Coffee grounds and Reishi mushroom spores can be 3D printed into a compostable alternative to plastics

University of Washington

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The packing material around this small glass was 3D printed from used coffee grounds. A white mycelium (sort of a root system for mushrooms) grows on the outside, which turns the grounds into a compostable alternative to Styrofoam.

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Credit: Luo et al./3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

Only 30% of a coffee bean is soluble in water, and many brewing methods aim to extract significantly less than that. So of the 1.6 billion pounds of coffee Americans consume in a year, more than 1.1 billion pounds of grounds are knocked from filters into compost bins and garbage cans.

While watching the grounds from her own espresso machine accumulate, Danli Luo, a University of Washington doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, saw an opportunity. Coffee is nutrient-rich and sterilized during brewing, so it’s ideal for growing fungus, which, before it sprouts into mushrooms, forms a “mycelial skin.” This skin, a sort of white root system, can bind loose substances together and create a tough, water-resistant, lightweight material.

Luo and a UW team developed a new system for turning those coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects: packing materials, pieces of a vase, a small statue. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which grow on the objects to form that mycelial skin. The skin turns the coffee grounds — even when formed into complex shapes — into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics. For intricate designs, the mycelium fuses separately printed pieces together to form a single object.

The team published its findings Jan. 23 in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

“We’re especially interested in creating systems for people like small businesses owners producing small-batch products — for example, small, delicate glassware that needs resilient packaging to ship,” said lead author Luo. “So we’ve been working on new material recipes that can replace things like Styrofoam with something more sustainable and that can be easily customized for small-scale production.”

To create the “Mycofluid” paste, Luo mixed used coffee grounds with brown rice flour, Reishi mushroom spores, xanthan gum (a common food binder found in ice creams and salad dressings) and water. Luo also built a new 3D printer head for the Jubilee 3D printer that the UW’s Machine Agency lab designed. The new printer system can hold up to a liter of the paste.

The team printed various objects with the Mycofluid: packaging for a small glass, three pieces of a vase, two halves of a Moai statue and a two-piece coffin the size of a butterfly. The objects then sat covered in a plastic tub for 10 days, during which the mycelium formed a sort of shell around the Mycofluid. In the case of the statue and vase, the separate pieces also fused together.

The process is the same as that of homegrown mushroom kits: Keep the mycelium moist as it grows from a nutrient rich material. If the pieces stayed in the tub longer, actual mushrooms would sprout from the objects, but instead they’re removed after the white mycelial skin has formed. Researchers then dried the pieces for 24 hours, which halts the fruiting of the mushrooms.

The finished material is heavier than Styrofoam — closer to the density of cardboard or charcoal. After an hour in contact with water, it absorbed only 7% more weight in water and dried to close its initial weight while keeping its shape. It was as strong and tough as polystyrene and expanded polystyrene foam, the substance used to make Styrofoam.

Though the team didn’t specifically test the material’s compostability, all its components are compostable (and, in fact, edible, though less than appetizing).

Because the Mycofluid requires relatively homogeneous used coffee grounds, working with it at significant scale would prove difficult, but the team is interested in other forms of recycled materials that might form similar biopastes.

“We’re interested in expanding this to other bio-derived materials, such as other forms of food waste,” Luo said. “We want to broadly support this kind of flexible development, not just to provide one solution to this major problem of plastic waste.”

Junchao Yang, a UW master’s student in human centered design and engineering when completing this research, is a co-author, and Nadya Peek, UW associate professor of human centered design and engineering, is the senior author. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Luo at danlil@uw.edu.

 From the upper left to bottom right: the 3D printer creates a design; three printed pieces of a vase; the partially set vase pieces are put together; the mycelium grows on the coffee paste; the vase grows together; the finished vase holds flowers and water.

Credit

Luo et al./3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

Journal

3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

DOI

10.1089/3dp.2023.0342 

Article Title

3D-Printed Mycelium Biocomposites: Method for 3D Printing and Growing Fungi-Based Composites

 

We are no longer living longer, UEA study shows

Peer reviewed - Observational study - humans

University of East Anglia

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The rise in human life expectancy has slowed down across Europe since 2011, according to research from the University of East Anglia and partners.

A new study, published today in The Lancet Public Health, reveals that the food we eat, physical inactivity and obesity are largely to blame, as well as the Covid pandemic.

