How To Grow Food In Space

In the film version of "The Martian", the main character is trapped on the red planet and is forced to figure out how to grow food. He declares he is going to "science the s--t out of" the issue before instead engaging in regular old agriculture mixed with some engineering. But science may soon help, researchers have discovered a gene that could open the door for space-based food production. Professor Peter Waterhouse, a plant geneticist at QUT, discovered the gene in the ancient Australian native tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana, known as Pitjuri to indigenous Aboriginals tribes, which has been used for decades as a model plant upon which to test viruses and vaccines. read more

Read the whole article on

More from