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Main conclusion There is an urgent need for sustainable agriculture. Non-thermal plasma seed treatment offers a promising alternative by enhancing germination, nutrient uptake, and disease resistance, and reducing reliance on pesticides and fertilizers. There is an urgent need to transform agricultural practices to meet the challenges of sustainable food production amidst global population growth and environmental degradation. Traditional crop production methods heavily rely on pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which pose significant risks to human health, disrupt ecosystems, and contribute to environmental pollution. Moreover, these methods are increasingly unsustainable due to rising costs and diminishing effectiveness, evolving pest resistance, and climate change impacts. Recently, non-thermal plasma (NTP) technology has emerged as a promising alternative for seed treatment in agriculture. NTP uses low-temperature plasma to modify seed surfaces, enhancing germination, vigor, and overall plant growth. Studies have demonstrated that NTP treatment improves nutrient uptake, increases disease resistance, and reduces the reliance on chemical inputs (pesticides and fertilizers), thereby promoting pesticide and chemical fertilizer-free agriculture. This paper explores recent research advancements in NTP seed treatment and its potential applications in sustainable agriculture. By exploring the mechanisms underlying the NTP effects on seed physiology, the paper provides a comprehensive understanding of how this technology can contribute to sustainable crop production. Furthermore, the paper discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges associated with the potential large-scale use of low-temperature plasmas in agriculture, aiming to accelerate the adoption of NTP and its commercialization in the agro-food industries. Overall, the goal of this paper is to highlight the transformative potential of NTP seed treatment in achieving healthier crop production that is environmentally friendly, economically viable, and capable of meeting the food demands of a growing global population.

Climate change has posed a challenge for food security all over the world in the form of fluctuating crop yields and novel disease outbreaks in plants. Human society’s overdependence on a few food crops does not seem a wise precedence. There are numerous underutilized/orphan/neglected legumes growing in the Indian desert regions that can come to the rescue and act as balanced and sustainable sources of nutrients and health-benefitting nutraceuticals. However, challenges such as low plant yield, unidentified metabolic pathways and off-flavor in the food products derived from them prevent the realization of their full potential. Conventional breeding techniques are too slow to achieve the desired modifications and cater to the sharply rising demand for functional foods. The novel gene editing tools like CRISPR-Cas provide more precise tool to manipulate the target genes with or without introduction of foreign DNA and therefore, have better chances to be accepted by governments and societies. The current article reports some of the relevant ‘gene editing’ success stories with respect to nutraceutical and flavor profiles in the popular legumes. It highlights gaps and future potential, along with areas requiring caution, in underutilized edible legumes of the Indian (semi) arid regions like Prosopis cineraria , Acacia senegal and Cyamopsis tetragonoloba .

We assessed the safety and efficacy of Fluosol-DA as a red-cell substitute in acute anemia. Twenty-three surgical patients with blood loss and religious objections to receiving blood transfusions were evaluated. Fifteen moderately anemic patients with a mean hemoglobin level (±SE) of 7.2±0.5 g per deciliter had no evidence of a physiologic need for increased arterial oxygen content and did not receive Fluosol-DA. Eight severely anemic patients with a mean hemoglobin level of 3.0±0.4 g per deciliter met the criteria of need and received the drug until the physiologic need disappeared or a maximal dose of 40 ml per kilogram of body weight was reached. We observed no adverse reactions to Fluosol-DA. The average peak increment in arterial oxygen content with the drug was only 0.7±0.1 ml per deciliter. There were no appreciable beneficial effects of Fluosol-DA, perhaps because of the small increase in arterial oxygen content, the brief half-life of the drug (24.3±4.3 hours), and the limited total dose. Six of the eight patients receiving Fluosol-DA died. One of the survivors received red-cell transfusions against his wishes, under a court order, after his total Fluosol-DA dose. Fourteen of the 15 moderately anemic patients survived. The data in this select group of patients refusing blood products suggest that, after blood loss, Fluosol-DA is unnecessary in moderate anemia and ineffective in severe anemia. (N Engl J Med 1986; 314:1653–6.) THE perfluorochemical emulsion Fluosol-DA, 20 percent, is an acellular oxygen carrier that has been under investigation for use in acutely anemic patients who refuse blood transfusions. 1 2 3 4 5 Numerous laboratory studies have documented that Fluosol-DA will effectively load and unload oxygen when the recipients breathe supplemental oxygen. 6 7 8 9 10 Several of the clinical studies have suggested that the drug may provide an additional margin of safety in the perioperative period in acutely anemic patients. None of the published reports, however, have addressed the more critical issue of improved survival at potentially lethal levels of anemia. 3 The purpose of the present study was (1) to . . .

The static nature of plants restrains their potential to evade heat stress and requires them to withstand stress through inherent defence abilities. Prosopis cineraria is a leguminous phreatophyte distributed across arid and semi-arid regions of India and can tolerate very high temperatures due to its adaptive physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Therefore, P. cineraria represents a repository of genes for abiotic stress tolerance. Two-months-old P. cineraria plants were subjected to heat stress at two different temperature regimes and transcriptome sequencing was performed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A total of 1151 and 1562 DEGs were observed in response to 45℃ and 55℃ heat stress compared to control, respectively, indicating that 55℃ treatment has a pronounced effect on P. cineraria. The transcriptomic data highlighted the potential role of multiple gene families and their interactions for high thermotolerance of P. cineraria. The expression of a few representative heat stress-responsive genes was validated with real-time qPCR. The in-depth bioinformatic analysis provided the detailed transcriptome profiling, supported by its validation, and new insights for important abiotic stress-related genes from thermotolerant P. cineraria, which can be used for crop improvement.

To the Editor: Having been participants in the clinical trials of Fluosol-DA, 20 percent, we share some of the concerns of Gould et al. (June 26 issue) 1 and agree with their warning not to take these results out of context. Unfortunately, their conclusions reflect a tendency to do just that. This small number of \"highly select\" patients, studied without a control group, does not provide sufficient evidence that Fluosol-DA is an \"inadequate red-cell substitute in acute anemia.\" Any study of only eight patients has little statistical power and therefore little chance of demonstrating a significant treatment effect. Before evaluating the . . .