Just as Gouda: Improving the quality of cheese alternatives

Studying how plant-based proteins interact with fat matrices can lead to better texture and nutrition for vegan cheeses

American Institute of Physics

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Researcher Alejandro Marangoni demonstrates the stretchy properties of his team’s plant-based cheese analog.

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Credit: Alejandro Marangoni

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2025 – Plant-based dairy products are a great alternative for people who avoid animal products, but manufacturers have a hard time replicating the creamy, cheesy qualities that make dairy so indulgent.

Scientists from the University of Guelph in Ontario and Canadian Light Source Inc. in Saskatchewan are working to produce plant-based cheese with all the characteristics of real cheese, but with better health benefits.

In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers studied multiple types of plant-based proteins and how they interact with alternative cheese scaffolds.

“If you wanted to strictly only eat plant-based products, you would end up eating a lot of beans and tofu, which can be little bit boring after a while,” said author Alejandro Marangoni. “Now, consumers expect essentially the same animal product but with plant-based ingredients, which is very difficult.”

To create a cheesy product with the same texture as the real thing, scientists need to study a variety of physical attributes such as the melting, stretching, and oil-release upon grilling and heating.

“The behavior of milk proteins and meat proteins is reasonably well understood, but knowledge about the functionality of plant proteins is lacking,” Marangoni said. “There is also a huge variety of different plant proteins, each one very different from one another.”

Previous research concluded that a blend of 25% coconut oil, 75% sunflower oil, and pea protein created a desirable cheese texture. In this research, Marangoni and his team studied isolates from three proteins (lentil protein, faba bean protein, and a particular type of pea protein) and observed how the isolates interacted with the oil and with the starch matrix of the cheese alternative.

They found that increasing the coconut oil increased the hardness of cheeses, but cheese with pea protein and 25% coconut oil had the firmest texture due to their unique protein-fat interactions. This formulation matched or surpassed the melt, oil loss, and stretch of the cheese analogs made with 100% coconut oil.

Using a blend of sunflower and coconut oil decreased the saturated fat content of the cheese, creating a healthy and sustainable alternative to dairy cheeses and other plant-based cheeses.

“Ultimately we want to improve the nutrition, increase the protein content, and lower the saturated fat content of cheese alternatives,” Marangoni said. “But keeping all the functionality in there, which includes the melt and the stretch of the ‘cheese,’ is very difficult.”

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The article “Impact of protein sources on the functionality of plant-based cheeses formulated with saturated and unsaturated fat” is authored by Cameryn Sanders, Jarvis Stobbs, Stacie Dobson, and Alejandro G. Marangoni. It will appear in Physics of Fluids on Jan. 14, 2025 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0238556). After that date, it can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0238556.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Physics of Fluids is devoted to the publication of original theoretical, computational, and experimental contributions to the dynamics of gases, liquids, and complex fluids. See https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof.

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Journal

Physics of Fluids

DOI

10.1063/5.0238556 

Article Title

Impact of protein sources on the functionality of plant-based cheeses formulated with saturated and unsaturated fat

Article Publication Date

14-Jan-2025

 

Global study pinpoints genes for depression across ethnicities

University of Edinburgh

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New genetic risk factors for depression have been identified across all major global populations for the first time, allowing scientists to predict risk of depression regardless of ethnicity.

The world’s largest and most diverse genetic study ever into major depression has revealed nearly 300 previously unknown genetic links to the condition, experts say.

100 of the newly discovered genetic variations – small differences in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene – were identified due to the inclusion of people of African, East Asian, Hispanic and South Asian descent, the study found.

Previous research into the genetics of depression has focused primarily on white populations that originally descended from people living in Europe. Therapies developed using genetic approaches may therefore not be effective in other ethnicities, widening existing health inequalities.

Each single genetic variant has a very small effect on the overall risk of developing depression. If a person has multiple variants, these small effects can add up, increasing their risk.

The research team were able to more accurately predict an individual’s risk of depression by taking into account the newly identified variants.

The international team of scientists, led by the University of Edinburgh and King’s College London, looked at anonymised genetic data from more than five million people in 29 countries worldwide. One in four individuals included in the study were from non-European ancestries.

