Captain Kirk's paradise would be nude beach of skinny green skinned Orion women rather than Bruce Banner jokes.
3) There would be interesting sociological issues where if this was solely applied to poor people, their verdant green skin would be a nearly 100% effective way to discriminate for socioeconomic class based on skin color.
1) The assumptions from the article I read long ago were you'd ideally have a topical UV sunscreen that magically gradually "infected" the skin, which wipes out both the UV problem and the application problem, and it would be cheap enough to distribute to war refugees, starving famine farmers, hurricane areas, that kind of thing. Temporary emergency rather than lifetime green glow. So depending on your math, laying around in the sun would only generate a couple apples worth of energy for a person. Not impressive for a hungry dude in Wisconsin in 2013, but a handful of apples is actually a pretty good day for someone in (insert every war torn drought famine area throughout the ages)
2) The article I read a long time ago was of a vintage where the jokes would revolve around Federation Starship Captain Kirk's paradise would be nude beach of skinny green skinned Orion women rather than Bruce Banner jokes.
3) There would be interesting sociological issues where if this was solely applied to poor people, their verdant green skin would be a nearly 100% effective way to discriminate for socioeconomic class based on skin color.
Exploring the social implications would make a pretty interesting sci-fi novel.
Why add the extra complication of painting a person green (safety, removal, efficaciousness). Why not just grow a slab of blue-green that excretes sugar and drains into a pot for the end of the day.
Load on the kidneys and yeast issues.
If its really sweet like honey, bees will go crazy. If its not sweet enough to attract bugs, there will be a lot of water drinking going on to the point of ridiculousness (like trying to gain weight drinking diet cola). If there's enough sugar to taste, yeasts will eat it resulting in lots of alcohol, and unfortunately yeasts are ridiculously tough.
If its really sweet like honey, bees will go crazy. If its not sweet enough to attract bugs, there will be a lot of water drinking going on to the point of ridiculousness (like trying to gain weight drinking diet cola). If there's enough sugar to taste, yeasts will eat it resulting in lots of alcohol, and unfortunately yeasts are ridiculously tough.
So are you saying it would be possible to supply "lifepacks" to war / famine / disaster torn areas, of just enough to get by food, but we need to supply nets or flyswatters?
It's also silly because many blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), including those in rice paddies, already fix nitrogen in their heterocysts.
The thing with this type of scenarios is that they assume a fundamental instability - the existence of a hidden self-reinforcing feedback loop, or "positive" feedback (as opposed to "negative", or self-reducing) in the environment. Once you release an agent capable of exploiting that pathway, there's no stopping it.
But in the billions of years past, if such a feedback loop existed, it would have been exploited already. Perhaps the Great Oxygenation Event was one such loop being exploited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
Would the release of the first hydrogen bomb trigger a mass fusion through the entire atmosphere and hydrosphere? You could calculate the physics, as you should, but you could also notice that this requires a positive feedback loop, so it's extremely unlikely.
The examples could continue.
But in the billions of years past, if such a feedback loop existed, it would have been exploited already. Perhaps the Great Oxygenation Event was one such loop being exploited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
Would the release of the first hydrogen bomb trigger a mass fusion through the entire atmosphere and hydrosphere? You could calculate the physics, as you should, but you could also notice that this requires a positive feedback loop, so it's extremely unlikely.
The examples could continue.
About that oxygen... that triggered mass extinctions for hundreds of millions of years until life found a use for it.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2009/02/bands-o...
Let's hope we'll figure out something useful to do with all this excess carbon we've released into the atmosphere in a slightly shorter time period.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2009/02/bands-o...
Let's hope we'll figure out something useful to do with all this excess carbon we've released into the atmosphere in a slightly shorter time period.
Yeah, or he could, you know, study some more science.
This is deeply enormous - if it can make the leap from lab to field. Nitrogen fixing in factories costs something like 5% of global energy, the run off is horrific and delivery spotty. There are a lot of hurdles first though.
The one thing that worries me, is years back Dubbya said something like "I'm not worried about global warming, those scientists will invent something". I laughed at the feeble excuse to avoid Kyoto - but now ... Bush may have been right.
The one thing that worries me, is years back Dubbya said something like "I'm not worried about global warming, those scientists will invent something". I laughed at the feeble excuse to avoid Kyoto - but now ... Bush may have been right.
