If climate projections prove even partly correct in the coming decades, many areas of the planet will experience longer and nastier drought conditions. Let's be clear: that won't be anybody's idea of fun in the sun. But as SciAm's David Biello reports,
for the last several years agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta have been pursuing genetic modification to enable the corn plant to thrive even without enough rain. And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering approving a new corn hybrid genetically engineered to thrive with less water"”the first time such a corn strain would be available.