$10 million USDA grant to fuel economic resilience and sustainability in Eastern US forests

Grant and Award Announcement

PURDUE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PURDUE UNDERGRADUATE AVERY FESS WORKS IN THE FIELD WITH SONGLIN FEI, PROFESSOR OF FORESTRY AND NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE DEAN’S CHAIR OF REMOTE SENSING. AMONG THE GOALS OF A $10 MILLION USDA PROJECT THAT FEI LEADS IS TRAINING STUDENTS IN DIGITAL FORESTRY AND DEVELOPING DIGITAL TOOLS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC RESILIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN EASTERN U.S. FORESTS. view more 

CREDIT: PURDUE UNIVERSITY PHOTO/TOM CAMPBELL

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a $10 million grant to Purdue University to help landowners and stakeholders better adapt their forests to increasingly complicated economic and climate conditions in the Eastern U.S.

About five million small, private landowners control just over half the acreage of forests in the Eastern U.S. This contrasts with Western U.S. forests, which are mostly publicly owned. Purdue and its project partners—the University of Georgia, the University of Maine and the U.S. Forest Service—aim to improve the management of 15 million acres of those forests, an area nearly as large as the state of West Virginia.

The project encompasses the northern hardwood forest in the Northeast, the central hardwood region, and the southern pine and mixed hardwood.

“We will provide the digital tools that allow rapid response and precision management to improve forest health,” said Songlin Fei, a professor of forestry and natural resources and the Dean’s Chair of Remote Sensing at Purdue.

Called PERSEUS (Promoting Economic Resilience and Sustainability of the Eastern U.S. Forests), the project invokes the hero of Greek mythology who slew the fearsomely snake-haired Gorgon Medusa. In its modern incarnation, PERSEUS will work to protect forestry’s many benefits, which include timber and fiber production along with climate mitigation. Their long-term sustainability, however, faces threats from climate change, evolving markets and land-use changes.

“The high interest in carbon has renewed interest in forest, while complicating their overall management,” said Aaron Weiskittel, the Irving Chair of Forest Ecosystem Management at the University of Maine. “PERSEUS will work to provide a more holistic approach to forest management, while giving landowners new tools to guide decision-making.”

Partner institutions will add to the depth of the research, applying digital tools and artificial intelligence to a variety of areas and forest types. Working together, the team will explore ways to merge data collected from drones, satellites and other sources in an AI environment to automate forest inventories. They will also help build systems to analyze ecosystem services provided by forests, as well as the environmental footprint of the forestry supply chain.

“We need to provide research, extension and outreach products to benefit private forest landowners of the Eastern United States,” said Pete Bettinger, the project lead at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. “And we need to design systems that improve the efficiency of data development and the accessibility of information related to alternative management options.”

PERSEUS is part of Purdue’s cross-disciplinary Center for Digital Forestry, which includes faculty members from the colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Science and Liberal Arts; Purdue Libraries; and the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. As one of the five strategic investments in Purdue’s Next Moves, the center leverages digital technology and multidisciplinary expertise to measure, monitor and manage urban and rural forests to maximize social, economic and ecological benefits.

PERSEUS will guide landowner decision-making via a digital framework for visually representing current and future forest trends so that landowners will have data upon which to base their decisions.

“You could manage the same patch of forest for timber, carbon, wildlife or for something else.  Opportunities also come and go,” said Fei, who also directs the Center for Digital Forestry.

“We will provide different economic and environmentally friendly scenarios about the most beneficial way of managing it. This modeling approach is not just on your 20 or 50 acres. It’s put into context of the broader region.”

If too many landowners in an area begin planting loblolly pine or walnut trees, for example, that could reduce the profitability of their operations.

PERSEUS will pursue engaged climate-smart management to ensure the project’s success.

“Any on-the-ground impact requires stakeholder involvement and adoption of the practices and tools we develop. That is why we will use a co-production model, meaning that we will design tools and practices that are co-conceived by and acceptable to landowners but are also economical and environmentally friendly,” Fei said.

The project also will enhance the Center for Digital Forestry’s ongoing efforts to produce a digitally competent next-generation workforce.

