After watching last year's blockbuster movie The Martian, you've been wondering if you could really eat crops grown on Mars. Well, if you're any kind of sf fan, you were wondering. Where could I get some sour cream and chives, you might also have been wondering...
(Dutch Researchers Grow 'Martian' Plants)
Abundant harvests of radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes all grown on the soil were found to contain "no dangerous levels" of heavy metals, said the team from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
"These remarkable results are very promising," said senior ecologist Wieger Wamelink.
"We can actually eat the radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes, and I am very curious what they will taste like."
Future Mars settlers will have to take food supplies with them and then plant crops in order to survive.
So using soil developed by NASA to resemble that of the red planet, the university has been experimenting since 2013 and has managed to raise 10 crops.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'