Researchers identified a total of 700 variations in the genetic code of individuals linked to the development of depression, almost half of which had never been associated with the condition before, implicating 308 specific genes.

The identified genetic variants were linked to neurons - a type of brain cell - across multiple brain regions, including areas which control emotion.

The findings offer new insight into depression’s impact on the brain and present possible new targets for treatment, experts say.

The research team highlight the existing drugs pregabalin and modafinil – used to treat chronic pain and the sleeping condition narcolepsy, respectively – which could potentially be repurposed for the treatment of depression, based on the study findings.

However, the team caution that further studies and clinical trials are needed to explore the potential of the drugs in patients with depression.

The study, funded by NIH, Wellcome and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, is published in the journal Cell: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01415-6 [URL will become active after embargo lifts].

The research team from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium involved scientists from all continents, including studies from South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, the USA, Australia, Taiwan and China.

Professor Andrew McIntosh, study co-lead, from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, said: “There are huge gaps in our understanding of clinical depression that limit opportunities to improve outcomes for those affected. Larger and more globally representative studies are vital to provide the insights needed to develop new and better therapies, and prevent illness in those at higher risk of developing the condition.”

Professor Cathryn Lewis, study co-lead, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London, said: “Depression is a highly prevalent disorder and we still have a lot to learn about its biological underpinnings. Our study identifies hundreds of additional genetic variants that play a role in depression. These findings show depression is highly polygenic and open up downstream pathways to translate these findings into better care for people with depression.”

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Journal

Cell

Article Title

Trans-ancestry genome-wide study of depression identifies 697 associations implicating cell-types and pharmacotherapies

85% of Mexican Americans with dementia unaware of diagnosis, outpacing overall rate

Physicians may not be sharing the diagnosis promptly, if at all

Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

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More than three-quarters of older adults with dementia may be unaware of their diagnosis, a University of Michigan study finds.

That number is even higher — up to 85% — among Mexican Americans, who make up the largest share of the U.S. Hispanic and Latino population.

Fewer than 7% of all study participants, who live in Nueces County, Texas and were classified as having probable dementia based on a cognitive assessment, did not have a primary care provider.

The results are published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

“Dementia diagnosis unawareness is a public health issue that must be addressed,” said senior author Lewis Morgenstern, M.D., professor of neurology, neurosurgery and emergency medicine at University of Michigan Medical School and professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health.

“The diagnosis of dementia provides the opportunity to seek out treatment and home care services to help both patients and caregivers. If the diagnosis is not given, or the understanding of the diagnosis is unclear, it is a missed opportunity.”

Investigators found no link between access to primary care and awareness of dementia diagnosis. In other words, they weren't in the dark about their diagnosis for lack of communication with their doctor.

In fact, researchers suspect that the nature of patient-physician relationships is a central reason the awareness gap. 

“The physician may not be diagnosing the patient or may be withholding the diagnosis of dementia,” said first author Josh Martins-Caulfield, a graduate of the U-M School of Public Health and medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“In practice, physicians often hesitate to diagnose dementia, citing reasons such as insufficient time with individual patients to conduct the screening process or not having dementia-specific training. The discomfort of providing the diagnosis may also lead them to wait for patients or family members to raise concerns about memory issues rather than initiating discussions proactively.”

Several studies have found that the majority of older adults in the U.S. with probable dementia go either undiagnosed or are unaware of a diagnosis. One 2018 report revealed that Hispanic and Latino adults were more likely to be undiagnosed.

“Cultural competence is crucial in treating all patients, especially when dealing with a heavily stigmatized disease,” Morgenstern said.

Despite the lack of dementia awareness found in the study, having a formal diagnosis did not reduce a caregiver’s perceived burden.

This could be, researchers suggest, because the diagnosis forces caregivers to quickly confront the increased responsibilities that come with the diagnosis of dementia in a loved one, including decision making and managing daily care.

“Caregiving can be immensely taxing, particularly when balancing one’s own family responsibilities and personal life,” said Darin B. Zahuranec, M.D., M.S., co-author and a professor of neurology at U-M Medical School.

