Narrator: This is Science Today. When the city of Phoenix was awarded a baseball franchise, they came to agricultural expert Steve Cockerham of the University of California, Riverside. Since baseball is played in summer, Phoenix had to have a domed stadium -- but they didn't want artificial turf.

Cockerham: So they would be interested in air conditioning this building, so to speak, but they wanted natural grass. And so they wanted to know if it was possible to put natural grass in there and if it was, then how would we go about it.

Narrator: The answer: design a better grass. Cockerham and his fellow researchers invented an indoor natural grass that can tolerate the low amount of sunlight available in a domed stadium, yet still be thick and tough enough to stand up to pro baseball.

Cockerham: This is a retractable roof stadium, and yeah, we've shown that it's possible -- that the technology and the development of architecture, stadium architecture, and grasses and care of grasses have all kind of come together at the right time for this to be possible.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.