Inside a UC Davis engineering lab, tiny round pellets swirl in a brown liquid inside a 5-liter glass tank. The tank, a bioreactor, is brewing edible fungi high in protein and designed to look and taste like meat.

In another lab on campus, a liquid nitrogen tank nicknamed “cryocow” holds frozen vials of cow muscle stem cells. Scientists hope to one day turn these cells into lab-grown meat, creating the burgers of the future. 

As California works to meet climate and air quality goals, a key to the transition will come from biomass, which is renewable organic material from plants and animals.

By moving beyond the surface level and literally digging deep, scientists at the University of California, Davis, found that compost is a key to storing carbon in semi-arid cropland soils, a strategy for offsetting CO2 emissions.