“Effective care necessitates accurate diagnosis combined with comprehensive emotional support and guidance for caregivers to access essential resources.”

Additional authors: Roshanak Mehdipanah, Ph.D., Emily M. Briceño, Ph.D., Wen Chang, M.S., Steven G. Heeringa, Ph.D., Kenneth M. Langa, M.D., Ph.D., Darin B. Zahuranec, M.D. and Nelda Garcia, all of University of Michigan, and Xavier F. Gonzales, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

Funding/disclosures: This study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS100687) and National Institute on Aging (R01AG069148), both of the National Institutes of Health.

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Journal

Journal of General Internal Medicine

DOI

10.1007/s11606-024-09333-1 

Article Title

Dementia diagnosis unawareness and caregiver burden in a multi-ethnic cohort

Article Publication Date

14-Jan-2025

COI Statement

This study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS100687) and National Institute on Aging (R01AG069148), both of the National Institutes of Health.

 

Study shows connection between childhood maltreatment and disease in later life

University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham venture Dexter has demonstrated the power of its Dexter software platform in a study showing that people whose childhoods featured abuse, neglect or domestic abuse carry a significantly increased risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis in later life.    

The starting point for the recently published study was a database of over 16 million Electronic Health Records, from which the Dexter software defined a cohort, one arm that was exposed to childhood maltreatment, and one arm that was not.  

The software then checked the records over a 26-year period for medical codes of immune-mediated inflammatory disorders (IMIDs) and found childhood maltreatment was associated with increased incidence rates for Rheumatoid Arthritis and psoriasis. 

The increase in risk was significant for both diseases, and the association was more pronounced in women than in men.  
The study was led by Dr Liam Snook from the University of Birmingham.  Its senior author, Professor Joht Singh Chandan, Clinical Professor of Public Health and Health Inequalities Lead at Birmingham Health Partners, commented: "As far as we’re aware, this is the first matched cohort longitudinal study to investigate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and immune-mediated inflammatory disorders (IMIDs) in later life.” 

Previous studies were metanalyses, which synthesised data from several independent studies, and these showed an increased risk for IMIDs in people whose childhood featured abuse.  

But to determine the incidence (the number of new cases over time), you need a to follow a cohort over time in a longitudinal study – and the only longitudinal study we could find limited its identification IMIDs to people who had been hospitalised, so did not show the onset of disease, which is usually recorded in primary care.”    

Longitudinal studies, which collect information from the same group of people repeatedly over time, allow for analysis of change over time, and the influence of earlier life circumstances on health later in life.   

The uniqueness of the study lies in the Dexter software, can rapidly inspect huge databases of longitudinal data with billions of datapoints, delivering reproducible, accurate and transparent results.  

Professor Chandan, who is also Head of Customer Success at Dexter software, points out two impacts from studies that use this type of ‘big data’.  He said: “For scientists, the study identifies an area that warrants further investigation into biological pathways that may link early life stressors to these two immune diseases.  For public health professionals, it paints a better picture of the patient.”  

“This approach can be used to identify inequalities in healthcare, alerting healthcare providers and delivers to patient groups that need specific attention, and ultimately allocating healthcare resources to meet those with the greatest need. In the future, we plan to use this approach to look at further longitudinal datasets in crime, social care, and mental health care.” 

About the study

Starting from 16 million records, the software identified 13.2 million records eligible for the study, based on requirements for age and data quality.  

From these, it identified 256,130 records coded for exposure before 18 years of age to abuse (physical, sexual, or emotional), neglect, domestic abuse, either by the GP, or codes relating to social services involvement.  The control group consisted of 712,478 records which were matched on age, sex, indices of deprivation, and GP surgery.  

The records from these two cohorts were checked for diagnostic codes for immune-mediated inflammatory disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, coeliac disease, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and systemic lupus erythematosus) over a 26-year period running from 1995 to 2021.  

The findings showed the childhood maltreatment cohort had a significantly increased risk for: 
•    Rheumatoid Arthritis: 11.19/100,000 patient years vs 7.77/100,000 patient years (p=0.003)
•    Psoriasis: 152.79/100,000 patient years vs 128.74/100,000 patient years (p<0.001). 

