Friday 11 March 2016  Jack Loughran, news reporter Tomatoes, peas and rye successfully grown in Mars soil Simulated Mars soil has been shown to successfully cultivate ten different crops; could this be an important stepping stone to human colonisation of the Red Planet? Maybe. The soil itself is packed full of nasty elements like mercury and arsenic that could be absorbed by the plants and their fruits and would make a human very sick indeed. But the whole experiment really leads to the wider question of whether we want to colonise Mars at all. During the night, the planet gets … Continue reading E&T news weekly #85 – we choose our favourite engineering and technology news stories from the week