“This is the future,” Fei said. “If the U.S. agricultural sector wants to stay competitive, we will need to put a lot of energy into this area.”

Upcoming precision livestock farming conference to focus on field implementation

Producers offered discounted registration, vendor interactions

Meeting Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE

 

IMAGE: THE 2023 U.S. PRECISION LIVESTOCK FARMING CONFERENCE WILL BE MAY 21-24, 2023, AT THE UT CONFERENCE CENTER IN KNOXVILLE. IMAGE COURTESY UTIA. view more 

CREDIT: UTIA

Livestock producers are encouraged to learn first hand about advances in precision livestock farming (PLF) by attending the second U.S. Precision Livestock Conference. Hosted by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, the conference will be held in Knoxville and the agenda includes seminars, demonstrations, interaction with PLF providers and site tours.

Precision Livestock Farming involves the real-time monitoring of images, sounds and other biological, physiological and environmental parameters to assess and improve individual animal health and well-being within herd or flock production systems.

The conference will be May 21-24, 2023, at the UT Conference Center in Knoxville. The event will occur in-person, but participants may also choose to attend virtually.

In-person attendees will be treated to an optional tour of UTIA’s Johnson Research and Teaching Unit (JRTU) and the UT East Tennessee AgResearch Little River Animal and Environmental Unit. Participants will tour the animal research facility that houses an active poultry PLF research program. This tour will exhibit ongoing precision poultry research focused on animal management, environmental control and housing.  At “Little River,” participants will visit UT’s new, state-of-the-art dairy farm, nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Little River unit is home to UT’s new Lely robotic milking systems. These systems run in parallel with conventional milkers, stimulating a wide range of research that can directly assess the value of PLF systems.

Attendees to the 2023 U.S. Precision Livestock Conference will exchange research discoveries, and the conference will foster collaboration among engineers, animal scientists, veterinarians, ethologists and other professionals as well as producers. UT AgResearch has formalized a PLF initiative to positively impact livestock and poultry production in Tennessee, the U.S. and beyond; and UT PLF Program Coordinator Robert Burns, distinguished professor of biosystems engineering, is serving as the conference chair. Yang Zhao, assistant professor of animal science, is conference proceedings chair, and Tami Brown-Brandl, professor of biological systems engineering a the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is the program chair.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Sensors and Sensing in PLF 
• Data Management and Algorithm Development  
• Measuring, Modeling and Managing of Dynamic Responses 
• Societal Impacts of PLF

Commercial PLF systems and field application experiences will also be shared.

An opportunity for vendors to interact with attendees is also on the agenda. The opportunity to intereact with PLF providers will continue throughout the event in the main meeting foyer where breaks and receptions will be held.

For more information about the conference, including registration, please visit plf.tennessee.wedu/usplf2023/. Information about sponsorships and participating as a PLF vendor can be found online or by contacting Robert Burns at rburns@utk.edu.

The first U.S. Precision Livestock Conference was held in 2018 in Omaha, Nebraska.

Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia.tennessee.edu.

MEN ARE SNOWFLAKES

On-demand male contraceptive shows promise in preclinical study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

An experimental contraceptive drug developed by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators temporarily stops sperm in their tracks and prevents pregnancies in preclinical models. The study, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 14, demonstrates that an on-demand male contraceptive is possible.

The discovery could be a "game-changer" for contraception, according to the study’s co-senior authors Dr. Jochen Buck and Dr. Lonny Levin, who are professors of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Drs. Buck and Levin noted that condoms, which have existed for about 2000 years, and vasectomies have been men's only options to date. Research on male oral contraceptives has stalled, partly because potential contraceptives for men must clear a much higher bar for safety and side effects, Dr. Levin said. Because men don't bear the risks associated with carrying a pregnancy, he explained, the field assumes men will have a low tolerance for potential contraceptive side effects.

Drs. Buck and Levin did not initially set out to find a male contraceptive. They were friends and colleagues with complementary skill sets. But when Dr. Levin challenged Dr. Buck to isolate an important cellular signaling protein called soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC) that had long eluded biochemists, Dr. Buck couldn't resist. It took him two years. Drs. Buck and Levin then shifted their research focus to studying sAC and eventually merged their laboratories. 

