Food security — the ability to supply enough people with enough food in the world — is a long-term problem. It’s also one with immediate challenges as one key ingredient in fertilizer faces a global ...

Over the course of evolution, plants have developed an elegant strategy to counteract a lack of phosphate in the soil—they form symbiotic relationships with soil fungi. These mycorrhizal fungi ...

Researchers walk across Last Chance Lake’s crusty surface in September 2022. (UW Photo / Zack Cohen) Several years ago, scientists at the University of Washington theorized that key ingredients for ...

The first life-forms on Earth needed a pu pu platter of ingredients to exist, but one of those ingredients, the mineral phosphorus, has long puzzled scientists. No one knew how phosphorus, one of the ...

Embargoed: Not for release until 14:00 U.S. Eastern Time (20:00 CEST) Friday, 22 May 2026 Over the course of evolution, plants have developed an elegant strategy to counteract a lack of phosphate in ...

Synthetic phosphate fertilizer poses a serious threat to our environment. Phosphate rock mining, along with the inorganic fertilizers and animal feed supplements and pesticides for which phosphate is ...

Lake Magadi, a carbonate-rich lake in Kenya, has a bed made of volcanic rock and salty water rich in microbes. In a new paper just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...