Of all the countries studied, England experienced the biggest slowdown in life expectancy.

It means that rather than looking forward to living longer than our parents or grandparents, we may find that we are dying sooner.

The team says that in order to extend our old age, we need to prioritise healthier lifestyles in our younger years – with governments urged to invest in bold public health initiatives.

Lead researcher Prof Nick Steel, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Advances in public health and medicine in the 20th Century meant that life expectancy in Europe improved year after year. But this is no longer the case.

“From 1990 to 2011, reductions in deaths from cardiovascular diseases and cancers continued to lead to substantial improvements in life expectancy.

“But decades of steady improvements finally slowed around 2011, with marked international differences.

“We found that deaths from cardiovascular diseases were the primary driver of the reduction in life expectancy improvements between 2011–19. Unsurprisingly, the Covid pandemic was responsible for decreases in life expectancy seen between 2019–21.

“After 2011, major risks such as obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol either increased or stopped improving in almost all countries.

“Better cholesterol and blood pressure treatments have not been enough to offset the harms from obesity and poor diets,” he added.

The research team studied data from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)’s Global Burden of Disease 2021 – the largest and most comprehensive research to quantify health loss across places and over time, drawing on the work of nearly 12,000 collaborators across more than 160 countries and territories.

They compared changes in life expectancy, causes of death, and population exposure to risk factors across Europe between 1990–2011, 2011–19, and 2019–21.

Countries studied included Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

The team say that despite the downturn, we still haven’t reached a biological ceiling for longevity.

Prof Steel explained: “Life expectancy for older people in many countries is still improving, showing that we have not yet reached a natural longevity ceiling.

“Life expectancy mainly reflects mortality at younger ages, where we have lots of scope for reducing harmful risks and preventing early deaths.

“Comparing countries, national policies that improved population health were linked to better resilience to future shocks.”

“Countries like Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium held onto better life expectancy after 2011, and saw reduced harms from major risks for heart disease, helped by government policies.

“In contrast, England and the other UK nations fared worst after 2011 and also during the Covid pandemic, and experienced some of the highest risks for heart disease and cancer, including poor diets.  

“This suggests that stronger government policies are needed to reduce major health risks including obesity, poor diet, and low physical activity - to improve population health over the long term.”

Prof John Newton, from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health at the University of Exeter, said: “These results are a cause for concern especially here in the UK, but also some hope. We should be concerned because many European countries including the UK are showing such poor progress but hopeful because addressing the underlying causes of major illnesses appears to be effective if only improvements in the key risks can be sustained.”

Sarah Price, NHS England, National Director of Public Health, said: “This important study reinforces that prevention is the cornerstone of a healthier society, and is exactly why it will be such a key part of the 10 Year Health Plan which we are working with Government on.  

“The slowdown in life expectancy improvements, particularly due to cardiovascular disease and cancer, highlights the urgent need for stronger action on the root causes — poor diet, physical inactivity, and obesity.

“The NHS is playing its part and has already helped hundreds of thousands of people to lose weight through our 12-week digital Weight Management Programme, while more than a million people a year receive a blood pressure check in NHS pharmacies which are key to identifying cardiovascular issues and significantly improving people’s overall health.

“However, more can action is need across society because we cannot treat our way out of the obesity crisis, and we need to stem it at source.”

This study was led by UEA in collaboration with the Global Burden of Disease Project at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, the University of Exeter and the Department of Health and Social Care, among others. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

This publication is based on research funded in part by the Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Gates Foundation.‘Changing life expectancy in European countries 1990–2021: a sub analysis of causes and risk factors from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021’ is published in The Lancet Public Health.

Peer reviewed - Observational study - humans

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Journal

The Lancet Public Health

DOI

10.1016/S2468-2667(25)00009-X 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Changing life expectancy in European countries 1990–2021: a sub analysis of causes and risk factors from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Article Publication Date

18-Feb-2025

 

Biomedicine shows the way to future food crops

University of Queensland

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Microscope view of a root tip and the progression of synthetic mRNA that produces a green fluorescent protein.

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Credit: The University of Queensland

University of Queensland researchers have for the first time introduced genetic material into plants via their roots, opening a potential pathway for rapid crop improvement.