The team discovered that mice genetically engineered to lack sAC are infertile. Then in 2018, Dr. Melanie Balbach, a postdoctoral associate in their lab, made an exciting discovery while working on sAC inhibitors as a possible treatment for an eye condition. She found that mice that were given a drug that inactivates sAC produce sperm that cannot propel themselves forward. The team was reassured that sAC inhibition might be a safe contraceptive option by another team’s report that men who lacked the gene encoding sAC were infertile but otherwise healthy.

The new Nature Communications study demonstrate that a single dose of a sAC inhibitor called TDI-11861 immobilizes mice sperm for up to two and half hours and that the effects persist in the female reproductive tract after mating. After three hours, some sperm begin regaining motility; by 24 hours, nearly all sperm have recovered normal movement.

TDI-11861-treated male mice paired with female mice exhibited normal mating behavior but did not impregnate females despite 52 different mating attempts. Male mice treated with an inactive control substance, by contrast, impregnated almost one-third of their mates.

"Our inhibitor works within 30 minutes to an hour," Dr. Balbach said. "Every other experimental hormonal or nonhormonal male contraceptive takes weeks to bring sperm count down or render them unable to fertilize eggs."

Additionally, Dr. Balbach noted that it takes weeks to reverse the effects of other hormonal and nonhormonal male contraceptives in development. She said that since sAC inhibitors wear off within hours, and men would take it only when, and as often, as needed, they could allow men to make day-to-day decisions about their fertility.

Drs. Balbach and Levin noted that it took substantial medicinal chemistry work to develop TDI-11861, and this was accomplished in partnership with the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (TDI). The TDI works with investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and The Rockefeller University to expedite early-stage drug discovery.

"This highly productive collaboration between TDI and the Buck/Levin lab clearly illustrates the power of partnering pharma-trained drug discovery scientists with academic innovators," said Dr. Peter Meinke, Sanders Director of the TDI.

The Buck/Levin lab’s collaboration with TDI was fostered and nurtured by Weill Cornell Medicine Enterprise Innovation, the office that accelerates the translation and commercialization of technologies arising from research conducted by Weill Cornell faculty and trainees. In addition, Enterprise Innovation is leading the out-licensing of this discovery to their start-up company.

“The team is already working on making sAC inhibitors better suited for use in humans,” Dr. Levin said. Drs. Buck and Levin launched Sacyl Pharmaceuticals with colleague Dr. Gregory Kopf, who serves as the company's Chief Scientific Officer.

The next step for the team is repeating their experiments in a different preclinical model. These experiments would lay the groundwork for human clinical trials that would test the effect of sAC inhibition on sperm motility in healthy human males, Dr. Buck said.

If the drug development and clinical trials are successful, Dr. Levin said he hopes to walk into a pharmacy one day and hear a man request "the male pill."

---

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

Researchers identify compounds that

could lead to an on-demand, short-term

contraceptive for men

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NIH/EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

NICHDPRESS@MAIL.NIH.GOV

In a mouse study, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a potential non-hormonal contraceptive that men could take shortly before sexual activity and have fertility restored the next day. Researchers gave male mice a compound that temporarily disables soluble adenylyl cyclase, the enzyme essential for activating a sperm cell’s ability to swim and mature so that it can travel through the female reproductive tract and fertilize an egg.

In several tests, the researchers showed that the compound TDI-11861 rendered mouse sperm cells immobile and prevented them from maturing. The compounds did not interfere with the animals’ sexual functioning. Although male mice mated with females, no pregnancies were observed. Sperm recovered from female mice remained incapacitated. The authors did not observe any side effects in the male or female mice. The compound wore off three hours later, and males recovered their fertility.

The study was conducted by Melanie Balbach, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of coauthors Jochen Buck, Ph.D., and Lonnie Levin, Ph.D., at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, and colleagues. It appears in Nature Communications. Funding was provided by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Aging, and National Cancer Institute.

