Contemporary conservation management faces a variety of challenges. One of those challenges being the ability to identify species accurately when visual identification is unreliable. Conservation teams generally have two approaches to biomonitoring, visual identification and genetic identification. The former provides a real-time and inexpensive way to classify species, but runs the risk of human error when working with messy ecosystems in the field.
For a long time, biotechnology has relied on tools that allow scientists to study and manipulate DNA. However, few discoveries have been as innovative as CRISPR. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, and is a gene-editing technology that lets scientists make targeted changes to DNA. While the name may sound complex, the actual idea is simple. CRISPR acts like a pair of molecular scissors to cut DNA at a specific location so it can be edited.
Traditional cheese is made by curdling milk using rennet or natural acids, causing it to separate into solid curds and liquid whey. The curds are then drained, pressed, and often aged in various ways to develop the flavor of different types of cheese. Casein is the major component of these curds and is responsible for giving cheese the beloved creamy, stretchy texture that has been missing from veggie-based cheese products. To fulfil this market gap, a group of students at UC Davis kickstarted the Real Vegan Cheese Project (RVC).
The escalating scale of plastic waste present on Earth is an urgent issue, with nearly 450 million tonnes of plastic waste produced annually, 80% of which is released into the environment. Although plastic is a versatile, revolutionary material, its durability and rate of production offers a global-scale challenge. Plastic production has more than doubled in the last two decades, causing its pollution to threaten ecosystem conditions and human health.
