Can AI improve plant-based meats?

Stanford University

 

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Is it possible to close the texture gap between plant-based meat and animal meat? Ellen Kuhl and her lab are trying. From left: Skyler St. Pierre, Marc Levenston, Ellen Kuhl, Reese Dunne, Ethan Darwin, Valerie Perez Medina, and Divya Adil pose with the meat and plant-based meat they analyzed. 

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Credit: Credit: Kurt Hickman/Stanford University

Cutting back on animal protein in our diets can save on resources and greenhouse gas emissions. But convincing meat-loving consumers to switch up their menu is a challenge. Looking at this problem from a mechanical engineering angle, Stanford engineers are pioneering a new approach to food texture testing that could pave the way for faux filets that fool even committed carnivores.

In a new paper in Science of Food, the team demonstrated that a combination of mechanical testing and machine learning can describe food texture with striking similarity to human taste testers. Such a method could speed up the development of new and better plant-based meats. The team also found that some plant-based products are already nailing the texture of the meats they’re mimicking.

“We were surprised to find that today’s plant-based products can reproduce the whole texture spectrum of animal meats,” said Ellen Kuhl, professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of the study. Meat substitutes have come a long way from when tofu was the only option, she added.

Industrial animal agriculture contributes to climate change, pollution, habitat loss, and antibiotic resistance. That burden on the planet can be eased by swapping animal proteins for plant proteins in diets. One study estimated that plant-based meats, on average, have half the environmental impact as animal meat. But many meat eaters are reluctant to change; only about a third of Americans in one survey indicated they were “very likely” or “extremely likely” to buy plant-based alternatives.

“People love meat,” said Skyler St. Pierre, a PhD student in mechanical engineering and lead author of the paper. “If we want to convince the hardcore meat eaters that alternatives are worth trying, the closer we can mimic animal meat with plant-based products, the more likely people might be open to trying something new.”

To successfully mimic animal meat, food scientists analyze the texture of plant-based meat products. Unfortunately, traditional food testing methods are not standardized and the results are rarely made available to science and to the public, said St. Pierre. This makes it harder for scientists to collaborate and create new recipes for alternatives.

New food texture tests

The research grew out of a class project by St. Pierre. Looking for affordable materials to use in mechanical tests, he turned to hot dogs and tofu. Over the summer of 2023, undergraduate researchers joined in to test the foods and learn how engineers depict material responses to stress, loading, and stretching.

Realizing how this work could aid the development of plant-based meats, the Stanford team debuted a three-dimensional food test. They put eight products to the test: animal and plant-based hot dog, animal and plant-based sausage, animal and plant-based turkey, and extra firm and firm tofu. They mounted bits of meat into a machine that pulled, pushed, and sheared on the samples. “These three loading modes represent what you do when you chew,” said Kuhl, who is also the Catherine Holman Johnson Director of Stanford Bio-X and the Walter B. Reinhold Professor in the School of Engineering.

Then, they used machine learning to process the data from these tests: They designed a new type of neural network that takes the raw data from the tests and produces equations that explain the properties of the meats.

To see if these equations can explain the perception of texture, the team carried out a test survey. The testers – who first completed surveys on their openness to new foods and their attachment to meat – ate samples of the eight products and rated them on 5-point scale for 12 categories: soft, hard, brittle, chewy, gummy, viscous, springy, sticky, fibrous, fatty, moist, and meat-like.

Impressive hot dogs and sausages

In the mechanical testing, the plant-based hot dog and sausage behaved very similarly in the pulling, pushing, and shear tests to their animal counterparts, and showed similar stiffnesses. Meanwhile, the plant-based turkey was twice as stiff as animal turkey, and the tofu was much softer than the meat products. Strikingly, the human testers also ranked the stiffness of the hot dogs and sausages very similarly to the mechanical tests. “What’s really cool is that the ranking of the people was almost identical to the ranking of the machine,” said Kuhl. “That’s great because now we can use the machine to have a quantitative, very reproducible test.”

The findings suggest that new, data-driven methods hold promise for speeding up the process of developing tasty plant-based products. “Instead of using a trial-and-error approach to improve the texture of plant-based meat, we could envision using generative artificial intelligence to scientifically generate recipes for plant-based meat products with precisely desired properties,” the authors wrote in the paper.

