Arenga Pinnata offers free food and job with alcohol and energy

Rabish Chandra
@rabishchandra on twitter

Arenga pinnata PicCourtesy: wikipedia

National Geographic News portal published a story on this plant as a part of special series that explores energy issues. Though the news is old but its significance is always new as the whole world is looking for an alternate source of energy. The story talks about the feather palm Arenga pinnata as an important source of energy.  Marianne Lavelle for National Geographic News quotes Willie Smits, a tropical forest scientists, "The deep-rooted feather palm Arenga pinnata could serve as the core of a waste-free system that produces a premium organic sugar as well as the fuel alcohol, ethanol, providing food products and jobs to villagers while it helps preserve the existing native rain forest".  Find out more A Rain Forest Advocate Taps the Energy of the Sugar Palm

In India, in the eastern part, the sap is harvested for yielding jaggery or gur. Fibres produced from this plant  are highly durable, resistant to sea water and easy to process. It goes well in agroforestry systems too. In some parts this is used in traditional system of medicine and is considered for its stomachic pectoral diuretic and atihemophilic properties.
Domestication and further exploration of this plant needs more attention.

Rice Husk may be used to manufacture lithium ion batteries for cellphone, laptop etc.

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Yes! Very soon rice husk will be used to manufacture lithium ion batteries.

A group of scientists from different institutes from Korea has published their findings in PNAS. In their research paper they have reported that the silica layer present in the rice husk has developed an unique nanoporous structure naturally over a period of time. Taking advantage of this nanoporous structure they converted the silica to silicon and use it for high-capacity lithium battery anodes. The converted silicon exhibits excellent electrochemical performance as a lithium battery anode, suggesting that rice husks can be a massive resource for use in high-capacity lithium battery.

Traditianal Practice of Mango Plucking in Bihar, India

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Rabish Chandra

@rabishchandra on twitter

Mango is considered as 'The King of all Fruits' in India. Mangifera indica (Linn.) (scientific name for mango) belongs to family Anacardiaceae of plant kingdom. It is found wildly as well as several  introduced and cultivated varities also occurs in different parts of India. India occupies top position among mango growing countries of the world and produces 40.48% of the total world mango production (APEDA, 2010).

Impact of climate change on agriculture: an overview

Anjali Kumari
Research Associate

Plant Pathology, ICAR Research complex for Eastern Region

Palandu, Ranchi, Pin Code 834001

Jharkhand, India

How to cite this article

Kumari, Anjali. 2013. Impact of climate change on agriculture: an overview. Indian Botanists Blog-o-Journal.  http://www.indianbotanists.com/2013/06/impact-of-climate-change-on-agriculture.html

Introduction

Climate change refers to the variation in the Earth’s global climate or in regional climate over time. It describes changes in the state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years.

'Glowing Plants' : KickStart (Interview) with Antony Evans

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The concept of Glowing Plants is gaining more popularity on internet and among scientific communities in the last couple of months. In this regard Indian Botanists Blog-o-Journal also published an article, Will 'Glowing Plants' Replace Street Lights? recently. A group of biologists under the project ‘Glowing Plants’, aims to create a glow-in-the-dark plant using synthetic biology techniques. Will this replace the traditional street lights with glowing plants and trees in dark in near future? Rabish Chandra member of Indian Botanists Blog-o-Journal spoke to Antony Evans, Project Manager, Glowing Plant Project to understand about their ambitious project.

Will 'Glowing Plants' Replace Street Lights?

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Gangadhar Panday

Actor & short filmmaker

Author runs Babul Films to spread ecological awareness

Email: gangadhar@babulfilms.in

Can you recall the glowing vegetation in Avatar, an Oscar winning sci-fi movie by James Cameroon? It is high quality digital art and graphics. Films do complement the process of invention. Imagine trees as streetlamps, potted flowers that give reading light. Well, some biologists have started a project to develop glowing plants to make this a reality. These do-it-yourself experiments and also some institutional efforts use synthetic biology and genetic engineering to commercialize glowing plants, starting with ornamental ones.