Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Similar to the “law of diminishing returns in economics,” biology inevitably experiences a leveling off of microbial growth at some point, even as available nutrients rise. A new study reformulates an 80-year-old equation for calculating microbial growth by combining it with Leibig’s Law of Minimums, which describes how plant growth can be limited by resources. According to the researchers, this lays the groundwork for “universal laws of growth” that could be a huge boon to industries or green technologies that rely on microbial production. Typically, scientists have tried to understand this biological limit through singular nutrients or biochemical reactions. “Our work lays the groundwork for universal laws of growth,” Yamagishi said in a press statement.