Professor Bernard Carroll from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences said nanoparticle technology could help fine-tune plant genes to increase crop yield and improve food quality.

“Traditional plant breeding and genetic modification take many generations to produce a new crop variety, which is time-consuming and expensive,” Professor Carroll said.

“We have succeeded in having plant roots absorb a benign nanoparticle which was developed by Professor Gordon Xu’s group at UQ for the delivery of vaccines and cancer treatments in animals.

“Plant cell walls are rigid and wood-like, much tougher than human or animal cells so we coated the nanoparticle with a protein that gently loosens the plant cell wall.

“The protein coating helped the nanoparticle break through the cell walls to deliver a synthetic mRNA cargo into plants for the first time.”

mRNAs are natural messenger molecules containing genetic instructions to build and enhance all forms of life. 

The research team used the nanoparticles to deliver synthetic mRNA that produces a green fluorescent protein into multiple plant species including Arabidopsis, a miniature member of the canola and cabbage family used extensively in genetic research.

“It was surprising that rather than delivering all of its load in the first cell it entered, the nanoparticle travelled with water through the plant distributing the mRNA as it went,” Professor Carroll said.

“This is exciting because with further improvement, the technology could potentially be used in the future to produce new crop varieties more quickly.

“With further research we could target an issue with a crop such as flavour or quality and have a new variety without the need for a decade of cross breeding or genetic modification.

“Similar to how an mRNA vaccine produces a protein to stimulate the immune system and then degrades away, the mRNA we deliver into plants is expressed transiently and then disappears.”

The nanoparticle technique has been patented by UQ’s commercialisation company UniQuest, which is now seeking partners to further develop the technology.

The research team included Professor Zhi Pin (Gordon) Xu and Dr Jiaxi Yong at UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

The research has been published in Nature Plants.

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Journal

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-024-01882-x 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Lysozyme-coated nanoparticles for active uptake and delivery of synthetic RNA and plasmid-encoded genes in plants

Article Publication Date

2-Jan-2025

COI Statement

N.M., B.J.C. and Z.P.X. have received research grant funding from industry partners, which involves commercialization activities related to the LDH nanoparticles. Z.P.X., B.J.C., N.M., J.Y. and W.X. are inventors on an international patent filed by UniQuest that describes protein-coated LDH nanoparticles for nucleic acid delivery into plants (PCT/AU2024/050554). The other authors declare no competing interests.

 

Biodiversity in England’s rivers improved as metal pollution reduced

Study finds fall in zinc and copper concentrations had strongest influence on increases in freshwater invertebrates

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

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Improvements in water quality have supported freshwater invertebrates such as damselfly.

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Credit: Steve Thackeray

An improvement in freshwater biodiversity in England’s rivers was linked to reductions in pollution of zinc and copper, largely due to the decline of coal burning and heavy industry, say researchers.

Invertebrates are used as an important measure of a river’s biodiversity and health, and Environment Agency data show there was a widespread, significant increase in species richness across England in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, there has been little significant further improvement since then.

Therefore, a team of scientists led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) looked for the possible reasons for this, using statistical modelling to investigate a wide range of different chemical and physical factors, such as temperature, river flow and landscape.

They examined a wealth of Environmental Agency data – 65,000 individual observations relating to pollutant measurements and invertebrates from 1,457 sites between 1989 and 2018.

The study, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, has been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It found that although concentrations of ammonia and organic matter – strongly associated with sewage effluent – were important to influencing invertebrate diversity, the correlation with zinc and copper was strongest.

Decline in coal buring and heavy industry

The researchers say there are likely to be several reasons for the reductions in the amount of zinc and copper entering our rivers after the 1980s:

1. Reduction in coal burning, an important source of atmospheric metals pollution that ends up in rivers through acid rain
2. Decline in heavy industry, which emits metals into the atmosphere and discharges sewage containing pollutants that end up in rivers through treated and untreated effluent.
3. Decline in domestic products containing zinc and copper, resulting in less metal pollution in sewage.

Professor Andrew Johnson, an environmental research scientist at UKCEH, who led the study, said: “There is a widespread desire by the public to improve water quality and biodiversity in our rivers but the problem for policymakers is what steps would be most likely to achieve results.