The researchers say their work provides proof of concept that soluble adenylyl cyclase inhibitors have the potential to provide a safe, on-demand, non-hormonal and reversible oral contraceptive for men.

WHO:

Christopher C. Lindsey, Ph.D., a program official in the NICHD Contraception Research Branch, is available for comment.

ARTICLE:

Balbach, M. Research Letter: On-demand male contraception via acute inhibition of soluble adenylyl cyclase. Nature Communications.2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36119-6

###

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.

 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov.

###

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

UNTIL THEN

The food of the future will come through polyphenols applications

Meeting Announcement

MITOCHONDRIA-MICROBIOTA TASK FORCE

 

IMAGE: THE 16TH WORLD CONGRESS ON POLYPHENOLS APPLICATIONS 2023 WILL BE ORGANIZED ON SEPTEMBER 28-29, 2023 AT CORINTHIA ST GEORGE'S BAY, MALTA. view more 

CREDIT: CREDITS TO POLYPHENOLS APPLICATIONS CONFERENCE

All strategies to redesign, rethink, and reshape food and beverages in order to fit and adapt to our modern-day needs will be debated and discussed during the 16th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications.

Polyphenols Applications 2023, held on September 28-29 at Corinthia St George's Bay – Malta, will change the view point on the application of polyphenols.

 

Polyphenols Applications 2023: New Scientific Outlook

Besides the food of tomorrow, Polyphenols Applications 2023 will also discuss all recent advances and perspectives related to polyphenols and their applications in health and pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical industries. Jan Frederik Stevens, the new president of Polyphenols Applications, from Oregon State University USA, commented: “This year, we will respond to the audience’s request by covering novel topics including polyphenols from the sea, the impact of climate change and environmental stress on content and composition of polyphenols in food, polyphenols to prevent radiation damage in space flights and in medicine, and artificial intelligence as a tool in optimal polyphenol utilization and research.”

Polyphenols Applications 2023 details.

 

What to Expect in Polyphenols Applications 2023?

Polyphenols academics and industrials will elaborate on the following sessions:

• Polyphenols in Health & Diseases: Mechanistic Aspects & Perspectives
• Polyphenols & Microbiota – The Subtle Modulation
• Senolytic Activity of Polyphenols – A Potential Anti-Aging Effect?
• Marine Polyphenols – Therapeutic Potential & Applications
• Polyphenols and the Environment: A Reciprocal Connection
• Polyphenols & Food Research: The Most Recent Developments
• Polyphenols Applications 2023: Recent Innovations & Where are We Headed?

 

Polyphenols Applications 2022 Recap & Awards

Polyphenols Applications 2022 covered different topics on polyphenols including: polyphenols and microbiota, polyphenols and health, technological innovations in extraction, the sensory aspects of polyphenols, and novel technologies for polyphenol delivery to target organs.  A 3rd day was also dedicated to the analytical chemistry and pharmacology of cannabinoids.

 

Prof. Juan Carlos Espin was awarded the prestigious Polyphenols Applications Scientific award:

Prof. Espin from the Spanish National Research Council gave a key note speech on “Polyphenols 2022: Where We Are Now and What’s Next”.

 

3 Short Oral Presentations were awarded:

Paul Besrukow, Geisenheim University, Germany - "Grape Cane Stilbenoids as Biopesticides in Organic Viticulture"

Cornelia Schmutz, University of Vienna, Austria - "Anthocyanin-Rich Berry Extracts and Chemotherapy: A Critical Combination"

Learnmore Kambizi, Cape Peninsula University of Technology - "Pigmented Potatoes: A Potential Panacea for Food and Nutrition Security and Health?"

 

3 Poster Presentations were awarded:

Klara Supikova, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic - "Sulfated Phenolic Acids are Common Plant Metabolites"

Sandra Mariño-Cortegoso, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain - "Recovery of Bioactive Compounds from Lime and Lemon By-Products Through Sustainable Methodologies"

Katia Ruel, ADKALIS - Groupe BERKEM, France - "Plant Polyphenolic Extract from Berkem Biosolutions® for Antimicrobial Protection of Cosmetic Products"

 

Malta Polyphenols Applications Institutional Partner

Polyphenols Applications 2023 is endorsed by the Redox Medicine Society, former ISANH.

