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My fathers(!) PhD thesis was about this (in peas). Not much has happened since then. Nitrogen based fertilizer is inexpensive enough and famine is usually cause

My fathers(!) PhD thesis was about this (in peas). Not much has happened since then. Nitrogen based fertilizer is inexpensive enough and famine is usually caused by war or other instability.

Blahah 13y ago
This process happens naturally in peas, in small nodules which grow out from the roots. A huge amount has happened since 'then' (assuming your father did his PhD prior to about 1990. We can now induce many major crop species which don't naturally enter into symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to do so in every cell, not just in accessory root nodules. This is huge.
- BetaCygni 13y ago
  Yes, it is very interesting but I don't think it will be "world changing".
  - Blahah 13y ago
    Why do you think it won't? To respond to the brief points you made in the earlier comment: At the moment inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers are cheap. They are derived from the methane in natural gas by the Haber-Bosch process, so the price of fertilizers is tied to natural gas supply. Estimates vary, but we probably only have about 60 years of natural gas supply left when you factor in the increasing use and near-peak production (according to the 2013 International Energy Outlook [1]). And the extraction methods are becoming more environmentally challenging: fracking and shale gas are the natural gas sources of the future. The food-price effects of that will be felt as soon as we pass peak gas production. So we need a new way of fixing nitrogen in the near future. Secondly, while much famine is caused by war, there are many other causes, and hunger is more widespread than famine. Increasing world population, especially in poorer areas, and a complete failure to make any progress so far in fixing the inequality-related causes of hunger mean technological crop solutions are likely to be important in feeding the future population. [1]: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
    - VLM 13y ago
      This is "Hacker News", scalability is not a unknown concept like it is in the journalistic world.
    - BetaCygni 13y ago
      I think it won't change the world because technical solutions rarely solve political problems. Call me a cynic if you wish.
      - penguindev 13y ago
        Technology hasn't stopped hunger, the claims of mad scientists notwithstanding. Anyone with right brain critical thinking can see that population will just keep increasing, and it has. Even if you 'solved hunger' you'd have even more environmental problems to solve. There is such a thing as a 'pyrrhic scientific victory', I think. Too many discoveries like these and the planet will be done for. So now we have an invention that will deplete one resource instead of another. Awesome, go science!
        Blahah 13y ago
        While it hasn't stopped hunger, it certainly has reduced it. The Green Revolution was the reason for nearly a billion people being lifted out of abject malnutrition. It was a technological revolution brought about by the application of science to agriculture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution Go science!

My fathers(!) PhD thesis was about this (in peas). Not much has happened since then. Nitrogen based fertilizer is inexpensive enough and famine is usually caused by war or other instability.

Blahah 13y ago

This process happens naturally in peas, in small nodules which grow out from the roots. A huge amount has happened since 'then' (assuming your father did his PhD prior to about 1990. We can now induce many major crop species which don't naturally enter into symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to do so in every cell, not just in accessory root nodules. This is huge.

BetaCygni 13y ago
Yes, it is very interesting but I don't think it will be "world changing".
- Blahah 13y ago
  Why do you think it won't? To respond to the brief points you made in the earlier comment: At the moment inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers are cheap. They are derived from the methane in natural gas by the Haber-Bosch process, so the price of fertilizers is tied to natural gas supply. Estimates vary, but we probably only have about 60 years of natural gas supply left when you factor in the increasing use and near-peak production (according to the 2013 International Energy Outlook [1]). And the extraction methods are becoming more environmentally challenging: fracking and shale gas are the natural gas sources of the future. The food-price effects of that will be felt as soon as we pass peak gas production. So we need a new way of fixing nitrogen in the near future. Secondly, while much famine is caused by war, there are many other causes, and hunger is more widespread than famine. Increasing world population, especially in poorer areas, and a complete failure to make any progress so far in fixing the inequality-related causes of hunger mean technological crop solutions are likely to be important in feeding the future population. [1]: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
  - VLM 13y ago
    This is "Hacker News", scalability is not a unknown concept like it is in the journalistic world.
  - BetaCygni 13y ago
    I think it won't change the world because technical solutions rarely solve political problems. Call me a cynic if you wish.
    - penguindev 13y ago
      Technology hasn't stopped hunger, the claims of mad scientists notwithstanding. Anyone with right brain critical thinking can see that population will just keep increasing, and it has. Even if you 'solved hunger' you'd have even more environmental problems to solve. There is such a thing as a 'pyrrhic scientific victory', I think. Too many discoveries like these and the planet will be done for. So now we have an invention that will deplete one resource instead of another. Awesome, go science!
      - Blahah 13y ago
        While it hasn't stopped hunger, it certainly has reduced it. The Green Revolution was the reason for nearly a billion people being lifted out of abject malnutrition. It was a technological revolution brought about by the application of science to agriculture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution Go science!