Stepping through the heavy, air-locked door into the world’s most advanced indoor vertical farm, it’s the noise that hits you first. It’s loud. Machines buzz and whir over the insistent drone of the warehouse-scale air circulation system.
The lights are dazzling. Peering up at the two-storey-high living curtains of plants quickly prompts a protest from your neck. Nearby, a few workers, wearing coveralls, hair nets, hard hats and earplugs, keep a cool eye on their busy robot underlings. The air is bright with the fresh, sweet scent of tender young salad leaves.
It’s a far cry from the story-book picture of a farm; there’s no mud, no wellies, no hens pecking in the yard. But the owners of this facility, a San Francisco-based company called Plenty, claim the system they’re pioneering inside this warehouse in Compton, Los Angeles, can produce up to 350 times the yield compared to a field of the same size. What’s more, they say their system uses just 10 per cent of the water and zero pesticides – and that it can be replicated almost anywhere.
The new farm in Compton grows four types of leafy greens: baby rocket, crispy lettuce, baby kale and curly spinach, and has the potential to produce up to 2 million kg (4.5 million lbs) of food annually, in the space of a single city block. If it lives up to its promise, the approach could revolutionise the way humanity feeds itself. That’s why the crew filming the ‘Humans’ episode of Planet Earth III was on site a day after the farm began operating, so that audiences around the world could see for themselves.
Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av BBC Science Focus.
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Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av BBC Science Focus.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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How Light's 'Secret Code' Reveals the Story of the Cosmos- The starlight we can see tells us a lot about the Universe, but it's the parts we can't see that contain the biggest revelations
When you see photos from a modern telescope of a planet, nebula or distant galaxy, it's easy to be dazzled by the detail. But what astronomers get really excited about is a property of the light our eyes can't see: the spectrum. This secret code embedded in starlight can tell us not only what a celestial object is made of, but also the story of our cosmic past.Back in the 18th century, scientists discovered that each substance produced its own pattern of colours when it was burning. It turns out that each element, when heated, emits light at certain colours specific to that substance.
Major Stonehenge Discovery Deepens Mystery Around Ancient Monument - New findings suggest a key six-tonne stone came from over 450 miles north of the circle
Cue the conspiracy theories: new research reveals that one of Stonehenge's central and larger megaliths came neither from England, nor Wales, but from the far northeast of Scotland - and we don't know how it got there. Experts think the six-tonne altar stone must have been dragged or floated at least 750km (466 miles) south to complete the prehistoric monument.
Do We Finally Know How the Egyptian Pyramids Were Built? - A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...
A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...How the Egyptian pyramids were built has long been a mystery. Constructed as tombs for the pharaohs over 4,000 years ago, more than 100 of them remain. The largest one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was originally 147m tall (482ft). It's made up of about 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing between 2.5 and 15 tonnes, and would have had to be transported to the building site and lifted into place with techniques available at the time. To put this into context, it's akin to lifting a double-decker London bus to the top of St Pauls Cathedral a few million times.
An Artificial Heart Inspired by Plumbing - Mechanical circulation could revolutionise transplant design and reduce waiting lists
Mechanical circulation could revolutionise transplant design and reduce waiting lists. In July, this artificial heart was successfully implanted, for the first time, into a patient with end-stage heart failure. Built by The Texas Heart Institute (THI) and BiVACOR, the replacement organ has been dubbed the Total Artificial Heart (TAH). Although, being an implant rather than transplant, it's designed to temporarily support patients while they wait for a real heart transplant.
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