Hydroponics references

Grow More Nutritious Vegetables Without Soil, James D. Taylor, Santa Anna, Calif.: Parkside Press Publishing Co., 1983.

Home Hydroponics...and how to do it!, Lem Jones, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1977.

Hydroponic Food Production, 4th ed., Dr. Howard Resh, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Woodbridge Press, 1989.

Hydroponics for the Home Gardener, Stewart Kenyon, Toronto, Ont., Canada: Van Nostrand Reinhold Ltd., 1979.

Mitchell CA. 1994. Bioregenerative life-support systems. Am J Clin Nutr. 60:820S-824

( Nasa article on bioregenerative technology )

CELSS references

( Controlled Environment Life Suport system references )

Human Inputs and Outputs

( FIFO )

Bioponics

http://www.championtrees.org/topsoil/bioponics.htm

Revolution in Food Growing
Missouri aquafarmer discovers huge benefits in trace elements
© by David Yarrow, December 1997



"Problems can be turned into opportunities
to develop solutions.
Necessity makes us do
what reason will not."


—Tom Spereano's Quote of the Day


In southern Missouri, in the heart of the beautiful Ozarks, a quiet revolution in biotechnology is incubating. Four miles north of the Arkansas border, S&S Aqua Farm is a family farm near West Plains, Missouri. In the last decade, Tom and Paula Spereano developed a unique, innovative, low-cost food growing system in their solar greenhouse.

The S&S Aqua Farm brochure allures with idyllic imagery:

"Imagine gardening year-round, with no weeds to pull, no bending to plant or harvest, no worries about watering or weather. Picture you in mid-winter working in a green, vital, healthy environment—doing what you love to do."

( Read more... )

Bubble Insulated Greenhouse

http://www.tdc.ca/bubblegreenhouse.htm

Soap bubbles, just like the ones we all used to blow through those little metal hoops.


Yes, soap bubbles are being used in the only functional plastic covered greenhouse in the world to insulate when the outside temperature is as cold as - 30 degrees C and when the interior heat in the summer gets so hot that the plants in greenhouses need to be kept cool. The soap bubbles insulate when they need it and dissipate when they do not.

( Read more... )

The Case for Vertical Farms

[Note that I disagree with the general disasturbation in this piece, but it has some interesting refs.]

( Read more... )

Gene therapy cures monkeys of laziness

Via w74endy:

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040809/full/040809-10.html

Published online: 11 August 2004; | doi:10.1038/news040809-10

Gene therapy cures monkeys of laziness
Helen Pilcher

Switching off key gene turns layabout primates into keen workers.


Monkey tend to slack off just like humans.
© Punchstock
Procrastinating primates can be turned into workaholics, thanks to gene therapy. The discovery, which sheds light on the workings of the brain's reward centre, may further our understanding of mood disorders, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Like many humans, monkeys tend to slack off when their goal is distant, then work harder as a deadline looms. But when a key gene is turned off, the primates work hard from the word go, researchers report in PNAS Online1.

( Read more... )