I don't see (1) how this would solve the problem of global warming, or (2) if it did, how it could possibly be worse for Bush to have been right than for the problem of global warming to go unsolved.
[EDITED to add: or (3) how, even if it turns out that this does solve the problem of global warming, it would have justified Bush in blowing off warnings about that problem. Saying "I am not worried about X, because scientists will solve it somehow" is generally not a sensible thing to say if X is a big problem and no concrete solution is in sight, and it doesn't become sensible even if it turns out that scientists do solve it in the end.]
[EDITED to add: or (3) how, even if it turns out that this does solve the problem of global warming, it would have justified Bush in blowing off warnings about that problem. Saying "I am not worried about X, because scientists will solve it somehow" is generally not a sensible thing to say if X is a big problem and no concrete solution is in sight, and it doesn't become sensible even if it turns out that scientists do solve it in the end.]
[Insert free market rant here]
No but really, while science can work magic with the proper motivation, that's no excuse to ditch conferences on legitimate concerns.
It's like the saying goes, work hard and apply yourself and you'll get somewhere. I've always thought that applied to the environment as well.
So you are "worried" about a possible world-changing breakthrough because you'd have to admit one of your political opponents was right?
Reminds me of people who still seem disappointed that Reagan didn't start a nuclear war like they kept claiming he would.
Reminds me of people who still seem disappointed that Reagan didn't start a nuclear war like they kept claiming he would.
I find it strange how we frame global warming as something that might or not happen but the causes of it are already upon us with the heavy levels of pollution in the air and all its consequences. There's really no excuse to be pro-pollution with or without global warming. Bush was deeply wrong.
> ... Bush may have been right.
I saw the attitude had two parts - "We will soon invent a technical solution" and "so, we don't need to alter our behaviour"
The first part seems to be true -surprisingly.
The second part, might also be true. That worries me. If the whole planet altered its behaviour slightly to become vegan, most energy, water and agricultural crises will vanish. Instead we invent lab-grown beef.
Economics seems to be the science of individual behaviour and crowd behaviour. Every long lived and successful person or company seems to recognise moderating ones own behaviour leads to more sensible restrained wants and needs. Franklin might be a good example.
I guess I am saying I worry that technology is enabling in the co-dependence sense of the word, humanities worst excesses - and that it is feasible for politicians to support that.
I saw the attitude had two parts - "We will soon invent a technical solution" and "so, we don't need to alter our behaviour"
The first part seems to be true -surprisingly.
The second part, might also be true. That worries me. If the whole planet altered its behaviour slightly to become vegan, most energy, water and agricultural crises will vanish. Instead we invent lab-grown beef.
Economics seems to be the science of individual behaviour and crowd behaviour. Every long lived and successful person or company seems to recognise moderating ones own behaviour leads to more sensible restrained wants and needs. Franklin might be a good example.
I guess I am saying I worry that technology is enabling in the co-dependence sense of the word, humanities worst excesses - and that it is feasible for politicians to support that.
The whole world becoming vegan would not be a slight behavior modification. That would be a huge shift in the behaviors we evolved to have, which is the eating of both meat and plants. The reason people like eating meat is because we evolved to find meat delicious.
I'd say we evolved to find just about any source of protein delicious, simply because we need protein and finding it delicious confers a selection advantage. Meat is one such source. So we didn't really evolve to eat meat and plants (and mushrooms), we evolved to eat whatever was available.
True. We evolved to find protein tasty, and we evolved the ability (digestive system and teeth) to eat meat as one protein source.
I searched a little and apparently the evolution of a specific ability to eat meat is something that people fight about:
http://paleohacks.com/questions/56542/humans-werent-designed...
I'm not sure it's even possible to have a reasonable discussion about it because it seems tied up with the question of whether veganism is righteous or idiotic.
http://paleohacks.com/questions/56542/humans-werent-designed...
I'm not sure it's even possible to have a reasonable discussion about it because it seems tied up with the question of whether veganism is righteous or idiotic.
the whole world becoming vegan might cause a huge shift to massive plant agriculture, with its attendant water usage shifts (some animals can eat scrub), and therefore contribute to severe climate change as many areas of the world become desertified.
So what worries you is that the rest of the world may not have to give up its life of luxury? Because that is essentially what you are saying.
No, what worries me is that a person who learns to moderate their desires, to focus their energies, seems to be more successful in the long run, more able to handle life. A person who simply relies on a constantly increasing income tends to be more wasteful, more prone to shocks.
