Gene editing and plant domestication essential to protect food supplies in a worsening climate, scientists say
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-May-2025 10:09 ET (4-May-2025 14:09 GMT/UTC)
Increasing heat, droughts, floods, and salinization caused by climate change are lowering the amount of edible food produced by our staple crops. Since taking over more land for agriculture isn’t sustainable, our only path forward is to adapt the crops themselves to the new conditions. We have two options—domestication of crops’ wild relatives which are more resilient but have a lower yield, or including resilience genes in modern high-yield crops. Writing in Frontiers in Science, researchers discuss these possibilities and the critical need for more funding, research, and public understanding.
Research led by the University of Southampton has revealed that several groups of meat-eating dinosaur stalked the Bexhill-on-Sea region of coastal East Sussex 135 million years ago.