We are indeed in an emergency. Let there be no doubt about that. But if there is one thing that is even more paralysing than not accepting the situation we are in, it is saying that our house is on fire and then calmly keep watching television.
If we want science to play a truly relevant social role, we must take the opposite path and respond with science to the questions and problems of individuals and society. We must treat is as a tool, not as the protagonist.
By giving away our DNA and genetic data, we are giving away the DNA and genetic data of our entire biological family. We have to think if the objective we are pursuing is worthwhile.
Understanding what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is an old obsession of ours. The most frequent attribute we rely on to justify our supposed superiority is intelligence. Yet, how are we to compare the intelligence of species as different as humans, octopi or dolphins?
But it is one thing to be aware of the annual astronomical cycle and another to discover the mechanisms of life. We don't know for sure what, but something happened about 40,000 years ago in what is now Europe.
Retraction is a compulsory literary genre: it is only written by one who has no other choice, and it does not pursue fame. Except for a few media cases, retractions go unnoticed by the public. What makes for hot news?
Space exploration will require life support systems, in which plants can provide nutrients, oxygen, moisture, and psychological well-being and eliminate wastes.
The new biotechnological approaches to the design of resistant crops will allow us to cut agricultural losses and reduce chemical inputs.
Biotechnological tools such as gene editing or synthetic biology will contribute to increase agricultural production in a sustainable way.
Twenty-first-century agriculture faces major challenges that urgently need to be answered. In the last decade, new breeding technologies have been developed that can help meet these challenges.
The introduction of CRISPR/Cas gene-editing technology has provided a new approach to crop improvement and offers possibilities for obtaining varieties.
This monograph analyses the possibility of cultivating plants outside our planet Earth; presents advances in genome editing such as those that have allowed my laboratory to obtain seedless tomatoes; assesses strategies that should lead to more plentiful harvests using fewer resources; and explains biotechnological strategies to strengthen plants’ immune systems or to use them as biofactories in which we can harvest molecules of health or nutrition interest. Will that be enough? Will we make it in time?
A heated debate exists on the subject of Big Data. What can be expected and what not from them? Do data speak for themselves?
These are just a few examples of how an increase in the generation of energy and food, per se, might not address the needs of the population which is in fact still growing.
Microplastics constitute one of the main challenges facing environmental and conservation policy agendas.
Integrating nature into the city is still a pending matter: the presence of trees in our urban environment still has much room for improvement.
The contents of issue 103 of Mètode are devoted to the evolutionary scenarios to decode biodiversity.
Exploring the diversity of ways in which different organisms cope with it can lend us novel insights on the biodiversity that surrounds us.
Centuries before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, several fictional characters had already set foot on it. In the absence of any real means to do so, literature made the journey easier.
Elizabeth Rasekoala, chemical engineer and president of African Gong, has been awarded for her fight for diversity, sociocultural, and gender inclusion, in science learning, practice, and communication in Africa.
The evolution of antibiotic resistance is probably the most spectacular example of evolution of a biological system innovation that we have had the opportunity to observe in real time.
Researcher Max Boykoff has just published the book Creative (Climate) Communications. In this text, he offers some key ideas he discusses in depth in his new publication.
It is currently widely believed that Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić, made significant contributions to his scientific work. But, is there good evidence that Mileva Marić was Einstein’s secret collaborator?
