Bees mean honey right?
Well yes and no.
Yes, we have exploited and managed bees for their delicious byproduct for millennia. Besides a great tasting and relatively healthy sweetener, honey and bees are used for other purposes.
With almost a third of arable land classified as degraded, what can we do to reverse the rapid pace of degradation and can we do it in a way that benefits us?
Biosprospecting is the process of discovering and commercialising new products derived from nature. The process of discovery often uses indigenous or traditional knowledge, but has, more often than not, been more of a scatter gun approach to surveying and testing the bioactivity of a range of products from all plants and animals in a region.
Over the last few years, food production and processing have been embarking on the biggest change since the industrial revolution. Novel approaches that exploit robotics, machine learning, computer vision, epi-genetics and gene editing technologies are being used to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of food production.
Prof Andy Lowe was shortlisted for the 2016 South Australia Science Excellence Awards. The awards showcase the critical importance of science and research to the development of industry and our society.
Continue reading “South Australian Science Excellence Awards 2016”
In this public lecture, Prof Andy Lowe speaks about the use of DNA to potentially solve conservation problems, particularly with regards to timber tracking.
Prof Andy Lowe celebrates the success of the Fourth International Barcord of Life Conference in 2011, and the implementation of barcoding technologies across industries in Australia.
Continue reading “Fourth International Barcode of Life Conference”
Biodiversity and ecosystems provide us with clean air, water, and access to food.
However we don’t really know much about the basic building blocks of biodiversity.
How many species are there on earth? 10 million? What does this mean for humans? Over 250 years we’ve probably found and named approximately 1 million species, approx 10% of the biodiversity on earth.
At the same time the rate of intinction is increasing.
We’re going to need some help.
Continue reading “TEDxAdelaide – DNA Barcoding for Biodiversity”
Prof Andy Lowe officially launches Trend at the 2011 WOMAD Earth Station Festival.
The Environment Institute talks to Professor Andy Lowe, Director of the Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology, the University of Adelaide.
Prof Lowe gives an overview of how biodiversity corridors can help ease species strain due to fragmented native habitats.
