Advances in food processing and food packaging play a major role in keeping food safe, increasing the shelf life, and maintaining the food supply chain. Good packaging materials that enable the safe travel of food are often non-degradable and tend to persist in the environment, thereby posing a hazard. One alternative is to synthesize biodegradable polymers with an antimicrobial property while maintaining their mechanical and thermal properties. In the present study, biodegradable composites of PVA–starch–glycerol (PSG) incorporated with CuO and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared as PSG, PSG–Cu, PSG–Zn, and PSG–CuZn films. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive x-ray analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis were performed to study and characterize these films. The water barrier properties of the films improved significantly as the hydrophobicity of the PSG–CuZn film increased by 32.9% while the water absorptivity and solubility decreased by 51.49% and 60% compared to the PSG film. The Young’s modulus of the films incorporated with CuO and ZnO nanoparticles was lower than that reported for PVA, suggesting that the film possessed higher flexibility. The thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated high thermal stability for films. Biosynthesized CuO and ZnO nanoparticles exhibited antifungal activity against vegetable and fruit spoilage fungi, and hence the fabricated polymers incorporated with nanoparticles were anticipated to demonstrate an antifungal activity. The nanoparticle incorporated films exhibited fungicidal and bactericidal activity, suggesting their role in extending the shelf life of packaged food. The result of ICP-OES studies demonstrated the steady release of ions from the polymer films, however, EDX analysis demonstrated no leaching of CuO and ZnO nanoparticles from the films, thus ruling out the possibility of nanoparticles entering the packaged food. The strawberries wrapped with the fabricated films incorporated with nanoparticles demonstrated improved shelf life and retained the nutritional quality of the fruit. Among the four films, PSG–CuZn was the most promising for food wrapping since it exhibited better water-resistance, antimicrobial, thermal, and mechanical properties.

The biogenic synthesis of CuO and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) was carried out by Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. The shape, size, and chemical identity of the CuO and ZnO NPs were determined using FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDX, and TEM analysis. The study aimed to investigate the effects of the CuO and ZnO NPs on Amaranthus hybridus seed germination and plant growth. Two different fertilizer application modes (hydroponics and foliar) were studied with varying concentrations of CuO (0.06 µM, 0.12 µM) and ZnO (0.12 µM, 0.24 µM) nanoparticles with water control and Hoagland’s media control. The hydroponic system of fertilizer application demonstrated better efficiency in terms of plant growth as compared to the foliar application. The agronomic traits, SPAD value, total reducing sugars, antioxidant activity, amount of copper, and zinc ions in root and shoot were analyzed for all experimental plants and found better with the nanoparticle application. The highlight of the study is the application of extremely low concentrations of CuO and ZnO nanoparticles, almost 70% lower than the copper and zinc salts in the Hoagland’s medium for improved plant growth. The use of lower concentrations of nanoparticles can prevent their accumulation in the environment and also lower the production cost. The high antioxidant concentration exhibited by the plants treated with CuO and ZnO nanoparticles ensures the enhanced plant’s resistance to infections and pests while promoting plant growth.

Agricultural productivity needs to grow in a sustainable way to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs). The demand for healthy, nutritious food is expected to rise by 50% between 2012 and 2050 as the world’s population grows. Even today, more than 800 million people face chronic hunger, while 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. These challenges are further intensified by climate change stressors. Around 90% of the world’s farmland is affected by climate-related stress, which in some areas can cut crop production by as much as 70%. Countries near the equator, particularly arid lands, are evenly affected, where food security and sustainability are increasingly threatened by rising global food demand and worsening climatic conditions. Relying only on traditional staple crops like rice, wheat, and maize is not enough, and there is a need to explore alternative crops which are climate resilient and could contribute to food security. This review focuses on pseudocereals—crops such as amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat. These are not true cereals but are rich in nutrients and can survive in difficult environments such as during drought, in salty soils, and at extreme temperatures. Pseudocereals such as amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat are non-grass crops with dense nutrients. The review covers how pseudocereals can help with food security, improve health, and be used in industry. Some studies have shown that the bioavailability of pseudocereals can be increased by various processing techniques. However, these crops are mostly grown in their native regions because seeds are hard to get and markets are limited. Pseudocereal production must be expanded globally supported by strategies such as conservation of its wild species, molecular advance techniques, policies, farming practices, and integration of indigenous knowledge. Particularly, in arid regions where traditional crops face many challenges due to harsh climatic conditions and limited water resources, integrating these pseudocereal crops into their agronomy system and commodity markets could serve as a roadmap in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). These crops could also help other vulnerable regions around the world that face hunger and poor nutrition.

Identifying naturally existing abiotic-stress tolerant accessions in cereal crops is central to understanding plant responses toward sstress. Salinity is an abiotic stressor that limits crop yields. Salt stress triggers major physiological changes in plants, but individual plants may perform differently under salt stress. In the present study, 112 barley accessions were grown under controlled salt stress conditions (1 Sm-1 salinity) until harvest. The accessions were then analyzed for set of agronomic and physiological traits. Under salt stress, less than 5 % of the assessed accessions (CIHO6969, PI63926, PI295960, and PI531867) displayed early flowering. Only two (< 2 %) of the accessions (PI327671 and PI383011) attained higher fresh and dry weight, and a better yield under salt stress. Higher K+/Na+ ratios were maintained by four accessions PI531999, PI356780, PI452343, and PI532041. These top-performing accessions constitute naturally existing variants within barley’s gene pool that will be instrumental to deepen our understanding of abiotic-stress tolerance in crops.

Cloud computing, providing access to more than a hundred thousand computers at a time to process, store or share information has stretched the horizon of possibilities in many areas of science and business. The pay as you use nature of cloud computing services such as EC2 provided by Amazon wherein you pay only for the servers, server or part thereof that you use also makes it economically attractive. This paper is targeted at researchers in the field of genetics and biotechnology who wish to understand how cloud computing can contribute to their area of research. Bio-informatics tools are extensively used in biological research today. These tools can be utilized more efficiently and in a possibly more cost and time effective manner using cloud technology. High-throughput genomics leads to reams of data that cannot be processed by local research facility computers at the speed it is generated. This bottleneck has been overcome by the use of cloud computing to store and to process data in real time. Large datasets and applications for image analysis, data mining, protein folding, and gene sequencing can also be shared for collaborative research between facilities using clouds. This is a simpler approach than transferring such data. Clouds also provide applications such as Apache's Hadoop and Google's MapReduce for parallel computing (particularly useful for making services such as BLAST easier to deploy in a shorter time). Cloud computing with characteristics like multi-tenacity, scalability, low cost, virtualization, agility and empowerment of end users has made it possible to share the results of studies at much finer granularity, along with sharing scientific investigations at the level of individual data points. Cloud technology can contribute significantly in areas such as biodiversity informatics and the study of human genetic variation and disease. We discuss these possibilities, the challenges in realizing the potential for application of cloud technology in biological sciences, and the work being done to overcome these challenges.