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Journal

Communications Physics

DOI

10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40493 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

SCHRODINGERS CAT

This metaphorical cat is both dead and alive – and it will help quantum engineers detect computing errors

University of New South Wales

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This metaphorical cat has seven lives.

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Credit: UNSW Sydney

UNSW engineers have demonstrated a well-known quantum thought experiment in the real world. Their findings deliver a new and more robust way to perform quantum computations – and they have important implications for error correction, one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and a working quantum computer.

Quantum mechanics has puzzled scientists and philosophers for more than a century. One of the most famous quantum thought experiments is that of the “Schrödinger’s cat” – a cat whose life or death depends on the decay of a radioactive atom.

According to quantum mechanics, unless the atom is directly observed, it must be considered to be in a superposition – that is, being in multiple states at the same time – of decayed and not decayed. This leads to the troubling conclusion that the cat is in a superposition of dead and alive.

“No one has ever seen an actual cat in a state of being both dead and alive at the same time, but people use the Schrödinger’s cat metaphor to describe a superposition of quantum states that differ by a large amount,” says UNSW Professor Andrea Morello, leader of the team that conducted the research, published recently in the journal Nature Physics.

Atomic cat

For this research paper, Prof. Morello’s team used an atom of antimony, which is much more complex than standard ‘qubits’, or quantum building blocks.

“In our work, the ‘cat’ is an atom of antimony,” says Xi Yu, lead author of the paper.

“Antimony is a heavy atom, which possesses a large nuclear spin, meaning a large magnetic dipole. The spin of antimony can take eight different directions, instead of just two. This may not seem much, but in fact it completely changes the behaviour of the system. A superposition of the antimony spin pointing in opposite directions is not just a superposition of ‘up’ and ‘down’, because there are multiple quantum states separating the two branches of the superposition.”

This has profound consequences for scientists working on building a quantum computer using the nuclear spin of an atom as the basic building block.

“Normally, people use a quantum bit, or ‘qubit’ – an object described by only two quantum states – as the basic unit of quantum information,” says co-author Benjamin Wilhelm.

“If the qubit is a spin, we can call ‘spin down’ the ‘0’ state, and ‘spin up’ the ‘1’ state. But if the direction of the spin suddenly changes, we have immediately a logical error: 0 turns to 1 or vice versa, in just one go. This is why quantum information is so fragile.”

But in the antimony atom that has eight different spin directions, if the ‘0’ is encoded as a ‘dead cat’, and the ‘1’ as an ‘alive cat’, a single error is not enough to scramble the quantum code.

“As the proverb goes, a cat has nine lives. One little scratch is not enough to kill it. Our metaphorical ‘cat’ has seven lives: it would take seven consecutive errors to turn the ‘0’ into a ‘1’! This is the sense in which the superposition of antimony spin states in opposite directions is ‘macroscopic’ – because it’s happening on a larger scale, and realises a Schrödinger cat,” explains Yu.

Scalable technology

The antimony cat is embedded inside a silicon quantum chip, similar to the ones we have in our computers and mobile phones, but adapted to give access to the quantum state of a single atom. The chip was fabricated by UNSW’s Dr Danielle Holmes, while the atom of antimony was inserted in the chip by colleagues at the University of Melbourne.

“By hosting the atomic ‘Schrödinger cat’ inside a silicon chip, we gain an exquisite control over its quantum state – or, if you wish, over its life and death,” says Dr Holmes.

“Moreover, hosting the ‘cat’ in silicon means that, in the long term, this technology can be scaled up using similar methods as those we already adopt to build the computer chips we have today.”

The significance of this breakthrough is that it opens the door to a new way to perform quantum computations. The information is still encoded in binary code, ‘0’ or ‘1’, but there is more ‘room for error’ between the logical codes.

“A single, or even a few errors, do not immediately scramble the information,” Prof. Morello says.

“If an error occurs, we detect it straight away, and we can correct it before further errors accumulate. To continue the ‘Schrödinger cat’ metaphor, it’s as if we saw our cat coming home with a big scratch on his face. He’s far from dead, but we know that he got into a fight; we can go and find who caused the fight, before it happens again and our cat gets further injuries.”

