Brazilian scientists have announced a groundbreaking discovery: coffee beans contain proteins capable of killing insects, which could be developed into a new generation of insecticides to protect food crops.
Researchers tested these coffee proteins on cowpea weevil larvae and found that even small amounts of the proteins were able to rapidly kill about half of the insects.
In the future, scientists expect it may be possible to insert the genes that control these insecticidal proteins into key food crops such as cereals, allowing the plants to produce their own natural insect-killing compounds.