and people think of a new twist on The Local Dish the stew that's the quintessence of southern Louisiana cooking.
what the scientists call a Group of Uniform Materials Based on Organic Salts (GUMBOS) and the nanogumbos materials--particles so small that 100000 could fit across the width of a human hair.
The organic salts used to make GUMBOS are not the familiar organic sea salt products sold for cooking and other uses.
Some organic salts are common but unseen players in everyday life. Potassium bitartrate for instance forms naturally as wine ferments trolamine salicylate is an ingredient in some sunscreens
and cosmetic skin creams and monosodium glutamate is used a food additive to enhance the flavor of some foods.
In recognition of his work on GUMBOS and on the development of many innovative methods over the course of his career Warner will receive the ACS Award in Analytical Chemistry sponsored by the Battelle Memorial Institute on April 9.
He also will present an award address a tutorial on the making and potential uses of GUMBOS.
#oeshortages in availability of water suitable for drinking agriculture and industry are the common denominator in some of the great global challenges facing society in the 21st century#Shakhashiri said.#
alvarez@rice. eduthe extraordinary properties of some nanomaterials offer leapfrogging opportunities to develop next-generation applications for drinking water disinfection
Catalyzing more sugars from biomasscatalysis may initiate almost all modern industrial manufacturing processes but catalytic activity on solid surfaces is understood poorly.
This is especially true for the cellulase enzymes used to release fermentable sugars from cellulosic biomass for the production of advanced biofuels.
technique called PALM--for Photo-Activated Localization Microscopy--the researchers have found a way to improve the collective catalytic activity of enzyme cocktails that can boost the yields of sugars for making fuels.
Increasing the sugar yields from cellulosic biomass to help bring down biofuel production costs is essential for the widespread commercial adoption of these fuels.
The enzymatic breakdown of cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars has been the Achilles heel of biofuels a key economic bottleneck says chemical engineer Harvey Blanch one of the leaders of this research.
Synthesized from the sugars in the cellulosic biomass of grasses other non-food crops and agricultural waste advanced biofuels represent a sustainable nonpolluting source of transportation fuel that would also generate domestic jobs and revenue.
Unlike the simple starch-based glucose sugars in corn and other grains the sugars in cellulosic biomass are complex polysaccharides that must be extricated from a tough polymer called lignin
Because individual cellulases interact preferentially with cellulose structures based on distinct structural motifs saccharification is carried out with mixtures of cellulase enzymes--called enzyme cocktails.
The key to this exciting development is that Zhang is using the second most prevalent sugar in plants to produce this hydrogen he said.
To liberate the hydrogen Virginia Tech scientists separated a number of enzymes from their native microorganisms to create a customized enzyme cocktail that does not occur in nature.
Other processes that convert sugar into biofuels such as ethanol and butanol always have energy efficiencies of less than 100 percent resulting in an energy penalty.
but the reaction required a food source that made the process too costly for mass production.
and enter the blood often leading to the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.
and their invasiveness in a tissue culture dish doctors may be able to quickly adjust their treatment plans in response We are optimistic that the use of our Nanovelcro CTC technology will revolutionize prostate cancer treatment.
But Boal said part of that equation is a landscape where the chickens have a lot of habitat.
or other human activity the chickens just won't said use Boal. Because we've pieced up the habitat so much
because they need to move around to look for more food but there's no place to look
They are finding success using the byproducts of biofuels made from corn stover wheat straw and rice straw.
Corn ethanol's byproduct--called distiller's dried grains--can be used as cattle feed but cellulosic ethanol's byproduct--called high-lignin residue--is perceived often as less valuable.
and some cellulose in it but it's not really a feed material anymore Riding said.
and corn stover can be used for making cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol byproducts then can be added to cement to strengthen concrete.
#Decoys could blunt spread of ash-killing beetlesas the emerald ash borer ravages North american ash trees threatening the trees'very survival a team of entomologists
and engineers may have found a way to prevent the spread of the pests. Emerald ash borers (EABS) a type of beetle native to Asia first appeared in the U s. about 20 years ago.
but their larvae feed on the ash trees'sap effectively killing the trees by depriving trees of their nourishment.
Thomas C. Baker Distinguished Professor of Entomology at Penn State knew that the male EAB locates a mate by flying over an ash tree finding a female by identifying her green wings
Baker then learned that Lakhtakia was able to replicate certain biological materials such as fly eyes and butterfly wings.
The researchers were able to create a color similar to the emerald ash borer's green wings by layering different types of polymer.
and his team managed to remove the ability of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa microorganism to resist the antibiotic medication tetracycline by limiting its access to food and oxygen.
and the associated antibiotic-resistant genes that find their way into the ground water and ultimately the food supply.
By slowly starving them of nutrients and/or oxygen through successive generations they found that in the absence of tetracycline both microbes dumped the resistance plasmid though not entirely in the case of E coli.
#Omega-3-rich ground beef available soonthanks to Kansas State university research part of a healthy diet can include a hamburger rich with omega-3 fatty acids.
Jim Drouillard professor of animal sciences and industry developed a technique that enriches ground beef with omega-3 fatty acids--fatty acids that have been shown to reduce heart disease cholesterol and high blood pressure.
The enriched ground beef is named Greato Premium Ground beef and is being sold through Manhattan Kan. -based company NBO3 Technologies LLC.
It will be available Mid-february at select retailers in Buffalo N y . and expand to leading retailers and restaurants nationwide later this year.
Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish and plant oils. The U s. currently does not have recommended a daily intake of omega-3s
A quarter-pound hamburger made of the enriched ground beef has 200 milligrams of omega-3s and tastes the same as regular ground beef Drouillard said.
This makes the ground beef an alternative for people who want to add or increase their omega-3 fatty acids intake
but do not want fish or supplements to do so. As a society Americans'consumption of fish especially fish that contributes to these omega-3 fats is quite low compared to other proteins Drouillard said.
Americans do however like hamburgers. So if we can give people a hamburger that is rich in omega-3s it's an alternative form of a product that they already eat
and does not require a lifestyle change which is difficult to make. The health benefits of omega-3s are limited not to humans.
and beef cattle with an enriched diet of flaxseed and other omega-3 rich grains have fewer respiratory diseases.
The technology to enrich ground beef with omega-3s is a spinoff of flaxseed research Drouillard began in 1998.
Research showed that omega-3 levels dramatically increased in the cattle as more flaxseed was introduced into their diet.
This causes ground beef to have low levels of omega-3s. Christian Alvarado Gilis a doctoral candidate in animal sciences and industry is researching how to improve omega-3 levels in cattle diets to further enhance the fat profile of beef.
Gilis is from Chile. According to Drouillard substituting omega-3 fatty acids for saturated fats does not change the ground beef's flavor.
Knowing that there are a lot of desirable flavor characteristics associated with the fat in beef we performed tons of sensory panel tests with Kansas State university's meat science faculty
and with the department of human nutrition throughout the years to ensure that the flavor is compromised not Drouillard said.
We found that our panelists were never able to detect appreciable differences in the flavor profiles of the omega-3 rich beef
and non-omega-3 beef even though the fats are quite different. The owners of NBO3 Technologies LLC have worked closely with Drouillard in developing the concept
and after more than a decade of research on improving the enrichment process have started to distribute omega-3 enriched ground beef to retailers and food vendors.
The ground beef is part of the company's line of omega-3 enriched foods which includes pork chicken cheese milk butter and ice cream.
It will be the first ground beef to carry the U s. Food and Drug Administration's seal of approval for containing omega-3 fatty acids.
Todd Hansen CEO of NBO3 Technologies LLC said consumer response has been positive in test markets.
We have to leap two hurdles with Greato Premium Ground beef which are that the omega-3 fatty acids are really in the beef
and that it doesn't change the flavor Hansen said. Based on our consumer response we've cleared those hurdles.
We really believe in the health aspect of this product and are using the slogan 'When Every Bite Counts'to emphasize that.
In vitro laboratory tests have historically been conducted on 2-D cell cultures grown in flat petri dishes
which includes conducting the additional studies needed to apply to the U s. Food and Drug Administration to begin studies in human patients.
In a sense natural gas would become a larger slice of the energy pie. â#¢Abundant less expensive natural gas would lower energy prices across the board leading people to use more energy overall.
Consequently the entire energy pie gets bigger. â#¢The main component of natural gas methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
#Automated imaging system looks underground to help improve cropsplant scientists are working to improve important food crops such as rice maize
and beans to meet the food needs of a growing world population. However boosting crop output will require improving more than
Root systems are essential to gathering water and nutrients but understanding what's happening in these unseen parts of the plants has depended until now mostly on lab studies and subjective field measurements.
Beyond improving food crops the technique could also help improve plants grown for energy production materials and other purposes.
The overall goal is to develop improved plants that can feed increasing numbers of people
and how they provide us with food and alternative materials. This imaging technique provides data needed to accomplish this.
This will enable the launch of preventive measures at an earlier stage than before affecting the process of a cow contracting a disease and shortening the recovery time.
The milk extracted from the cow is also unsuitable for the food chain causing substantial loss due to treatment with antibiotics
Early detection of the pest in traps such as ours can help in coordinating management strategies to slow its spread
of which are aggressive feeders on oak trees in Central europe and might threaten North american oaks in urban
and area of a fire's spread can be predicted days in advance. That will open doors to scientific advances in everything from firefighting technologies to firefighting resource logistics
and spread but they can come back there on day two and it will light and spread he says.
This situation is termed marginal burning. I began to study why the prescribed fire spreads. Under what conditions does it spread
We found that one of the most sensitive elements that is required for fire to spread is wind
when to germinate grow make food flower and even age. Like eyes the phytochrome is a light sensor that converts sunlight into chemical signals to get these jobs done.
and consequently make the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe says Vierstra. Vierstra and his team found that by making specific changes to the light sensor they can dupe it into staying in its active state longer.
#New persimmon milkshake with high antioxidant potential created by scientistsa team of researchers of the Universitat Politã cnica de Valã ncia have made a new persimmon milkshake with high antioxidant potential.
The key to making a drink with these properties is used a technique in fruit processing:
and produces a new food with high nutritional value. HHP is a nonthermal technology that keeps the quality attributes of the persimmon
and tannins increasing its antioxidant potential explains Amparo Quiles researcher at the Group of Microstructure and Food Chemistry of the Universitat Politã cnica de Valã ncia.
and even better than those made using other technniques like pasteurization. Benefits of carotenoidswhatâ's more according to the researchers the inclusion of carotenoids in a diet can help to reduce risk of developing diseases such as certain types of cancer heart disease or damage to vision especially those related to an aging population.
Economic profitbesides nutritional and functional benefits the research developed in the UPV laboratories is particularly interesting to the industry from an economic point of view
The work by researchers of the UPV has been published in Food & Function journal. Story Source:
Researchers are continuing that tradition by designing robots to work in a deep-space habitat tending gardens and growing food for astronaut explorers.
and a fluid delivery system that can provide fresh water or water with nutrients. Larsen explains that the system could be operated remotely
If an astronaut requests tomatoes for a salad the system decides which specific plants have the ripest tomatoes
The team's project will focus on designing a Deployable Greenhouse for Food Production for deep-space missions.
#which is designed to apply basic research on plants to sustainable food and biofuel production. â#oeour research is aimed at understanding the fundamental mechanisms
Working in a tiny mustard plant called Arabidopsis which is used as a genetic model and shares many of the same genes as other plants and crops he and his team of biologists discovered that the proteins encoded by the four genes they discovered repress the development of stomata at elevated CO2 levels.
#Reorganization of crop production, trade could save Chinas water supplychina's rapid socioeconomic growth continues to tax national water resources--especially in the agricultural sector--due to increasing demands for food.
and importing food commodities from other provinces or nations instead could help China conserve more water.
Through food trade these water resources are transferred across borders in what's called a virtual water trade.
and consumption of water-intensive food continues to boom. While growing crops in the wetter regions would be more water efficient land in those places is either urban or industrial or difficult geographically (mountainous terrain etc.
and Japan--combined a hydrological model with domestic and international trade simulations to determine the efficiency of China's food trade in terms of water use as well as the role of foreign trade in this virtual water-trade system.
Is there a way to reduce China's water use without decreasing national food security? The researchers looked at domestic and international trade of corn rice soy
and wheat along with such livestock products as ruminant (animals like cattle goats and sheep that subsist on plant matter) pork and poultry.
These products accounted for 93 percent of China's domestic food supply in 2005 the last year with available data.
The researchers combined this information with water use across provinces--from both rainfall and irrigation sources--and determined how much water was transferred between provinces through food trade.
To obtain estimates of these water transfers the researchers analyzed how much food was traded between provinces
and the water amount needed to produce each type of food. They determined the amount of water transferred in kilograms by multiplying the traded volume of a specific food item by the water used to produce a unit of this item (the item's virtual water content) in the exporting province.
The researchers found that irrigation accounts for about 25 percent of water used to produce crops
and for 16 percent of water used in meat production in China. However those numbers skyrocket in Xinjiang Ningxia and Inner Mongolia where irrigation water is used predominantly for crop production (85 percent 69 percent and 49 percent respectively.
These numbers indicate that such provinces see little rainfall during the growing season and rely heavily on sometimes nonrenewable water resources such as groundwater.
Finally the researchers investigated whether Chinese food trade leads to global water savings. They found that domestic corn trade leads to significant losses of irrigation water resources (such as rivers reservoirs and groundwater.
Policies which encourage such adjustments can help conserve water while maintaining China's food security. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Princeton university Woodrow wilson School of Public and International affairs. Note:
and barley to a greater number of foodsnew technologies may help food manufacturers more broadly utilize the many healthful benefits of oats
and barley in a greater range of food products according to a June 24 panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expoâ in New orleans. Oats and barley are ancient food
and that they moderate blood glucose concentrations following a meal according to a presentation by Susan M. Toth Phd research scientist Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
In addition there is also research to support that oat and barley foods increase satiety after meals a sensation of feeling full after meals
and noodles to beverages and flat bread said Bo Jiang Phd professor of food science and executive director of the State Laboratory of Food Science and Technology at Jiangnan University in China.
Oats are now the third largest food staple in China growing in popularity as that country deals with rising rates of cancer diabetes heart disease and intestinal issues.
In the U s. barley and oats are used primarily for animal feed since they are difficult to break down
or fractionalize into edible and easy to use food components said Keshun Liu Phd research chemist United states Department of agriculture (USDA) National Small Grains and Potato Germplan Research Unit.
Food uses of barley and oats are limited rather due to lack of palatability of whole grain foods
and the functionality of milled flour from these grains and a poor public image said Liu.
And yet recent discoveries of the varied health benefits of oats and barley have spurred food scientists to develop new
and more efficient methods of breaking down the components and nutrients in these grains to make oats
and barley easier and more appealing to eat and for use as food additives. If we can improve the processing of barley
or oats into value-added fractions enriched with nutrients some with commercial success said Liu. The USDA has developed improved dry
However added Liu food scientists and engineers have more work to do to commercialize these methods
The above story is provided based on materials by Institute of Food Technologists (IFT. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length g
The porous carbon powder he settled on has massive surface area and turns the neat trick of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into solid polymer chains that nestle in the pores.
At stake the study emphasizes are the futures of food production our climate and water security.
The approach would also improve soil's ability to retain nutrients and water making it beneficial for additional reasons.
Together with Neiker-Tecnalia the public body that reports to the Sub-Ministry for Agriculture Fisheries and Food Policy of the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community the following are part of this project:
Teagasc-The Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Ireland) IRSTEA (France) INTIA (Navarre) the University of Glasgow Caledonian (Scotland) and the Higher Institute for Agronomy (Portugal.
it will enable the loss in nutrients (N P K Cu Zn) of the farm to be reduced
#Simple changes to homework improved student learninga new study offers evidence that simple and inexpensive changes to existing courses can help students learn more effectively.
The study from Rice university and Duke university found that making a few changes to homework assignments in an upper-level undergraduate engineering course at Rice led to improved scores on exams.
and systems engineering course where the experiment took place. These simple changes produced a larger effect than the average improvement for classroom interventions that require a complete overhaul of curricula and/or teaching methods.
and death--food and water tainted with pathogens from fecal matter results in the deaths of roughly 700000 children each year.
and it can be used in agricultural areas to hold in nutrients and bring more stability to the soils.
and increase the availability of plant nutrients he said. Additionally the biochar can be burned as charcoal
Vertimass anticipates that the ORNL technology will be in demand by existing corn-based ethanol production plants as well as new refineries coming online that aim to convert non-food crops such as switchgrass
poplar wood and corn stover into biofuels. The technology could also supply a source of renewable jet fuel required by recent European union aviation emission regulations.
Preliminary ORNL analysis in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado shows the catalytic technology could be retrofitted into existing bio-alcohol refineries at various stages of ethanol purification.
Bioethanol which is made from the remains of plants after other parts have been used as food or other agricultural products and therefore termed second generation is seen as a strong potential substitute candidate
Corn cubs and sugar canes are in fact plant parts that can also be used directly as food so there is a great public resistance to accept producing this kind of bioethanol.
which cannot be used for food. The goal is to produce bioethanol from cellulose. Cellulose is very difficult to break down
and therefore cannot directly be used as a food source. Cellulose is found everywhere in nature in rich quantities for example in the stems of the corn plant.
and keep the corn cubs for food we have come a long way says Per Morgen professor at the Institute of Physics Chemistry and Pharmacy University of Southern Denmark.
There are on the market various patented enzymes that can do the job and break down cellulose into sugar
and sheep where they facilitate the digestion of feed consumed in the diet. Efforts to control methanogens in specific ways may improve feed utilization
and enhance the production of meat and milk researchers say. Methanogens are additionally a factor in human nutrition.
The organisms live in the large intestine where they enhance the breakdown of food. Some have proposed that restricting this activity of methanogens could help alleviate obesity.
The team investigated an ancient type of methanogen Methanocaldococcus jannaschii which lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents
or volcanoes where environmental conditions mimic those that existed on the early Earth. They found that the protein thioredoxin which plays a major role in contemporary photosynthesis could repair many of the organism's proteins damaged by oxygen.
Glossophaga soricina a nectar bat feeding on the flowers of a banana plant. Nectar feeding bats comprised one of three evolutionary optima for mechanical advantage among New world Leaf-nosed bats.
Photo credit: Dr. Beth Clare Queen Mary University. The key finding is that in a highly diverse group--New world Leaf-nosed bats--selection for mechanical advantage has shaped three distinct optimal skull shapes that correspond to feeding niches Dr. Dá
These bats of which there are almost 200 species eat a variety of foods including insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood.
Their skulls mirror the variety of their diets--bats with long and narrow snouts eat nectar;
snouts of species that eat other foods are intermediate in shape. The team's approach to identifying natural selection for mechanical function combined both evolutionary and engineering analyses.
and engineering (dark blue) models for the base model of the omnivorous bat Carollia perspicillata (B) and the morphed models for the nectar-feeding Glossophaga soricina (A)
and the specialized fig-eating Short-faced bat Centurio senex (C). They then analyzed the models to determine structural strength and mechanical advantage--the efficiency and hardness of the bats'bite.
Nectar feeders have very low mechanical advantage--a trade-off for having long narrow snouts that fit into the flowers in
which they find nectar. Morphological diversity among New world Leaf nosed bats with different diets. Nectar:
A) Platalina genovensium B) Glossophaga soricina; generalists: C) Carollia perspicillata D) Vampyrum spectrum; fig-eating frugivores:
E) Artibeus jamaicensis F) Chiroderma villosum; and short-faced bats: G) Phyllops falcatus H) Centurio senex.
Crania are shown not to scale. This means that even though these bats have been diverging for millions of years we can still find the signatures of natural selection in their current diversity says Dr. Dá
and flowers as well as human-made materials such as a sheet of tissue paper lying in a dish of water.
They set out to tackle this by examining almost 200 species of New world leaf-nosed bats that exploit many different food niches:
Insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood. The bats'skulls of today reflect this dietary diversity.
Species with long narrow snouts eat nectar while short-faced bats have exceptionally short wide palates for eating hard fruits.
Species that eat other foods have shaped snouts somewhere in between. Dumont explains further We knew diet was associated with those things
but there was no evidence that natural selection acted to make those changes in the skull. The engineering model allowed us to identify the biomechanical functions that natural selection worked on.
One was the long narrow snout of nectar feeders the second was the extremely short and wide snout of short-faced bats
Nectar feeders have very low mechanical advantage which is a trade-off for having long narrow snouts that fit into the flowers in
which they find nectar. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
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