The demonstration of quantum error detection and correction – a ‘Holy Grail’ in quantum computing – is the next milestone that the team will address.

The work was the result of a vast international collaboration. Several authors from UNSW Sydney, plus colleagues at the University of Melbourne, fabricated and operated the quantum devices. Theory collaborators in the USA, at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames, and Canada, at the University of Calgary, provided precious ideas on how to create the cat, and how to assess its complicated quantum state.

“This work is a wonderful example of open-borders collaboration between world-leading teams with complementary expertise,” says Prof. Morello.

ENDS

This explainer video is available for media to embed in their stories.

Left to right: UNSW researchers Benjamin Wilhelm, Xi Yu, Prof Andrea Morello, Dr Danielle Holmes

Credit

UNSW Sydney

Journal

Nature Physics

DOI

10.1038/s41567-024-02745-0 

Article Publication Date

14-Jan-2025

World’s oldest 3D map discovered

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin.

University of Adelaide

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View of the three-dimensional map on the Ségognole 3 cave floor

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Credit: Dr Médard Thiry

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin.

The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape.

Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research led by Dr Médard Thiry from the Mines Paris – PSL Centre of Geosciences.

Dr Thiry’s earlier research, following his first visit to the site in 2017, established that Palaeolithic people had “worked” the sandstone in a way that mirrored the female form, and opened fractures for infiltrating water into the sandstone that nourished an outflow at the base of the pelvic triangle.

New research suggests that part of the floor of the sandstone shelter which was shaped and adapted by Palaeolithic people around 13,000 years ago was modelled to reflect the region’s natural water flows and geomorphological features.

“What we’ve described is not a map as we understand it today — with distances, directions, and travel times — but rather a three-dimensional miniature depicting the functioning of a landscape, with runoff from highlands into streams and rivers, the convergence of valleys, and the downstream formation of lakes and swamps,” Dr Milnes explains.

“For Palaeolithic peoples, the direction of water flows and the recognition of landscape features were likely more important than modern concepts like distance and time.

“Our study demonstrates that human modifications to the hydraulic behaviour in and around the shelter extended to modelling natural water flows in the landscape in the region around the rock shelter. These are exceptional findings and clearly show the mental capacity, imagination and engineering capability of our distant ancestors.”

Thanks to his extensive research on the origins of Fontainebleau sandstone, Dr Thiry recognised several fine-scale morphological features that could not have formed naturally, suggesting they were modified by early humans.

“Our research showed that Palaeolithic humans sculpted the sandstone to promote specific flow paths for infiltrating and directing rainwater which is something that had never been recognised by archaeologists,” Thiry says.

“The fittings probably have a much deeper, mythical meaning, related to water. The two hydraulic installations — that of the sexual figuration and that of the miniature landscape — are two to three metres from each other and are sure to relay a profound meaning of conception of life and nature, which will never be accessible to us.”

Milnes and Thiry’s latest study, published in Oxford Journal of Archaeology, discovered the presence of three-dimensional modelling by closely examining fine-scale geomorphological features.

“This completely new discovery offers a better understanding and insight into the capacity of these early humans,” Thiry says.

Before this discovery, the oldest known three-dimensional map was understood to be a large portable rock slab engraved by people of the Bronze Age around 3000 years ago. This map depicted a local river network and earth mounds, reflecting a more modern map concept used for navigation.

Dr Milnes says that collaborating across disciplines — such as archaeology, geology and geomorphology — is vital in science.

“We believe the most productive research outcomes are found at the boundaries between disciplines,” Dr Milnes says.

“Re-evaluating field studies and conducting frequent site visits are important. It’s clear from our ongoing project that insights and interpretations do not appear immediately but emerge through new observations and interdisciplinary discussions,” Dr Thiry suggests. 

Mapping of the cave floor with École River valley

Credit

Dr Médard Thiry

Journal

Oxford Journal of Archaeology

DOI

10.1111/ojoa.12316 

Article Title

PALAEOLITHIC MAP ENGRAVED FOR STAGING WATER FLOWS IN A PARIS BASIN SHELTER