The foundation of any happy garden is the soil. In fact, some might argue that a gardener’s job isn’t to grow plants but to cultivate healthy soil. In our desert, we are lucky to have plenty of ...

A groundbreaking technique from China transforms barren desert sand into fertile soil in just 10 months. Researchers use resilient cyanobacteria to create living 'biological soil crusts' that bind ...

China has unveiled a pretty groundbreaking approach for desert recovery, using cyanobacteria, tiny photosynthetic organisms ...

Prolonged droughts followed by sudden bursts of rainfall -- how do desert soil bacteria manage to survive such harsh conditions? This long-debated question has now been answered by microbiologists.

Biocrusts play a crucial role in maintaining soil health and ecosystem sustainability, but they are currently under assault. Human activities including agriculture, urbanization, and off-road vehicle ...

Over the past 60 years, scientists in China have been working on a project that could change how we approach the ongoing risks of desertification throughout the world. The idea is to take sandy, ...

The country already operates one of the world’s largest anti-desertification programmes, including the massive “Great Green ...

In the arid regions of the American Southwest, an unseen world lies beneath our feet. Biocrusts, or biological soil crusts, are communities of living organisms. These industrious microbes include ...