 

About Jan Frederik Stevens, President of Polyphenols Applications

At the end of the 15th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, the scientific committee announced a shift in presidency. Professor Jan Frederik Stevens, Oregon State University, USA, was elected as the new president of Polyphenols Applications.

Prof. Stevens is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy and Associate Director for Research in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University in Corvallis. He has authored more than 130 articles in peer-review journals.

Prof. Stevens stated: “We are very grateful to Prof. Andreas Schieber for having organized 15 annual conferences. It is an honor and a pleasure to serve as your new President of the World Congress on Polyphenols Applications. I hope we can build new relationships and continue a welcoming atmosphere for everyone from anywhere in the world.”

Polyphenols Applications Team & Committee thank Professor Andreas Schieber, University of Bonn, Germany, for all his help throughout these past 15 years.

Better understanding on the way to a carbon-neutral economy

Publication provides an overview of the potential of rifted margins for an energy transition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MARUM - CENTER FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF BREMEN

Pangaea was the name Alfred Wegener gave to the supercontinent that existed on Earth 250 million years ago. Over the course of many millions of years, this supercontinent broke into different pieces, which became the landmasses we see on the globe today. Extensional forces on the tectonic plates causes continents to break apart – as Pangaea once did – creating new ocean basins. Large parts of these extended continents are not visible because they lie under water and are named rifted margins.

Continental margins harbor vast accumulations of globally distributed sedimentary, igneous and ultramafic rocks, adjacent to large coastal populations due to their geographic location. Until a few decades ago, such continental margins were divided into magma-rich and magma-poor. This classification followed the formation history of new ocean floor – but does not seem to encompass the full range of ways rift margins form. “These rifted margins are located on the coasts on both sides of the oceans and contain huge sediment accumulations, hydrocarbon reserves, and are a potential location of new resources needed for the new carbon-neutral economy,” explains Marta Pérez-Gussinyé.

The team of authors proves that other types have been identified in the meantime, which, according to Marta Pérez-Gussinyé and her colleagues, leads to a great variety of so-called continental margin architectures. They are based on different processes of magmatic, tectonic, sedimentary or hydrothermal nature. “The origin of rift margins is multifaceted, meaning that they have been formed in different ways. Unlike previous approaches, this overview gives us the opportunity to analyze rifted margins holistically,” explains first author Pérez-Gussinyé.

Her research group has pioneered the development of numerical tools to study rifted margins. These tools allow to combine data and models to understand the processes that shape margins. The authors have compiled the latest observations and theoretical results that should lead to a process-based understanding of margin formation. “This will be key to making accurate predictions in the future for the new storage and energy requirements needed to transition to a carbon-neutral economy,” Pérez-Gussinyé emphasizes.

Together with her co-authors, she concludes that rifted margins could play a central role in the transition to a green economy in the future: as potential carbon dioxide storage sites, as mineral deposits, or even as sources of geothermal energy and natural hydrogen. But before that, additional geophysical and geological data would need to be integrated into further research. “The paper shows how a combination of observation and numerical simulation of the processes that occur during continental rifting will help unlock this potential in the future.”

Some of the numerical models presented in the article are being developed and improved as part of the Cluster of Excellence “Ocean Floor” based at MARUM. They will help to better understand the formation of continental margins and oceanic crust and their role in the global carbon cycle.

 

Original publication:

Pérez-Gussinyé, M., Collier, J.S., Armitage, J.J. et al. Towards a process-based understanding of rifted continental margins. Nat Rev Earth Environ (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00380-y

 

Participating institutions:

MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen (Germany)
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London (Great Britain)
Sciences de la Terre et Technologies de l’Environnement, IFP Energies Nouvelles, Rueil-Malmaison (France)
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Copenhagen (Denmark)
Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou (China)
Barcelona Center for Subsurface Imaging, ICM, CSIC (Spain)
ICREA, Barcelona (Spain)

 

More information:

Working group Geophysics – Geodynamics https://www.marum.de/en/about-us/Geophysics-Geodynamics.html

 

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Marta Pérez-Gussinyé
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
Geophysics – Geodynamics
Phone: +49 421 218-65350
Email: mpgussinye@marum.de

 

MARUM produces fundamental scientific knowledge about the role of the ocean and the ocean floor in the total Earth system. The dynamics of the ocean and the ocean floor significantly impact the entire Earth system through the interaction of geological, physical, biological and chemical processes. These influence both the climate and the global carbon cycle, and create unique biological systems. MARUM is committed to fundamental and unbiased research in the interests of society and the marine environment, and in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. It publishes its quality-assured scientific data and makes it publicly available. MARUM informs the public about new discoveries in the marine environment and provides practical knowledge through its dialogue with society. MARUM cooperates with commercial and industrial partners in accordance with its goal of protecting the marine environment.

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JOURNAL

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43017-022-00380-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Towards a process-based understanding of rifted continental margins

Want healthy valentine chocolates? We can print them.

Rutgers food scientist uses 3D printing to introduce the first in a line of what he calls “functional foods”

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR WITH A HEART: RUTGERS FOOD SCIENCE PROFESSOR QINGRONG HUANG HAS PRODUCED LOW-FAT CHOCOLATE HEARTS USING A 3D PRINTER. view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTA PRINCIPATO/RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

A Rutgers scientist has developed a formulation of low-fat chocolate that can be printed on a 3D printer in pretty much any shape a person can conceive, including a heart.

The work heralds what the researcher hopes will be a new line of “functional foods” – edibles specially designed with health benefits. The aim is to develop healthier kinds of chocolate easily accessible to consumers.

Reporting in the scientific journal, Food Hydrocolloids, a Rutgers-led team of scientists described the successful creation and printing of a mixture producing low-fat chocolate -- substituting fatty cocoa butter with a lower-fat, water-in-oil emulsion.

“Everybody likes to eat chocolate, but we are also concerned with our health,” said Qingrong Huang, a professor in the Department of Food Science at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. “To address this, we have created a chocolate that is not only low-fat, but that can also be printed with a 3D printer. It’s our first ‘functional’ chocolate.”

Huang, an author of the study, said he already is working on manipulating sugar content in the new chocolate formulation for low-sugar and sugar-free varieties.

Researchers create emulsions by breaking down two immiscible liquids into minute droplets. In emulsions, the two liquids will usually quickly separate – as is the case with oil and vinegar – unless they are held together by a third, stabilizing ingredient known as an emulsifier. (An egg is the emulsifier in a vinaigrette.)

Chocolate candy is generally made with cocoa butter, cocoa powder and powdered sugar and combined with any one of a variety of different emulsifiers.

For the study, the scientific team experimented with different ratios of the ingredients for a standard chocolate recipe to find the best balance between liquid and solid for 3D printing. Seeking to lower the level of fat in the mixture, researchers created a water-in-cocoa butter emulsion held together by gum arabic, an extract from the acacia tree that is commonly used in the food industry, to replace the cocoa butter. The researchers mixed the emulsion with golden syrup to enhance the flavor and added that combination to the other ingredients.

As delightful as it is to eat, Huang said, chocolate is a material rich with aspects for food scientists to explore.

Employing advanced techniques examining the molecular structure and physical properties of chocolate, researchers investigated the printed chocolate’s physical characteristics. They were seeking the proper level of viscosity for printing and looking for the optimal texture and smoothness “for a good mouthfeel,” Huang said. Experimenting with many different water-oil ratios, they varied the percentages of all the main ingredients before settling on one mixture.

In 3D printing, a printer is used to create a physical object from a digital model by laying down layers of material in quick succession. The 3D printer, and the shapes it produces, can be programmed by an app on a cellphone, Huang said.

Ultimately, Huang said he plans to design functional foods containing healthy added ingredients – substances he has spent more than two decades studying, such as extracts from orange peel, tea, red pepper, onion, Rosemary, turmeric, blueberry and ginger – that consumers can print and eat.

“3D food printing technology enables the development of customized edible products with tailored taste, shape and texture as well as optimal nutrition based on consumer needs,” Huang said.

Other researchers on the study included Siqi You and Xuanxuan Lu of the Department of Food Science and Engineering at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China.

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JOURNAL

Food Hydrocolloids

DOI

10.1016/j.foodhyd.2022.108114 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Development of fat-reduced 3D printed chocolate by substituting cocoa butter with water-in-oil emulsions

Snakes can hear more than you think

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

 

IMAGE: WOMA PYTHON view more 

CREDIT: DR CHRISTINA ZDENEK

A University of Queensland-led study has found that as well as ground vibrations, snakes can hear and react to airborne sound.

Dr Christina Zdenek from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, in collaboration with QUT’s Professor Damian Candusso, played three different sound frequencies to captive-bred snakes one at a time in a soundproof room and observed their reactions.

“Because snakes don’t have external ears, people typically think they’re deaf and can only feel vibrations through the ground and into their bodies,” Dr Zdenek said.

“But our research - the first of its kind using non-anesthetised, freely moving snakes - found they do react to soundwaves travelling through the air, and possibly human voices.”

The study involved 19 snakes, representing five genetic families of reptile.

“We played one sound which produced ground vibrations, while the other two were airborne only,” Dr Zdenek said.

“It meant we were able to test both types of ‘hearing’ - tactile hearing through the snakes’ belly scales and airborne through their internal ear.’

The reactions strongly depended on the genus of the snakes.

“Only the woma python tended to move toward sound, while taipans, brown snakes and especially death adders were all more likely to move away from it,” Dr Zdenek said.  

“The types of behavioural reactions also differed, with taipans in particular more likely to exhibit defensive and cautious responses to sound.

Dr Zdenek said the different reactions are likely because of evolutionary pressures over millions of years, designed to aid survival and reproduction.

“For example, woma pythons are large nocturnal snakes with fewer predators than smaller species and probably don’t need to be as cautious, so they tended to approach sound,” Dr Zdenek said.

“But taipans may have to worry about raptor predators and they also actively pursue their prey, so their senses seem to be much more sensitive.”

Dr Zdenek said the findings challenge the assumption that snakes can’t hear sound, such as humans talking or yelling, and could reshape the view on how they react to sound. 

“We know very little about how most snake species navigate situations and landscapes around the world,” Dr Zdenek said.

“But our study shows that sound may be an important part of their sensory repertoire.

“Snakes are very vulnerable, timid creatures that hide most of the time, and we still have so much to learn about them.”

The research has been published in PLOS ONE.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0281285 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Feb-2023

NIH scientists develop mouse model to study mpox virulence

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

 

IMAGE: COLORIZED TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF MPOX VIRUS PARTICLES (YELLOW) CULTIVATED AND PURIFIED FROM CELL CULTURE. IMAGE CAPTURED AT THE NIAID INTEGRATED RESEARCH FACILITY (IRF) IN FORT DETRICK, MARYLAND. view more 

CREDIT: NIAID

WHAT:
Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have removed a major roadblock to better understanding of mpox (formerly, monkeypox). They developed a mouse model of the disease and used it to demonstrate clear differences in virulence among the major genetic groups (clades) of mpox virus (MPXV). The research, appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, was led by Bernard Moss, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Genetic Engineering Section of NIAID’s Laboratory of Viral Diseases.

Historically, mpox, a disease resembling smallpox, was only occasionally transmitted from rodents to non-human primates or people and was observed primarily in several African countries. Mpox rarely spread from person to person. That pattern changed in 2022 with an outbreak in which person-to-person mpox transmission occurred in more than 100 locations worldwide. To date, more than 80,000 cases of mpox have been diagnosed during this outbreak. Genome sequencing revealed that the strain causing the current outbreak, clade IIb, differs from two historic clades; clade I, which has a mortality rate of up to 10%, and clade IIa, which has a mortality rate of less than 1%. Mortality from clade IIb MPXV is lower than either of the historic clades. 

