At long last, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is on its way. It launched on October 14 and is now en route to its target: Jupiter’s ice-covered moon Europa, whose frozen shell almost certainly conceals a warm saltwater ocean. When the spacecraft gets there, it will conduct dozens of close flybys in order to determine what that ocean is like and, crucially, where it might be hospitable to life.
Europa Clipper is still years away from its destination—it is not slated to reach the Jupiter system until 2030. But that hasn’t stopped engineers and scientists from working on what would come next if the results are promising: a mission capable of finding evidence of life itself. Read the full story.
— Robin George Andrews
GMOs could reboot chestnut trees
Living as long as a thousand years, the American chestnut tree once dominated parts of the Eastern forest canopy, with many Native American nations relying on them for food. But by 1950, the tree had largely succumbed to a fungal blight probably introduced by Japanese chestnuts.
As recently as last year, it seemed the 35-year effort to revive the American chestnut might grind to a halt. Now, American Castanea, a new biotech startup, has created more than 2,500 transgenic chestnut seedlings— likely the first genetically modified trees to be considered for federal regulatory approval as a tool for ecological restoration. Read the full story.
—Anya Kamenetz
This piece is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is all about the weird and wonderful world of food. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies once they land.