This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates, inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Find out more here: gatesnot.es/3qLlFgq
Humans have relied on fertilizers to grow their plants for thousands of years. But the production of synthetic fertilizers also requires an immense amount of energy that comes primarily from fossil fuels and therefore contributes to climate change. So what if we could engineer plants to make their own fertilizers?
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Engineering Plants That Fertilize Themselves to Save the World
1 517 Shikime 158 mijë
This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates, inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Find out more here: gatesnot.es/3qLlFgq
@Public Guy Bleh. You're more evil than Gate's is. At least he does some good with his money. You just troll YT.
@Matt Horwich You shouldn't be idolizing any billionaire, they're all evil megalomaniacs. You don't get that wealthy behaving ethically.
@Rolf Witting Watch the "Some More News" video about the pandemic and see what Gates did with the AstraZeneca version of the vaccine. You'll think he's evil then.
C'mon guys, Billy Gates is evil. He's probably responsible for a good chunk of climate change. He forced the university that developed the AstraZeneca vaccine to sell them the patent when the university was going to make it open source for anyone to produce without profit motive.
@whesley hynes You're not the brightest, are you?
Technology spells the doom of this earth 😱
This isn't right what if that plant like grasses they are mainly uncontrollable ... then the world nitrogen will be fixed .... what will happen to us,,, then we will be making nitrogen gas as they are all sucked by theses plants and they overwhelm the earth. And our earth will me 90 percent oxygen 👽👽👽👽👽 it will be disaster
Bill Gates is bad. Not because of weird vaccine conspiracy... he's just... a billionaire, and one who's actually been a problem for global health. The goal to exterminate malaria necessarily means focusing the most on the places that have the fewest cases. He also pressured a research group that was going to open-source their vaccine formula to sell it to a company his foundation had a financial interest in, leading to it being harder to get, particularly for those in the global south.
I would be better to engineer plants that need less fertilizer ... that way run off doesnt end up in the ocean and rivers causing un natural algae blooms.
Farmers recycle many things to make their operation efficient. Crop rotation, manure from dairy operation, and more. People need to learn from the experts, the farmers. They are experts outstanding in their fields. Bill Gates us a joke and needs to return to his computer screen and virtual living.
Only a bankrupt farmer would put too much fertilizer on his crops. Don't worry about them. You need to worry about city folk who put way to much fertilizer on their grass. The millions of people putting way to much fertilizer on their useless lawns cause the major problem of run off. The main pollution problems are city folk.
If Gates wants to save the world then he needs to put his money behind solar,wind, and geothermal. And start attacking coal, and oil. Oh and pay his fuckin taxes. If we didn't have to work two and three jobs to get by we would drive less and produce less carbon.
_"When People join forces and work together, we can achieve incredible things"_ -Hank Green 2021
Evergrowing population of humans? Are you dismissing the collapsing birthrates in NE Asia out of hand? Even western countries are discussing falling birthrates as problematic. Japan and the US in particular comes to mind. I understand that worldwide, human population continues to grow, but we had 7 billion people around the year 2000, and I kind of expected it to explode from there, but it hasn't, we're only at or around 9-10billion in 20 years. I'd say it's slowed down, and I'd wager that it's mostly in first world countries. It's kind of ironic, that prosperity might be a limiting factor to human population. That's not to take away from advancing our ability to farm, but I think, that like Japan, we're going to have to start thinking soon about how we're going to deal with falling populations.
this doesn't sound necessary to me. Just use manure: it's cheap, it's abundant, you don't need to produce since there are tons of it in any animal farm, it's easy to use, it's perfect also for growing vegetables and it's slow release. By the way Bill Gates is famous to have created a computer system known for crashing and being affected by tons of virus...don't know how this partnership would inspire this channel. For the rest, I love your job, guys.
They already do! This is ridiculous.
I have an idea then regarding the plants themselves having the ability in their leafs to get the nitrogen from the air. Would it be beneficial to use variegated plant species to test on? (I’ll refer to a “golden pothos” as my example plant) If I remember correctly the plant can’t photosynthesize with the white portions of their leaf. So if there were a way to have the plant instead use the white portion of a leaf to take in nitrogen, that would still separate the process while not interrupting anything too much in the leaf itself. Other than I assume some structure change within the stem to fit room to carry both chemicals within the plant. I didn’t know where to put this idea
Might be smarter to find a fast growing invasive legume species, and give it a dwarf gene. And breed for temperature and soil tolerance. Or engineer something like mesquite to not have thorns.
While there is a partnership of chemical companies with seed companies this will never happen.
You think Bill Gates gives a crap, about anything? The only thing Bill Gates can do to help solve climate change is to stand there patiently while we take his money. Shame on you SciShow
With 8 billions of people there is enough humanure and urine to fertilize the soil.
And no one is asking what can seriously go wrong by releasing these bacteria in the wild?
I heard that clover sucks more co2 up and put nitrogen back into the soil. IV been planting clover in my yard. Plus they flower. And if you don’t want to mow there a micro clover which seems cool
I can see whole earth smelling like Ammonia gas if these bacteria grow out of hand.
Bill Gates. Isn't that the computer guy that people believe should be telling us about climate science, food production and vaccines which are not even closely related to his background and area of knowledge? Does becoming a billionaire automatically confer some omniscience on an individual? Or could it be that he is pushing these things because he has invested in them to make himself even richer? Oh, and "klebsiella planticola".
you can leave straw in a bucket until it goes anaerobic after a day or so and it will breed paramecium that will eat bacteria and start recycling nitrogen in the soil by itself. npk is a myth and organic farming is low maintained and low cost and still gets the same or better yields than synthetic npk fertilizers. the lab based fertalizers actually have less Cation-exchange capacity then organic fertilizers.
Nature already does this. Don't reinvent the wheel, especially not in ways that you can't reverse.
Tons of microbes and algae that absorb n2
Practically all plants fertilize itself. They all literally decomposed into COMPOST.
make plant that use air for fertilized themselves , sound dangerous
How about we talk about bill gates buying up farmland like its going out of style? I would love to know why he is doing that.
Look it up on youtube, there are videos explaining why.
Eh em...so y’all tryna act like y’all didn’t see 8:00....
"The Three Sisters". Enuf said!
Really the best thing to do is to bring natural ecosystems back to as much land as we can. And to try and live more off the land so we don't end up messing up everything.
I mean, to avoid a climate disaster, we could just, you know, make less PEOPLE. Then we don't need as much food, so we don't need as much fertilizer. Because nature is about balance, if we don't find a solution, nature will.
Or we could just y'know… stop farming the same crops in the same spots year after year and expecting them to do fine. Monocultural farming is so backwards. We need to build ecosystems, not cultivate farms - that way, it'll take care of itself, and we can still reap the rewards. The amazon rainforest is a prime example of a manmade ecosystem
Just let the nature be. It is wise and cheep. And don't let food go bad
Don't forget crop rotation. Soybeans, for instance, put a large amount of nitrogen back into the soil.
Not a good idea. These species will become heavily invasive.
If fertilizer companies emits huge amount of CO2 to make Nitrogen, is CO2 the plant take can offset that? Since the Nitrogen help plants to grow bigger and take more CO2. Sorry for bad English lol
Typical single analysis science trying to solve the symptoms of the problems rather than actually fixing the source problem. If you fix the degraded agriculture soils by maximising photosynthesis in the plants to thus feed biology in the soil and change cultural practices to keep soil biology alive and multiplying, you can fix a lot of the problems explained in this video. It's a whole ecosystem approach. No need to change the plants, they have been getting along just fine a long time before we tried to micro manage everything. Most crops we grow today are only reaching 10 to 20 percent of their genetic potential anyway. Also a lot of the fertil soils we are benefiting from today were built up before people got involved. Tell me have you every seen a tree growing out of a rock with no soil present? That would only be possible if there is symbiotic relationships with bacteria and fungi to feed that tree its required nutrients. Go ahead study how plants and soil biology work together you maybe be surprised at what you may learn.
stopped watching as soon as you said bill gates. Sorry not sorry.
Sellouts
I was once a herpes patient, but now I have finally got rid of it with the help of Ben Uda on youtube channel, with his Herbal medicine which he prepare for me,,.
Dandelions have being doing this forever. They dig very deep very fast in search of calcium. When they die it is left on the top soil.....
...I'm so glad I got lucky with the orchid I was gifted with last year. A little research goes a long way. It's blooming again, more beautifully than before.
When I read "fertilize themselves" I had a very different initial interpretation of that phrase, SciShow!!!
I was about to put the following This is promoted by bull gates? The video started playing
The Little Old Lady That Swallowed Nitrogen Gas While Producing Her Own Nitrogenase.
A story 50 years from now: "Self-fertilizing plants out of control. They are taking over large areas of the United States, scientists are working on a way to slow it down. More at 9."
What crap. Bill Gates Crap. Where do you get your Ag Degree? Push hard for two obtainable Techs: LFTR and Fusion Reactors. Electricity becomes cheap. Cheap electricity can help to make cheap food. Freedom from idiots like Bill Gates who embraces population chipping and control is a natural fertilizer for real innovation, on Earth as well on the Moon and Mars. Crop Rotation, duh. By the way, predator Bill Gates DID NOT write How to Avoid a Climate Disaster... he bought the writer, he might have read the spark notes.
I see the Great Filter approaching... I don't have any problems with GMOs. If we make the seeds smaller or the flesh more tasty, yumyum. If we gave plants the possibility to grow unchecked on the global food scale I see a lush, green cemetary for humanity. PS: Of course I dislike nature. I hate yardwork, would never go camping and if I could I'd pour concrete in those little grassy areas next to sidewalks... So my prediction of herbal doom may be influenced a bit.
Just lost a subscriber for drinking the Gates Global Criminal Cartel Koolaid
I don't often give a thumb down. But when I do, it's because of a terrible idea that's beeing promoted.
Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator. It's what plants crave.
I guess Monsanto isn’t evil after all.🤣
As an agricultural engineer and a researcher I'm currently working on helping plant uptake more potassium by infecting soil with penicillium fungus and trichoderma fung that increase nutrient uptake Keep in mind he only mentioned the Nitrogen problem ther are more elements are also needed for a mature healthy plant
Biology depends on torturing animals to advance so biology is evil. Even though most dont torture animals youre all responsible for it you support it and youre part of a field that is inseparable from it. Banning animal testing would destroy biology so biology should be destroyed.
Gates book should be titled "How to buy farm land and work up the public to make a profit"
I find funny that we aim to change nature (with transgenics) to fit our ways instead of changing our ways to fit nature. I truly believe the future of ecological agriculture is the way of biodiversity (both below and above soil). If we keep changing nature to fit our way, soon we will be changing birds to breathe toxic chemicals ; )
There are some difficult issues about making and using fertilizers, but there is one other thing that is most confusing that I should mention: This video (especially in the middle of it) is saying that ammonia is formed by bacteria and other specific ways. I thought ammonia (in addition to water vapor) can easily form when burning hydrogen with the air.
Hey, Environmental Engineer here. Here are some solutions that I can think of. 1) Reduce food waste. The less food we have to produce, the less energy we have to spend and it just doesn't feel right to waste food when other people are struggling to eat. 2) Compost leftovers in your garden if you have one. I have the luxury of owning a backyard and just toss out any food scraps in there. Its less weight driving to the landfill, and it recycles nutrients when it decomposes. Better in my backyard than in a landfill, right? 3) Having your own garden. Fewer trips to the grocery store saves money, gas, and time, so it's a win-win. 4) Switching to renewable energy sources. This one is a no-brainer but of course, it comes with extra monetary costs and we have to weigh in the fact that the materials required may pollute and emit carbon emissions. We'll have to see when can we break even. 5) Use human waste as compost. Straight up, it sounds nasty but what's the difference between spreading cow poop and human poop in your garden, so long as it is safe/nonpathogenic? We can use the byproduct that's leftover after the wastewater treatment process. Some pay to landfill that anyway, so you might as well use it as compost. 6) Strategized planting. For every fruit/vegetable plant that I plant in my backyard, adjacent to it is a legume. I'm sure agricultural professionals and farmers already know about crop rotation. Every farmer can probably produce legumes year-round alongside their main product.
He has joined youtube on 2011.
A better long term solution to human induced climate problems would be reducing the human population. About 50-60% sounds right for a first cull.
Lol, what a clickbait title. They basically explained 8th-grade plant science and then said researchers are trying to alter this ... (no real breakthroughs all preliminary tests and they didn't go in-depth enough on any of them so the lister knew which seemed the most likely to happen)
I use used coffee.
What's with the volume turned up so high. Dude chill with the shouting
As others have said, I don’t know if we need to produce more food. Rather, not wasting the food we already make is important. I forget the exact percentage, but I want to say it is something really high like a third of all food is wasted. Just bringing that down to as close to 0 as possible would allow us to feed 50% more people. Vertical farming I think will be the solution to many of these problems. No runoff from fertilizers since it is a closed loop system, reduces food waste as it is made in the location it is consumed, it reduces water usage as well, and significantly reduces pesticides usage. Of course, the drawback is the increased amount of energy usage with vertical farming, but, unlike the video, I’m a bit more optimistic in the energy produced by renewables. If we take away subsidies for oil or increase subsidies for renewables they will be highly competitive price-wise. I honestly think we’ll be at 100% renewable within two decades. The real problem with renewables is energy storage, which is a whole other topic.