I am guessing the same applies to societies and to species.
Maybe I am wrong and at scale different rules apply. Maybe I am being prudish.
I am certainly not arguing that its ok for the luxury of some of the world to be bought at the expense of the rest.
I am guessing the same applies to societies and to species.
Maybe I am wrong and at scale different rules apply. Maybe I am being prudish.
I am certainly not arguing that its ok for the luxury of some of the world to be bought at the expense of the rest.
My fathers(!) PhD thesis was about this (in peas). Not much has happened since then. Nitrogen based fertilizer is inexpensive enough and famine is usually caused by war or other instability.
This process happens naturally in peas, in small nodules which grow out from the roots. A huge amount has happened since 'then' (assuming your father did his PhD prior to about 1990. We can now induce many major crop species which don't naturally enter into symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to do so in every cell, not just in accessory root nodules. This is huge.
Yes, it is very interesting but I don't think it will be "world changing".
Why do you think it won't? To respond to the brief points you made in the earlier comment:
At the moment inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers are cheap. They are derived from the methane in natural gas by the Haber-Bosch process, so the price of fertilizers is tied to natural gas supply. Estimates vary, but we probably only have about 60 years of natural gas supply left when you factor in the increasing use and near-peak production (according to the 2013 International Energy Outlook [1]). And the extraction methods are becoming more environmentally challenging: fracking and shale gas are the natural gas sources of the future. The food-price effects of that will be felt as soon as we pass peak gas production. So we need a new way of fixing nitrogen in the near future.
Secondly, while much famine is caused by war, there are many other causes, and hunger is more widespread than famine. Increasing world population, especially in poorer areas, and a complete failure to make any progress so far in fixing the inequality-related causes of hunger mean technological crop solutions are likely to be important in feeding the future population.
[1]: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
At the moment inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers are cheap. They are derived from the methane in natural gas by the Haber-Bosch process, so the price of fertilizers is tied to natural gas supply. Estimates vary, but we probably only have about 60 years of natural gas supply left when you factor in the increasing use and near-peak production (according to the 2013 International Energy Outlook [1]). And the extraction methods are becoming more environmentally challenging: fracking and shale gas are the natural gas sources of the future. The food-price effects of that will be felt as soon as we pass peak gas production. So we need a new way of fixing nitrogen in the near future.
Secondly, while much famine is caused by war, there are many other causes, and hunger is more widespread than famine. Increasing world population, especially in poorer areas, and a complete failure to make any progress so far in fixing the inequality-related causes of hunger mean technological crop solutions are likely to be important in feeding the future population.
[1]: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
I think it won't change the world because technical solutions rarely solve political problems. Call me a cynic if you wish.
Technology hasn't stopped hunger, the claims of mad scientists notwithstanding. Anyone with right brain critical thinking can see that population will just keep increasing, and it has. Even if you 'solved hunger' you'd have even more environmental problems to solve. There is such a thing as a 'pyrrhic scientific victory', I think. Too many discoveries like these and the planet will be done for.
So now we have an invention that will deplete one resource instead of another. Awesome, go science!
So now we have an invention that will deplete one resource instead of another. Awesome, go science!
While it hasn't stopped hunger, it certainly has reduced it. The Green Revolution was the reason for nearly a billion people being lifted out of abject malnutrition. It was a technological revolution brought about by the application of science to agriculture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
Go science!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
Go science!
This is "Hacker News", scalability is not a unknown concept like it is in the journalistic world.
[reposting my comment from a lower level]
"Traditional" nitrogen fixing bacteria make their way to specialized nodules. Basically this is because the nitrogenase enzyme is incredibly oxygen-sensitive, and it's quite difficult to shield the interior of the enzyme selectively against oxygen (oxygen and nitrogen look awfully alike from a physical perspective). Inside a nodule, the plant maintains an anaerobic condition that protects the bacteria from oxygen, which for some reason plants like to produce. Not surprisingly, these nodules tend to be in the roots (which, from a naive design point of view would not necessarily be where you would think of grabbing nitrogen from). Added efficiency is critical, because nitrogenase is already a VERY inefficient enzyme. 16!! ATP + N2 -> 2ammonia + hydrogen! There are often enzymes in these bacteria whose purpose is to recycle the wasted energy from the hydrogen produced from nitrogenase.
Upshot, without some serious plant engineering, at the very least using aggressive husbandry techniques, it's likely this tech will hit a hard ceiling in terms of usefulness.
"Traditional" nitrogen fixing bacteria make their way to specialized nodules. Basically this is because the nitrogenase enzyme is incredibly oxygen-sensitive, and it's quite difficult to shield the interior of the enzyme selectively against oxygen (oxygen and nitrogen look awfully alike from a physical perspective). Inside a nodule, the plant maintains an anaerobic condition that protects the bacteria from oxygen, which for some reason plants like to produce. Not surprisingly, these nodules tend to be in the roots (which, from a naive design point of view would not necessarily be where you would think of grabbing nitrogen from). Added efficiency is critical, because nitrogenase is already a VERY inefficient enzyme. 16!! ATP + N2 -> 2ammonia + hydrogen! There are often enzymes in these bacteria whose purpose is to recycle the wasted energy from the hydrogen produced from nitrogenase.
Upshot, without some serious plant engineering, at the very least using aggressive husbandry techniques, it's likely this tech will hit a hard ceiling in terms of usefulness.
[Also reposting, from the thread of your other comment...]
This problem is already solved in C4 plants, which account for many crops (sugarcane, maize, sorghum, barley, etc.). C4 photosynthesis creates an anoxic environment in bundle sheath cells to stop RuBisCO wastefully fixing oxygen instead of CO2. So nitrogenase, suffering as it does from the same oxygen discrimination problem as RuBisCO, will operate efficiently in BS cells. C4 is being introduced to more crops, and that's what I'm working on. So, two birds with the same fistful of stones.
This problem is already solved in C4 plants, which account for many crops (sugarcane, maize, sorghum, barley, etc.). C4 photosynthesis creates an anoxic environment in bundle sheath cells to stop RuBisCO wastefully fixing oxygen instead of CO2. So nitrogenase, suffering as it does from the same oxygen discrimination problem as RuBisCO, will operate efficiently in BS cells. C4 is being introduced to more crops, and that's what I'm working on. So, two birds with the same fistful of stones.
Assuming your bacteria make intracellularly into those particular cells. That might require a lot of luck, or reengineering those plants or the bacteria.
So, plants able to do this have a strong evolutionary advantage over many other plant species on this planet? Nah, couldn't possibly go wrong.
Strong evolutionary DIS-advantage compared to non-fixing plants in any non-nitrogen-deficient soil. Doesn't matter if you fix nitrogen in a chemical plant or a plant root, it takes lots and lots of energy.
Its a natural ecological cycle like many others with oscillations and such. Given a couple decades, a soil saturated with nitrogen would probably result in the non-fixers wiping out the fixers.
The more flippant answer is it can't be any worse than Kudzu. Kudzu is an edible (edible by goat standards) nitro-fixer that is eating the south. I would guess that issuing a human edible competitor to Kudzu would be a net win? Cover the American North with kudzu-like layer of super-wheat wouldn't be so bad...
Its a natural ecological cycle like many others with oscillations and such. Given a couple decades, a soil saturated with nitrogen would probably result in the non-fixers wiping out the fixers.
The more flippant answer is it can't be any worse than Kudzu. Kudzu is an edible (edible by goat standards) nitro-fixer that is eating the south. I would guess that issuing a human edible competitor to Kudzu would be a net win? Cover the American North with kudzu-like layer of super-wheat wouldn't be so bad...
Technically I think Kudzu is human-edible. I don't know how good it tastes, but I know you can eat it.
Also fit for livestock, but difficult to bale. And used medicinally (anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial to treat headaches, tinnitus, vertigo, Wei syndrome, alcoholism and hangover), and even for basketry. Unfortunately, the U.S. just considers it a nuisance and doesn't take advantage of it.
"I, for one, welcome our new soybean overlords."?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#Nitrogen-fixing_ability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#Nitrogen-fixing_ability
Others have commented about the 'strong evolutionary advantage' this will convey crop species. I think that unlikely: a large number of species in the Fabaceae family (legumes) have the ability to form symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and this simply allows them to exist on nutrient poor soil. But because it's a symbiosis, i.e. the plant trades some of the sugar it produces for the nitrate fixed by the bacteria, it's not a cost-free situation. Legumes don't dominate many habitats, but they do OK in very nutrient poor soils.
Modern crops don't perform well outside intensively nurtured field conditions. N-fixed crops will require less intensive nitrogen supplementation than before, but they will still perform poorly when competing against wild plants.