Chinese scientists find tenacious moss that can survive and thrive on Mars

Adding a small amount of water brought the moss back to life within seconds and resumed photosynthesis, converting carbon dioxide into the oxygen and carbohydrates essential to human survival on any planet, the researchers wrote. “While there is still a long way to go to create self-sustaining habitats on other planets, we have the great … Read more

The discovery by Chinese scientists paves the way for the mechanical production of hybrid rice seeds

“For hybrid seed of the next generation productionthe use of male sterile lines with small grains to mechanically separate small hybrid seeds from the mixed crop is promising,” they said. The challenge was to find a gene that can cause a rice line to have a small grain size without reducing the number of seeds … Read more