Food – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Nov 14
2022

Beer Ingredient May Inhibit Clumping of Alzheimer’s Protein

Cheers!

𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐥𝐳𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝘽𝙚𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙩, 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙨 𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙫𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 “𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙮” 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙝 𝙗𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙩𝙨. 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝘼𝘾𝙎 𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙉𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙥 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣, 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙖𝙗 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙨, 𝙞𝙣𝙝𝙞𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙡𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙨, 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙡𝙯𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧’𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 (𝘼𝘿).

Beer is one of the oldest and most popular beverages in the world, with some people loving and others hating the distinct, bitter taste of the hops used to flavor its many varieties. But an especially “hoppy” brew might have unique health benefits. Recent research published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience reports that chemicals extracted from hop flowers can, in lab dishes, inhibit the clumping of amyloid beta proteins, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

AD is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease, often marked by memory loss and personality changes in older adults. Part of the difficulty in treating the disease is the time lag between the start of underlying biochemical processes and the onset of symptoms, with several years separating them. This means that irreversible damage to the nervous system occurs before one even realizes they may have the disease. Accordingly, preventative strategies and therapeutics that can intervene before symptoms appear are of increasing interest.

One of these strategies involves “nutraceuticals,” or foods that have some type of medicinal or nutritional function. The hop flowers used to flavor beers have been explored as one of these potential nutraceuticals, with previous studies suggesting that the plant could interfere with the accumulation of amyloid beta proteins associated with AD. So, Cristina Airoldi, Alessandro Palmioli and colleagues wanted to investigate which chemical compounds in hops had this effect.

Continue reading “Beer Ingredient May Inhibit Clumping of Alzheimer’s Protein” | >

Nov 13
2022

Uganda’s New Satellite Contains Equipment to 3D Print Human Tissue in Orbit

With the help of NASA and Japan, Uganda has officially become a spacefaring nation — and its newly-launched PearlAfricaSat-1 craft has some pretty nifty tech onboard.

As the Uganda-based Nile Post reports, the satellite launched out of NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport facility in Virginia on the morning of November 7 will not only provide important agricultural and security monitoring features for the developing nation, but will also conduct experiments involving the 3D printing of human tissue.

Per the Ugandan news site, the tissues printed on PearlAfricaSat-1 will be used in research into the effects microgravity has on ovary function — and as Quartz notes in its write-up of the NASA and Japan-supported mission, the microgravity aspect of the experiments is key because “bioprinting” human organs is difficult to achieve with Earth’s gravity.

Nov 13
2022

AI grain assessment sows seeds for better returns

South Australian artificial intelligence (AI) company GoMicro is rolling out its new grain assessment technology in Australia, paving the way towards more consistent quality controls and stable grain and pulse prices.

Based at Flinders University’s high-tech New Venture Institute (NVI) at Tonsley Innovation District in Clovelly Park, Adelaide, GoMicro CEO Dr. Sivam Krish says the multi-grain assessor gives growers and domestic and export markets a quick and better way to grade crops, accurately testing more than 1,200 grains in one sample—compared to the existing scanner-based method which assesses about 200 well-separated grains at a time.

“GoMicro relies on the excellent quality of phone cameras and Amazon web services to deliver low-cost, high-precision quality grain and other produce assessments to farmers worldwide,” says Dr. Krish.

Nov 10
2022

Divers Growing Veggies in Underwater Greenhouses

He’s hoping that his plastic orbs, which rest between 15 and 36 feet below the ocean’s surface and hold about 528 gallons of air, will provide a water-conserving, overall sustainable alternative to on-land agricultural operations, particularly helping dry coastal nations grow more food without having to desalinate more water — a costly and resource-intensive process. The plants require just a small bit of starter water, but from there, they’re self-sustaining. Sunlight heats the submerged spheres, which contain humid air that naturally condenses into freshwater on the walls and drips back into the soil.

“Since the underwater farm needs an external source of water only for the start-up of plants growing,” reads the company’s site, “our system could be useful for those locations far from the bodies of water available.”

Nov 7
2022

A Rare Phenomenon of Reversible Brain Shrinkage

European moles shrink their brains by 11% before the winter and grow them again by 4% by the summer.

