Alva Review-Courier -

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — There are nearly 7.5 billion people on Earth and more are being born every second. In order to feed all of us, researchers at University of Idaho are looking at ways to keep our existing crops upright.

When Daniel Robertson was a kid growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, he got chased off by farmers once or twice for playing in their fields.

"We'd go out there and we'd make little forts and the stalks had fallen down. We'd kind of cut them and make little doorways to come into our fort," Robertson says.

But it wasn't until he was an adult when he realized that the fallen...