easier

Growing safer potatoes

January 15, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We are often advised to avoid eating green areas on potatoes. The green comes from chlorophyll that occurs naturally when potatoes are exposed to light. It is harmless but when it is there, it can be accompanied by a natural toxin – a substance called solanine, which is a steroidal glycoalkaloid or SGA. Sunlight can produce solanine as well as chlorophyll. Solanine is produced by plants to protect them from insects.

Solanine is bitter tasting so one is unlikely to consume much of it. But consuming enough of it can lead to gastrointestinal complications like diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and sweating.

Researchers at the University of California Riverside have discovered a way to eliminate toxic compounds from potatoes, making them safer to eat and easier to store. They have identified a key genetic mechanism in the production of SGAs. They found a specific protein that controls the production and believe it will be possible to control where and when SGAs are produced. Thus, it may be possible to have SGAs present in the leaves of potato plants, thereby protecting them from insects, while having none in the potatoes themselves. By limiting SGAs to non-edible parts of plants, they can be safer and more versatile plants. For example, modified potatoes could be stored in sunny places without worry and would always be safe to eat.

Plants have evolved ingenious ways to balance growth, reproduction, and defense. Our growing understanding of these mechanisms can allow people to redesign crops to meet modern needs, increase food safety, and reduce food waste.

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Growing safer spuds: Removing toxins from potatoes

Photo, posted October 14, 2013, courtesy of Elton Morris via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Can All Plant Species Survive? | Earth Wise

June 9, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many animal populations around the world are struggling and people are mostly to blame. Species are declining because of all sorts of things including changes in land and sea use, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

Like many animal species, plants are also struggling to adapt to a human-dominated world. Plants provide the planet with food, oxygen, and energy, and are used to produce fibers, building materials, and medicines. Even though plants are easier and cheaper to protect, they are often overlooked in conservation efforts.

According to a paper recently published in the journal Trends in Plant Science, preventing all future land plant extinctions across the globe is possible with the right approaches. The author of the paper, Richard Corlett of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China, writes that “if zero extinction is potentially achievable for plants, a less ambitious target would be inexcusable.”

According to the paper, one big barrier in plant conservation is the lack of trained specialists, especially in tropical areas where there is a backlog of unidentified species. It’s likely that many “dark extinctions,” which is when species slip away without us knowing they existed, have already occurred.

Another roadblock in preventing plant extinctions is information access, which can be solved by building an online “metaherbarium.” This collaborative database would link digitized records from herbarium specimens with photographs, status assessments, and recovery plans.

Finally, the creation of “microreserves” – which are tiny pieces of protected land designed to get around space constraints – would further contribute to effective conservation of targeted plant species.

Zero plant extinctions should be the goal.

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‘Zero plant extinction’ is possible, says plant ecologist

Photo, posted May 16, 2008, courtesy of Andrew Otto via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Sounds Of Coral Reefs | Earth Wise

June 23, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Coral reefs around the world face multiple threats from climate change, pollution, and other impacts of human activity. Reef conservation and restoration projects must be able to monitor the health of reefs and that is not such a simple matter. Surveying reefs generally is labor-intensive and time consuming. But in a new study, scientists at the University of Exeter in the UK have found a new way to do it.

The fish and other creatures living on coral reefs produce a vast range of sounds. The meaning of these various sounds is for the most part unknown, but reefs nonetheless have distinctive sonic signatures.

The Exeter researchers decided to make use of machine learning technology. They trained a computer algorithm using multiple recordings of both healthy and degraded coral reefs. This essentially taught the computer to learn the difference between them. A computer can pick up patterns that are undetectable to the human year. This application of artificial intelligence can tell us faster and more accurately how a reef is doing.

The computer was then used to analyze a set of new recordings, and successfully identified reef health 92% of the time. The team then was able to use this technique to track the progress of reef restoration efforts.

It is generally much cheaper and easier to deploy an underwater hydrophone on a reef and leave it there instead of having expert divers make repeated visits to a reef to survey its status. Sound recorders and artificial intelligence could be used around the world to monitor the health of coral reefs and determine whether efforts to protect and restore them are working.

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AI learns coral reef “song”

Photo, posted January 11, 2015, courtesy of Falco Ermert via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.