Implantable cardiac pacemakers have been employed for the treatment of various arrhythmias beginning in the 1950s. Throughout the years, developments in microfabrication technologies, as well as advances in surgical procedures and the understanding of electrophysiology, have brought forth next-generation cardiac pacemakers. These are much smaller, capable of feedback regulation, and endowed with longer-lived batteries, which decrease the need for frequent surgery and battery replacement (1).

Scientists from Asia and Africa called for sustaining research efforts to reap greater gains given that global chickpea production, buoyed by recent increases in India’s output, is inching towards the 15 million ton mark. “India was producing 5.5 million tons and now it is 11 million tons. Chickpea has become a mega crop and its growth in the last five years is unlike any other crop’s in the country,” said Dr NP Singh, Director, ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR). He was speaking at the Chickpea Scientists’ Meet held recently at ICRISAT. The meet is organized biennially at ICRISAT-Patancheru.

Over 300 women and youth in Nigeria discovered recently that the humble, environment-friendly sorghum can be made into delicious products and, in the process, earn them a better income. These aspiring farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs were trying to make the most of a trend of rising demand for processed sorghum products. They found that training in sorghum production and processing techniques could give them an edge in income generation and employment.

With billions of people either starving or obese, poor diets have become a leading cause of disease and death, prompting calls for a new approach in 2019 to how food is produced to stem rising rates of malnutrition. Eating unhealthy food, or not having enough food, has led to rising rates of malnutrition, with one in eight adults globally now obese - while one in nine go hungry and almost 2 billion lack essential vitamins and minerals.

Individuals, institutions and organizations who have made outstanding achievements in fighting hunger all feature among winners of the FAO Conference awards. Today they are the champions of the Zero Hunger Generation - the first generation with the capacity to end hunger and make food and nutrition security truly universal. The awards were established on the basis of resolutions during the FAO Conference, the organization’s highest governing body.

Rice production plays a critical role in achieving food self-sufficiency in China where more than 65% of the population eats rice as a staple food. In order to produce enough rice, many novel rice technologies have been successfullydeveloped and implemented in China. In particular, China was the first country to commercially exploit hybrid vigor (heterosis) in rice.

China has approved the import of five genetically modified crops, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement on [January 8], amid growing pressure from the United States to open up its market to more farm goods. The crops are RF3 canola, originally developed by Bayer and now owned by BASF, Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant MON 88302 canola, DuPont Pioneer DP4114 corn, Syngenta’s SYHT0H2 soybean and Dow AgroSciences’ DAS-44406-6 soybean.

"Global food insecurity is the leading threat in the developing world. Strong political commitment to eliminate hunger is essential. Globally, biotech crops have contributed to food security, sustainability, and climate change by increasing crop productivity and helping alleviate poverty by uplifting the livelihood of farmers and agriculture-related workforce,"

Photosynthesis uses the enzyme Rubisco and sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars essential for plant growth and yield. Over millennia, Rubisco has created an oxygen-rich atmosphere, using oxygen instead of carbon dioxide about 20 percent of the time, resulting in a plant-toxic compound that must be recycled through the process of photorespiration.

Technavio reports that the global agricultural biotechnology market will grow by almost USD 21.2 billion during 2018-2022. In the report published in December 2018, Technavio, a market research company that has published reports on major technology markets, stated that the global agricultural biotechnology market will be accelerating in the next four years, growing at an annual growth rate of almost 11 percent with 53 percent of this growth coming from the Americas.