But artificial intelligence recipe development, like other AIs, needs lots of data. That’s why the team is sharing their dataonline, making it open for other researchers to view and add to. “Historically, some researchers, and especially companies, don’t share their data and that’s a really big barrier to innovation,” said St. Pierre. Without sharing information and working together, he added, “how are we going to come up with a steak mimic together?”

The team is continuing to test foods and build a public database. This summer, St. Pierre oversaw undergraduates testing veggie and meat deli slices. The researchers also plan to test engineered fungi developed by Vayu Hill-Maini, who recently joined Stanford as an assistant professor of bioengineering. “If anybody has an artificial or a plant-based meat they want to test,” said Kuhl, “we’re so happy to test it to see how it stacks up.” 

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Additional Stanford co-authors of the paper include Marc Levenston, associate professor of mechanical engineering; postdoctoral researcher Kevin Linka; graduate students Ethan C. Darwin, Divya Adil, and Valerie A. Perez Medina; visiting researcher María Parra Vallecillo; and undergraduate researchers Magaly C. Aviles, Archer Date, Reese A. Dunne, and Yanav Lall.

Kuhl is also a professor, by courtesy, of bioengineering in the schools of Engineering and Medicine, and a member of the Cardiovascular Institute, the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Levenston is also a member of Bio-X, the Cardiovascular Institute, the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance and the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Emmy Noether Programme, and the European Research Council.

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Journal

npj Science of Food

DOI

10.1038/s41538-024-00330-6 

Article Title

The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

Article Publication Date

15-Nov-2024

 

How microbes create the most toxic form of mercury

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Mercury is extraordinarily toxic, but it becomes especially dangerous when transformed into methylmercury – a form so harmful that just a few billionths of a gram can cause severe and lasting neurological damage to a developing fetus. Unfortunately, methylmercury often makes its way into our bodies through seafood – but once it’s in our food and the environment, there’s no easy way to get rid of it.

Now, leveraging high-energy X-rays at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, researchers have identified an unexpected major player in methylmercury poisoning – a molecule called S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM).

The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers figure out new ways to address methylmercury poisoning.

“Nobody knew how mercury is methylated biologically,” said Riti Sarangi, a senior scientist in SSRL’s Structural Molecular Biologyprogram and co-author on the paper. “We need to understand that fundamental process before we can develop an effective methylmercury remediation strategy. This study is a step toward that.”

At issue in the new paper is a narrow but essential mystery concerning how methylmercury is produced. Scientists knew that most of the mercury we consume starts out as industrial emissions that make their way into bodies of water, where microbes convert it into methylmercury. That form concentrates in fish – and ultimately us – as it moves up the food web.

Still, researchers weren’t sure how microorganisms make methylmercury. A key confounding factor, Sarangi said, is that the protein system that converts mercury to methylmercury, called HgcAB, is present only in very small amounts in microbes, making it extremely difficult to gather and purify enough to study. It’s also extremely finicky: The slightest exposure to oxygen and light deactivates HgcAB.

In an effort spanning 10 years and collaborations across national laboratories and universities, University of Michigan professor Steve Ragsdale, his graduate student Katherine Rush, now an assistant professor at Auburn University, and postdoctoral associate Kaiyuan Zheng developed a new protocol to yield enough stable HgcAB to finally investigate how it transforms mercury into methylmercury.

“We’ve worked with a lot of very difficult proteins, but this one had everything you would not want to have in a protein if you wanted to purify it. It was very complicated,” Ragsdale said.

Once the team purified enough HgcAB, they transported the samples – cooled by liquid nitrogen and shielded from light – to SSRL for X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements. There, SSRL associate scientist Macon Abernathy used a method called extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy to study HgcAB.

“SSRL’s X-ray spectroscopy facilities are especially equipped to study biological samples and have powerful detector systems that can resolve the extremely weak signals of ultra dilute protein samples like these,” Sarangi said.

While previous studies hypothesized that the methyl group in question came from methyltetrahydrofolate, a common methyl donor in cellular reactions, the new study finds that it was donated by SAM instead. The researchers said that the results, which narrow in on the main actors in the production of methylmercury, could aid in the development of environmental remediation strategies.

“No one has tried it yet, but perhaps analogs of SAM could be developed that could address methylmercury in the environment,” Ragsdale said.