Standard inbred laboratory mice are resistant to MPXV infection, and the absence of a small animal model of mpox has made it difficult to study how genetic differences contribute to observed differences in virulence. Dr. Moss and his colleagues identified a strain of wild-derived, inbred lab mouse (CAST/EiJ) and determined that these mice can be infected with MPXV. As in people, clade I was the most virulent in CAST mice, followed by clade IIa, then clade IIb. Unexpectedly, clade IIb virus was 100 times less virulent than clade IIa virus in mice and led to very little viral replication and much lower virulence than either of the historic clades. No mice died of clade IIb infection, despite exposure to extremely large doses of virus. Together, the results suggest that clade IIb is evolving diminished virulence or adapting to other species, the researchers conclude.

ARTICLE:
JL Americo et al. Virulence differences of mpox (monkeypox) virus clades I, IIa, and IIb.1 in a small animal model. PNAS DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2220415120 (2023).

NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov/.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2220415120 

Climate change portends wider malaria risk as mosquitos spread south and to higher elevations in Africa

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

WASHINGTON — Based on data that span the past 120 years, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that the mosquitoes responsible for transmitting malaria in Africa are spreading deeper into southern Africa and to higher elevations than previously recorded. The researchers estimate that Anopheles mosquito populations in sub-Saharan Africa have gained an average of 6.5 meters (21 feet) of elevation per year, and the southern limits of their ranges moved south of the equator by 4.7 kilometers (nearly 3 miles) per year.

The study appeared February 15, 2023, in Biology Letters. 

“This is exactly what we would expect to see if climate change is helping these species reach colder parts of the continent,” says Colin Carlson, PhD, an assistant research professor at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center and lead author of the study. “If mosquitoes are spreading into these areas for the first time, it might help explain some recent changes in malaria transmission that have otherwise been hard to trace back to climate.”

The world is at least 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the pre-industrial period. In 2011, scientists estimated that earth-bound species were moving uphill at a rate of 1.1 meters per year, and to more polar latitudes at 1.7 kilometers per year, making the movement of mosquitoes a relatively fast shift by comparison.

The investigators focused on mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles both because of their ability to spread malaria, and because of a unique historical dataset tracking their movements. Carlson notes that other species are probably moving in similar ways, but that future research efforts will have to get a sense of what’s happening in different regions or with different diseases to gain the most comprehensive picture possible.

“We tend to assume that these shifts are happening all around us, but the evidence base is fairly limited,” says Carlson. “If we’re reimagining bio-surveillance for life on a hotter planet, a big part of that is going to have to be keeping an eye on animal movement.”

Carlson notes that his team has been learning a lot about long-term biodiversity change thanks to deep historical public health records. “We know so little about how climate change is affecting invertebrate biodiversity. Public health is giving us a rare window into how some insects might be thriving in a changing climate—even if it’s bad news for humans.”

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All study authors are at Georgetown University and include Colin Carlson, Ellen Bannon, Emily Mendenhall, Timothy Newfield and Shweta Bansal.

The authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study. No original data was used in this study as the Anopheles dataset is freely available from previously published research.

About Georgetown University Medical Center

As a top academic health and science center, Georgetown University Medical Center  provides, in a synergistic fashion, excellence in education — training physicians, nurses, health administrators and other health professionals, as well as biomedical scientists — and cutting-edge interdisciplinary research collaboration, enhancing our basic science and translational biomedical research capacity in order to improve human health. Patient care, clinical research and education is conducted with our academic health system partner, MedStar Health. GUMC’s mission is carried out with a strong emphasis on social justice and a dedication to the Catholic, Jesuit principle of cura personalis -- or “care of the whole person.” GUMC comprises the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, School of Health, Biomedical Graduate Education, and Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Designated by the Carnegie Foundation as a doctoral university with "very high research activity,” Georgetown is home to a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health, and a Comprehensive Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute. Connect with GUMC on Facebook (Facebook.com/GUMCUpdate) and on Twitter (@gumedcenter).

 

 

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JOURNAL

Biology Letters

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Rapid range shifts in African Anopheles mosquitoes over the last century

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Feb-2023