Author: Grace Liu ‘23
Welcome to the last Good News Friday post of the year! It’s been such a crazy semester, but we hope that this series has been able to brighten your week in a small way. For this week, we will be looking at the world’s seed vaults, a better diet for cows, and the race to save the banana.
- Seed vaults stay secure: While this past year has seen disasters such as wars, wildfires, and a pandemic, the global network of plant gene banks has remained resilient. In fact, according to Ola Westegen, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Science, the safe and peaceful transfer of seed samples from Syria, despite the extreme conditions of the Arab Spring, testifies to the effectiveness of the international system of gene banks. Additionally, the world’s largest wild seed conservation project, the Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
- Cows go on a diet: Scientists have discovered a surprising method for curbing methane emissions from livestock. A recent study found that adding a small amount of red seaweed to a cow’s daily feed can reduce the amount of methane production by 98 percent without any adverse effects on the animal’s health. Additionally, growing the seaweed for cow feed could help sequester carbon dioxide and reduce ocean acidification, so it’s a win-win all around.
- The race to save the banana: Bananas are the second most popular fruit in the world (after tomatoes), but they are also extremely vulnerable to extinction due to climate change and low genetic diversity. As a result, scientists are trying to find ways to protect the cultivated banana from climate change by discovering ancient, wild banana ancestors in Papua New Guinea. The genetics of these wild varieties can help breeders increase the genetic diversity and resilience of the modern bananas that we know and love.
We hope you’ve been enjoying this series these past few months, and we’ve certainly had a lot of fun writing it. Although this is our last post of the year, we encourage you to keep a lookout for Good News (and not just on Fridays). We’ll see you next year with more optimistic environmental stories to share!