Good News Notes:

“Tables and chairs grown in a lab could help to slow deforestation, according to a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The concept is similar to lab grown meat. Scientists create structures made of plant cells that mimic wood, but without needing to chop down forests in the process.

The wood-like plant tissue is grown indoors without soil or sunlight. The original cells don’t derive from trees but instead, a colourful flowering plant called a zinnia that is native to Mexico. These cells are then turned into a rigid structure using plant hormones.

‘Plant cells are similar to stem cells in the sense that they can become anything if they are induced to,’ study author Luis F. Velásquez-García told MIT news.

The lab grown wood can be manipulated to take on any shape, much like 3D printing. That means that a fully formed table could theoretically be created without the need for screws or glue.

The team is still a long way from actually growing a table, but they say it could mean we’ll be able to make furniture without the need for deforestation in the future. Scaling up the production would take ‘significant financial and intellectual investment’, say the experts, but they believe it could ease the impact of forestry and agriculture.

‘The way we get these materials hasn’t changed in centuries and is very inefficient,’ Velásquez-García says.

‘This is a real chance to bypass all that inefficiency.’”

View the whole story here: https://www.euronews.com/living/amp/2021/01/28/lab-grown-wood-could-mean-no-more-deforestation-say-scientists