Oh great let's make e.coli stronger so it can kill us more often
Alfalfa and dandelion leaf tea maybe worm castings and compost is all you need ... Alfalfa cantains nitrogen and dandelion turn nutrients into calcium and stir it in leaves
Thank god the famous scientist and writer bill gates is here to save up
Atomic energy
Know it all doesn’t really know it all.
Cool stuff. Please don’t work with Bill Gates again, ever.
Crop rotation benefits were discovered at the start of the Agricultural revolution. ...and we stopped doing it. Advancements.
Depopulation is the best solution
lots of issues with synthetic fertilizers... another is they add nothing to the soil in terms of structure so repeated working of the soil causes increased erosion...
What if you could mass produce these lower valued nitrogen fixers and add them to soil like you would add fertilizer. Add it in the fall and till it into the soil along with the chaff and other waste. Could the action of the fixers under the frost layer make enough nitrogen for the next years crops?
Just brainstorming here: Build a site in the sahara desert close to a major waterway. Put up solar panels and a site to get hydrogen and nitrogen gas from the atmosphere. Ship off the amonia or process it on-site to fertilizer
Fun Fact: Humans now fix more nitrogen in the form of chemical fertilizers than nature does at the cost of polluting our surface and ground water with nitrates. Farmers routinely apply approximately 50% MORE fertilizer than plants can use so it ends up in our water. If this practice continues, ALL our drinking water will be polluted with nitrates.
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Hi This is Abhijeet Deshpande and... What is evem nore sillier is all the silly people posting comments on the possibility of the silliness of it all...😁😀😃😄😆😅😂🤣🤣🤣
This isn't gonna save us the only thing that will save us is a united ban on fishing in the ocean
Bill Gates don't you have enough money? let's leave the natural world alone dude.
Great stuff,thanks! I thought I understood plants -until I was given a couple of orchids! I had NO IDEA that a bit of water and 7 gtts of fertilizer and those plants make flowers out of sunshine. I was scared! I sorta thought the plant ‘sucked up’ dirt and turned dirt into a carrot or whatever. I have way more ‘respect’ for plants now.....recently I heard that old growth trees send ‘food packets’ to their nearby saplings via their root systems- I wonder if that mechanism- older plants helping younger ones is route to decrease chemical fertilizer dependence?
Do farmers know about "Reduce"
Compost manure voila
Soooo. Use nuclear energy.
So many science news these days seem like out of the beginning of a scifi horror movie...
Can anyone address to elephant in the room? WHY THE F WE DON'T TRY NOT INCREASING THE POPULATION????
Wait do humans still drive tractors? Tractors just cover rectangular areas with regular patterns right? Their AI would be so simple. All you would need is the peripheral controls, it would be a great stepping stone for automated driving cars Plants that make their own fertilizer would be op lol. First they make their own energy from sunlight, now they make their own food? I'm jealous. Can I inject chloroplasts into me and utilize them? lol
we need a book on "how to avoid bill gates"
bill gates isn’t good for the world
Maybe a dumb idea but could we creat a Organell like a mitochondra but for nitrogen?
Molten salt thorium reactors could be used to produce the heat needed to make synthetic fertilizer. That would not only reduce the carbon footprint significantly but could also make the fertilizer cheaper.
Cool 😎
why does this smell like a global plant disaster spiraling out of control, all to protect the #monoculture regime. We are all idiots, so probably not gonna make it much further. but sure, lets genetically change the chloroplast and see what happens.
One of the biggest problems we have is that many of the people working on this problem have never worked a day in the field and in turn are missing out on a lot of the intricacies of farming that people just have to experience for themselves.. They should require at least a year of literal "field work" to get any type of plant biology degree or any other science degree dealing with plants.
worm farm(castings) bokashi bin bee's fresh water
I realize the money's gotta come from somewhere but citing Gates as any kind of authority on climate really diminishes the channel.
Gates is a big deal, wether you like it or not. He is one of the biggest contributor in many fields like the WHO for example, his foundation does pay half as much as the US.
And before somebody gets on my case the only reason why I brought up the nuclear stuff is like I said it uses nuclear waste and I don't agree with the yucca mountain / volcano put away space for nuclear waste
I've heard there's new ways to use old nuclear waste to make nuclear fusion that might actually be good for energy source
From what I hear, literally your own actual problem is the energy source fertilizers are made with. You are encouraging dangerous changes to the food supply vs the logical solution of investing the resources to cheapen renewable energy
Dangerous changes? Eggplant have been doing to for years. And we are cheapening renewable but a coordinated approach would not harm
nitrogen fixing nanites
Maybe we should instead be focusing on reducing the world's population eventually we're going to reach a point where our energy production will not meet the needs of every citizen around the world