European moles face an existential crisis in the depths of winter. Their high-limit mammal metabolisms need more food than is available during the coldest months. Instead of migrating or hibernating to deal with the seasonal challenge, moles have devised an unexpected energy-saving strategy: shrinking their brains.

In a recent study, a group from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior headed by Dina Dechmann found that European moles shrink their brains by 11% before the winter and grow them back by 4% by summer. They are a new group of mammals known for reversibly shrinking their brains through a process known as Dehnel’s phenomenon.

Nov 6
2022

Eggs found to remove salt and microplastics from seawater

Other proteins work as well meaning the process can be scaled without interfering with food supplies.

Researchers at Princeton Engineering have found that egg whites can be used to cheaply remove salt and microplastics from seawater, according to a press release by the institution published on Thursday.

The scientists used the food substance to create an aerogel, a lightweight and porous material that can be used in many types of applications, including water filtration, energy storage, and sound and thermal insulation.

Princeton scientists discovered that egg whites can create a filtration process that requires only gravity to operate and wastes no water. They are now looking for other uses for the substance.

Nov 4
2022

Scientists create edible drone built of rice cakes and gelatin that can save lives

The size of the wing, made of compressed puffed rice, depends on the recipient’s nutrition requirements.

The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Kyoto last week saw an ingenious creation presented by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. Their paper described a drone made from rice cakes.

Mind you, this was no light matter. Titled ‘Towards Edible Drones for Rescue Missions: Design and Flight of Nutritional Wings,’ by Bokeon Kwak, Jun Shintake, Lu Zhang, and Dario Floreano from EPFL, the paper detailed a drone that could “boost its payload of food from 30 percent to 50 percent of its mass”, according to a release.

Nov 4
2022

Artificial intelligence makes enzyme engineering easy

You can’t move a pharmaceutical scientist from a lab to a kitchen and expect the same research output. Enzymes behave exactly the same: They are dependent upon a specific environment. But now, in a study recently published in ACS Synthetic Biology, researchers from Osaka University have imparted an analogous level of adaptability to enzymes, a goal that has remained elusive for over 30 years.

Enzymes perform impressive functions, enabled by the unique arrangement of their constituent amino acids, but usually only within a specific cellular environment. When you change the cellular environment, the enzyme rarely functions well—if at all. Thus, a long-standing research goal has been to retain or even improve upon the function of enzymes in different environments; for example, conditions that are favorable for biofuel production. Traditionally, such work has involved extensive experimental trial-and-error that might have little assurance of achieving an optimal result.

Artificial intelligence (a computer-based tool) can minimize this trial-and-error, but still relies on experimentally obtained crystal structures of enzymes—which can be unavailable or not especially useful. Thus, “the pertinent amino acids one should mutate in the enzyme might be only best-guesses,” says Teppei Niide, co-senior author. “To solve this problem, we devised a methodology of ranking amino acids that depends only on the widely available amino acid sequence of analogous enzymes from other living species.”

Nov 3
2022

Glial Cells Eating of Synapses May Enhance Learning and Memory

Summary: Bergmann glial cell synaptic engulfing in the cerebellum was enhanced during motor learning in mice.

Source: Tohoku University.

Tohoku University researchers have shown that Bergmann glial cells, astrocyte-like cells in the cerebellum, ‘eat’ their neighboring neuronal elements within healthy living brain tissue.

Nov 3
2022

Most US pet food contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’, study finds

“This represents a significant source of PFAS in the home environment,” said Sydney Evans, a science analyst with the EWG.

PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 12,000 compounds used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They’re called “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, accumulating in humans and animals. PFAS are linked to a range of serious health problems like cancer, birth defects, kidney disease and liver disease.

The chemicals are likely used in pet food bags to make them repel grease. For cats, the highest levels were detected in the Meow Mix Tender Centers salmon and chicken flavors dry cat food, at more than 600 parts per million (ppm). Purina Cat Chow Complete chicken showed over 350 ppm, while Blue Buffalo, Iams and Rachael Ray Nutrish all had levels of less than 100 ppm.