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Spring is a grain of millet, and autumn harvests 10,000 seeds. Year after year, how have you ever thought about a problem?

Is the crop growing too slowly?

Bill Gates, who has been focusing on philanthropy in recent years, has also noticed its importance because it affects global food issues.

So, Bill Gates invested in a program called “Improving Photosynthesis Efficiency” (RIPE) through the Gates Foundation. project.

The project, conducted by the University of Illinois and eight other national and international research institutions, seeks to double crop productivity by improving photosynthesis.

Plants need to use sunlight-driven photosynthesis to generate the energy of growth. The more energy that is converted, the faster it can grow. However, there are some defects in photosynthesis of plants.

In fact, only a small portion of the sunlight that shines on plants ultimately promotes plant growth, which means that our crops produce far less food than they can.

The director of RIPE said:

We have long realized that plant growth is inefficient, but what we don’t realize is that we can change it.

In the released video, the researchers showed the breakthrough they were trying : Includes accelerated photosynthetic cooperation to capture more carbon dioxide molecules, help the leaves adapt to changing lighting conditions more quickly, and study how plants metabolize the “photorespiration process.”

In particular, plants have an enzyme called Rubisco in photosynthesis that captures carbon dioxide and converts it into plant sugar. Researchers hope to accelerate the activity of Rubisco in plants to increase crop productivity.

In addition, the reason for the inefficiency of Rubisco is that it is difficult to distinguish between carbon dioxide and oxygen.

This mis-absorption causes plants to consume light-breathing of growth energy to recover compounds produced by oxygen molecules, so researchers have found an alternative way to shorten the process of photorespiration, which has now been provenPlant growth rate increased by 40%.

The researchers also found that when sunlight moves from high-intensity direct sunlight to clouds, plants can create protective mechanisms that fail to quickly adapt to reduced light, inhibiting photosynthesis in minutes or hours, so they use acceleration A method of transition to allow plants to continue photosynthesis in the event of undulations.

The team turned into sunlight toThe chemical processes of energy are modeled to see which changes lead to the greatest increase in productivity – just as automotive experts improve the production line to maximize production.

Although currently at the theoretical stage of computer modeling, the team is also experimenting with tobacco that is rapidly multiplying and susceptible to genetic transformation, which can shorten the test cycle.

If intervention in photosynthesis is successful, the subsequent technology will be applied to important crops such as rice, corn, and cassava, doubling their productivity.

The participation of Bill Gates will provide sufficient financial support for the study. He expects these high-yielding crops to be planted several years away from farms around the world, and they also need to pass safety tests and win consumer recognition.

Bill Gates said:

This is a technological breakthrough that is urgently needed because the world is facing a crisis at the table.

As the population grows and the diet changes, by 2050 we will need to increase food production by 60% to 70%.

At the same time, the climate crisis will also bring us more pressure. Unstable droughts, pests and diseases, and the spread of crop diseases can cause inadequate food supplies.

This kind of “superpower” that allows plants to grow rapidly can help people in poor areas of developing countries to be spared from food and clothing, and bring them economic development in agriculture.

Bill Gates says, in the next few years The people at greatest risk of hunger are the poorest people in the world. They live in areas with rapid population growth and often rely on farming to support their families and earn income.

There is no single solution for the global food crisis. We need to innovate in all areas of agriculture to increase productivity; improved seed varieties for crops that are resistant to drought, flood and pests; better data are needed Help farmers manage crops and livestock more efficiently; we also need to change some of the rules of the game to bring greater agricultural breakthroughs.

After leaving Microsoft, Bill Gates has been working on charity work related to the Gates Foundation.

Since Bill Gates and his wife Melinda established the Gates Fund in 2000After the meeting, most of his 100 billion assets were used almost exclusively in Global health issues and massive inequalities.

Although these goals seem to be ambitious, Bill Gates does not “invest in dreams” by donating money, but implements them in specific problems that are close to people’s real life. problem.

For example, to solve the problem of malnutrition globally, he asked scientists to study fortified foods with vitamins and minerals. Or supplements, which are then used in vaccines and medicines, as well as improving maternal health, and are expected to significantly reduce global nutrition-related deaths over the next 20 years.

The Foundation also focuses on the field of malaria because it leads to 435,000 people worldwide die. So Bill Gates hopes to insert a mosquito that blocks malaria through genetic editing. He predicts that by 2040, malaria will be basically eliminated.

In order to solve the problem that more than 2.3 billion people (especially Africa) in the world still cannot use the most basic toilets and poor health causes the spread of diseases, he even launched the toilet innovation challenge and wanted to “The life of the leather toilet“.

This time also to solve the global food crisis, but the point is to improve plant productivity by improving photosynthesis.

The optimism about scientific innovation is the quality that Bill Gates has always adhered to. He is using it to bring some influence to people, and this influence may be changing the lives of many people.

As he said in the documentary “Into Bill: Decoding Bill Gates”: