Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: food

Drought tolerance mechanisms across C3 and C3–C4 intermediate photosynthetic types revealed by physiological and gene expression profiling

Abiotic stress, particularly drought, significantly reduces crop yields and threatens global agricultural sustainability. This study investigated drought and recovery responses in four plant species with contrasting photosynthetic types: Triticum aestivum (C3), Helianthus annuus (C3), Chenopodium album (intermediate-C4), and Alternanthera brasiliana (C4-like). Drought markedly reduced plant fresh biomass (up to 80% in H. annuus) and relative water content, particularly in C. album. Oxidative damage intensified, with H. annuus showing the greatest increase in hydrogen peroxide (258%) and C. album exhibiting the highest malondialdehyde accumulation (284%). Antioxidant enzymes were strongly activated; catalase activity increased dramatically in C. album (837%) and H. annuus (630%).

Nature-inspired ‘POMbranes’ could transform water recycling in textile and pharma industries

Scientists have collaborated to develop a new class of highly precise filtration membranes. The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could significantly reduce energy consumption and enable large-scale water reuse in industry. The team includes researchers from the CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences.

Everyday industrial processes, like purifying medicines, cleaning textile dyes, and processing food, rely on “separations.” Currently, these processes are incredibly energy-hungry, accounting for nearly 40% to 50% of all global industrial energy use. Most factories still use old-fashioned methods like distillation and evaporation to separate ingredients, which are expensive and leave a heavy carbon footprint.

Although membrane-based technologies are considered cleaner, most polymer membranes currently used in industry have irregularly sized pores that tend to degrade over time, limiting their effectiveness. Thus, they lack the precision and long-term stability needed for demanding industrial applications.

AI-driven ultrafast spectrometer-on-a-chip advances real-time sensing

For decades, the ability to visualize the chemical composition of materials, whether for diagnosing a disease, assessing food quality, or analyzing pollution, depended on large, expensive laboratory instruments called spectrometers. These devices work by taking light, spreading it out into a rainbow using a prism or grating, and measuring the intensity of each color. The problem is that spreading light requires a long physical path, making the device inherently bulky.

A recent study from the University of California Davis (UC Davis), reported in Advanced Photonics, tackles the challenge of miniaturization, aiming to shrink a lab-grade spectrometer down to the size of a grain of sand, a tiny spectrometer-on-a-chip that can be integrated into portable devices. The traditional approach of spatially spreading light is abandoned in favor of a reconstructive method.

Instead of physically separating each color, the new chip uses only 16 distinct silicon detectors, each engineered to respond slightly differently to incoming light. This is analogous to giving a handful of specialized sensors a mixed drink, with each sensor sampling a different aspect of the drink. The key to deciphering the original recipe is the second part of the invention: artificial intelligence (AI).

The aggressive use of antibiotics could fuel mood disorders and anxiety

Antibiotics (ABs) are among the most used pharmaceutical drugs worldwide, as they are currently the most effective medicines for the treatment of bacterial infections. An excessive use of these drugs, however, can damage the gut microbiota, the population of microorganisms living in the intestines that help us to digest food.

Bacteria and other microorganisms in the gut are known to also communicate with the brain via a communication pathway that is referred to as the gut-brain axis. Recent research suggests that some gut bacteria help to reduce inflammation and support the healthy functioning of the brain.

Researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University have carried out a study exploring the possibility that the effects of ABs on gut bacteria could also facilitate the development of mental health disorders, particularly increasing anxiety. Their findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that ABs do in fact damage gut bacteria that help regulate mood, linking their excessive use with higher levels of anxiety.

How scientists are turning thyme into precision medicine

Thyme extract is packed with health-promoting compounds, but it is difficult to control and easy to waste. Researchers created a new technique that traps tiny amounts of the extract inside microscopic capsules, preventing evaporation and irritation. The method delivers consistent nanodoses and could eventually be used in medicines or food products. It may also work for many other natural extracts.

Exploring metabolic noise opens new paths to better biomanufacturing

Much like humans, microbial organisms can be fickle in their productivity. One moment they’re cranking out useful chemicals in vast fermentation tanks, metabolizing feed to make products from pharmaceuticals and supplements to biodegradable plastics or fuels, and the next, they inexplicably go on strike.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have found the source of the fluctuating metabolic activity in microorganisms and developed tools to keep every microbial cell at peak productivity during biomanufacturing.

The work, published in Nature Communications, tracks hundreds of E. coli cells as they produce a yellow food pigment—betaxanthin—while growing, dividing and carrying out normal metabolic activities.

Physics of foam strangely resembles AI training

Foams are everywhere: soap suds, shaving cream, whipped toppings and food emulsions like mayonnaise. For decades, scientists believed that foams behave like glass, their microscopic components trapped in static, disordered configurations.

Now, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that foams actually flow ceaselessly inside while holding their external shape. More strangely, from a mathematical perspective, this internal motion resembles the process of deep learning, the method typically used to train modern AI systems.

The discovery could hint that learning, in a broad mathematical sense, may be a common organizing principle across physical, biological and computational systems, and provide a conceptual foundation for future efforts to design adaptive materials. The insight could also shed new light on biological structures that continuously rearrange themselves, like the scaffolding in living cells.

This Common Blood Pressure Drug Boosts Lifespan And Slows Aging in Animals

The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been found to slow aging in worms – an effect that, if it translates to humans, could one day help us live longer and stay healthier in old age.

Rilmenidine appears to mimic the effects of caloric restriction on a cellular level, and reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition has been shown to extend lifespans in several animal models.

Whether this translates to human biology, or is a potential risk to our health, is a topic of ongoing debate. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the costs of extreme calorie cutting could lead to new ways to improve health in old age.

/* */