“Our study provides strong evidence that concentrations of zinc and copper have the biggest influence on invertebrate species richness, so future attempts to increase freshwater biodiversity are unlikely to bear fruit without further reductions in these metals.”

The highest metal concentrations are found downstream of abandoned mines and are still impacting biodiversity. Defra has set a target of halving the length of rivers affected by this type of pollution by 2038 in its Environmental Improvement Plan.

New approach

In addition to a reduction in metal pollution, the researchers point out that improvements to wastewater treatment processes to remove general organic matter and ammonia from effluent, as a result of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, have also helped increase river biodiversity.

The Environment Agency does not measure every single contaminant of concern. However, the researchers point out that their statistical analysis included wastewater exposure – seen as linked to more organic pollutants and pharmaceuticals in a river – and arable land cover as a proxy for high pesticide use. 

Previous studies have tended to rely on laboratory experiments to predict the impact of different chemical stressors to wildlife, but using statistical methods to examine long-term river monitoring data allows “the wildlife themselves to speak to us directly”, according to Professor Johnson.-Ends –

Media enquiries

For interviews and further information, please contact Simon Williams, Media Relations Officer at UKCEH, via simwil@ceh.ac.uk or +44 (0)7920 295384.

Notes to Editors

Paper information

Johnson et al. 2025. Zinc and copper have the greatest relative importance for river macroinvertebrate richness at a national scale. Environmental Science & Technology. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c06849. Open access.

The study was carried out as part of ChemPop, a four-year UKCEH-led project led that was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. It investigated the impacts of hazardous chemicals on populations, ecosystems and ecosystem services, as well as how these compared to other pressures in the environment.

About the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a leading independent research institute dedicated to understanding and transforming how we interact with the natural world. 

With over 600 researchers, we tackle the urgent environmental challenges of our time, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Our evidence-based insights empower governments, businesses, and communities to make informed decisions, shaping a future where both nature and people thrive.

ceh.ac.uk / X: @UK_CEH / LinkedIn: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

 

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.4c06849 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Zinc and copper have the greatest relative importance for river macroinvertebrate richness at a national scale

Article Publication Date

18-Feb-2025

A single protein may have helped shape the emergence of spoken language

Rockefeller University

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Expression pattern of NOVA1 in the brain of amouse. NOVA1 in green, nuclei (DAPI) in blue.

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Credit: Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-oncology at The Rockefeller University

The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater source or describe the nuanced purples and reds of a dramatic sunset?

Close relatives of ours such as the Neanderthals likely had anatomical features in the throat and ears that could have enabled the speaking and hearing of spoken language, and they share with us a variant of a gene linked to the ability to speak. And yet it is only in modern humans that we find expanded brain regions that are critical for language production and comprehension.

Now researchers from The Rockefeller University have unearthed intriguing genetic evidence: a protein variant found only in humans that may have helped shape the emergence of spoken language.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers in the lab of Rockefeller researcher Robert B. Darnell discovered that when they put this exclusively human variant of NOVA1—an RNA-binding protein in the brain known to be crucial to neural development—into mice, it altered their vocalizations as they called to each other. 

The study also confirmed that the variant is not found in either Neanderthals or Denisovans, archaic humans that our ancestors interbred with, as is evidenced by their genetic traces that remain in many human genomes today.

“This gene is part of a sweeping evolutionary change in early modern humans and hints at potential ancient origins of spoken language,” says Darnell, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology. “NOVA1 may be a bona fide human ‘language gene,’ though certainly it’s only one of many human-specific genetic changes.”

Three decades in the making

Anatomical adaptations of the vocal tract and intricate neural networks enable our language capabilities. But the genetics behind them isn’t well understood.

One theorized genetic language driver is FOXP2, which codes for a transcription factor involved in early brain development. People with mutations in this gene exhibit severe speech defects, including the inability to coordinate lip and mouth movements with sound. Humans have two amino acid substitutions in FOXP2 that aren’t found in other primates or mammals—but Neanderthals had them too, suggesting that the variant arose in an ancestor of both human lineages. But some findings on FOXP2 have been disputed, and its role in human language development remains unclear.

Now NOVA1 has arisen as a candidate. The gene produces a neuron-specific RNA binding protein key to brain development and neuromuscular control that was first cloned and characterized by Darnell in 1993. It’s found in virtually identical form across a wide swath of the biosphere, from mammals to birds—but not in humans. Instead, we have our own unique form characterized by a single change of an amino acid, from isoleucine to valine, at position 197 (I197V) in the protein chain.

I197V isn’t the only amino acid substitution that distinguishes modern humans from other organisms, points out first author Yoko Tajima, a postdoctoral associate in Darnell’s lab. Several of them may be integral to brain development. “Such changes may have played important roles in the acquisition of characteristics that have contributed to the emergence, expansion, and survival of Homo sapiens,” she says. 

A specialist in how RNA binding proteins modulate gene expression, Darnell has been researching NOVA1 since the early 1990s, when he and his colleagues first identified it as the trigger of a neurologic autoimmune disorder called POMA that can cause extreme motor dysfunction. Recently they have begun to identify cases in which NOVA1 genetic variants are associated with developmental language and motor difficulties. 

“Understanding NOVA1 has been a career-long effort for me,” he says.

The current study, led by Tajima, used CRISPR gene editing to replace the common NOVA1 protein found in mice with the human variant I197V. They then used advanced techniques such as cross-linking immunoprecipitation (CLIP) analysis, a method developed by Darnell, to identify the RNA binding sites of NOVA1 in the mouse midbrain.

The big reveal

The first notable discovery was that the human variant had no impact on RNA binding related to neural development or motor control. It operated exactly as the one it had replaced.

So what was it doing? The second significant finding gave them a hint: binding sites that were substantially affected by the human variant were located at genes that coded for RNAs related to vocalization.

“Moreover, many of these vocalization-related genes were also found to be binding targets of NOVA1, further suggesting the involvement of NOVA1 in vocalization,” says Tajima.

“We thought, wow. We did not expect that,” Darnell says. “It was one of those really surprising moments in science.”

Darnell’s lab then joined forces with Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language, headed by Erich D. Jarvis, who studies the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying vocal learning.

Altered communications

Over the next few years, the collaborators investigated the impact on vocalizations among mice of various ages in different contexts. They found altered vocal patterns among both pups of both sexes and adult males.

“All baby mice make ultrasonic squeaks to their moms, and language researchers categorize the varying squeaks as four ‘letters’—S, D, U, and M,” Darnell notes. “We found that when we ‘transliterated’ the squeaks made by mice with the human-specific I197V variant, they were different from those of the wild-type mice. Some of the ‘letters’ had changed.”

They found similar patterns when they studied the hopeful mating calls of male adult mice exposed to female adult mice in estrus. “They ‘talked’ differently to the female mice,” he says. “One can imagine how such changes in vocalization could have a profound impact on evolution.”

The human element

The potential influence of I197V on human evolution became their next focus. To confirm that it wasn’t found in our nearest human relatives—the Neanderthals, who largely lived in Europe, and the Denisovans, named after the central Asian cave where they were discovered—the researchers compared eight human genomes with three high-coverage Neanderthal genomes and one high-coverage Denisovan genome.

As expected, our archaic relatives—from whom we are thought to have split about 250,000-300,000 years ago—had the same NOVA1 protein as all non-human animals. 

They then combed through 650,058 modern human genomes in the dbSNP database, a catalog of short sequence variations drawn from people around the world. If an alternative to I197V existed, it would be found here.

Of those 650,058 people, all but six had the human variant. Those six had the archaic variant; because the samples are de-identified, details about them are unknown.

“Our data show that an ancestral population of modern humans in Africa evolved the human variant I197V, which then became dominant, perhaps because it conferred advantages related to vocal communication,” he suggests. “This population then left Africa and spread across the world.”

Disease and disorders

In the future, Darnell’s lab will investigate how NOVA1 regulates language function with an eye on language or developmental disorders.

“We believe that understanding these issues will provide important insights into how the brain operates during vocal communications—and how its misregulation leads to certain disorders,” says Tajima.

Its neural pathways may come into play, for example, when various disorders renders someone unable to speak. Perhaps it influences the development of nonverbal autism; NOVA1 is one of the many genes linked to autism spectrum disorder. And in 2023, the lab reported on a patient with a NOVA1 haploinsufficiency whose neurological symptoms included a speech delay.

Adds Darnell: “Our discovery could have clinical relevance in many ways, ranging from developmental disorders to neurodegenerative disease.”

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-56579-2