SSRL is a DOE Office of Science user facility. The SSRL Structural Molecular Biology program is supported by the DOE Office of Science and the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2408086121 

Article Title

S-adenosyl-L-methionine is the unexpected methyl donor for the methylation of mercury by the membrane-associated HgcAB complex

Article Publication Date

15-Nov-2024

 

University of Tennessee wins funding for green jobs initiative

University of Tennessee at Knoxville

 

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Ayers Hall at the University of Tennessee.

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Credit: University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been awarded a $750,000 grant for East Tennessee Works, a regional green jobs initiative led by the university and focused on Knoxville’s inner-city and rural Southern Appalachian communities.

An interdisciplinary team from UT is one of six groups nationwide receiving funding in the Jobs for the Future Quality Green Jobs Regional Challenge. The university is working with community partners, industry, labor organizations and other educational institutions to train and support job seekers in advanced manufacturing and green construction.

Over the next three years, East Tennessee Works intends to place 5,000 East Tennesseans on the path to good jobs in the green economy, with a flexible, scalable approach. The team will be led by Sociology Professor Jon Shefner, along with Stephanie Bohon, head of the Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Associate Professor Mitsunori Misawa from the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences.

The grant will allow UT to act as a labor market intermediary, connecting employers, workers, training programs, labor organizations and community-based groups offering essential services like transportation and childcare.

The grant builds on ongoing efforts to integrate academic excellence with community service to prepare students and local residents for the high-demand jobs of today and tomorrow.

“We will be funding many of these organizations that provide these services,” said Shefner. “We’ll be bringing them together in ways that help recruit potential workers, and we will be reaching out to industry to find out what their hiring possibilities are, their specific needs and how to bring them together with the newly trained, newly skilled folks.”

Filling Job Demand

East Tennessee Works will focus on underrepresented workers in the green economy and address the growing demand for skilled labor as job roles evolve.

According to Shefner, many individuals are either underemployed, working multiple low-paying jobs or not fully utilizing their skills. With proper training, they can transition into positions that offer $30 or more per hour, with benefits and opportunities for advancement, he added.

The university has been working with organizations in Knox, Anderson, and Campbell counties, including TELOS Global, a manufacturer in Caryville, Tennessee, that provides parts for electric vehicles; Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development, a nonprofit in East Knoxville that provides career training and is building energy-efficient homes for low-income families; Community Organizations Networking Neighborhoods Encouraging Change Together Ministries; and a local labor council of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Knoxville’s Green Economy Booming

East Tennessee Works will prioritize green jobs, targeting companies that reduce their ecological footprint, produce components for electric vehicles, install solar panels and construct energy-efficient buildings.

According to Shefner, the Brookings Institution identified Knoxville as one of the largest and fastest-growing areas for the green economy more than a decade ago, and the green construction world is set to explode. He added that Black and rural communities have been underrepresented, and this initiative is aimed at providing equitable access to training.

This is the final round of funding under the Jobs for the Future Quality Green Jobs Regional Challenge, which the Ares Charitable Foundation funds through Climate-Resilient Employees for a Sustainable Tomorrow. This program is a five-year, $25 million initiative that seeks to close the gap between employer demand for a skilled green workforce and the number of people ready for these opportunities to help advance economic mobility.

“These recipients embody the forward-thinking solutions we need when it comes to addressing the dual challenges of climate change and economic inequality,” said Taj Eldridge, managing director for climate innovation at JFFLabs. “We’re proud to support these organizations as they create new opportunities for their communities and develop solutions that contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.”

 

New study finds air pollution increases inflammation primarily in patients with heart disease

Intermountain Healthcare

 

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New study by heart researchers at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City finds that patients with heart disease, specifically those with heart failure, are especially vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution and poor air quality and can take steps to protect themselves. 

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Credit: Intermountain Health

A new study by heart researchers at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City finds that patients with heart disease, specifically those with heart failure, are especially vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution and poor air quality and can take steps to protect themselves. 

Results from the Intermountain Health study, presented on Saturday at the American Heart Association’s 2024 Scientific Sessions international conference in Chicago, found that two inflammatory markers — CCL27 (C-C motif chemokine ligand 27) and IL-18 (interleukin 18) — were elevated in heart failure patients who were exposed to poor air quality, but did not change in those without heart disease.

This indicates that such air pollution events put more strain on the bodies of patients who already have heart problems.

While previous research has shown that people with some chronic health conditions, like heart failure, coronary disease, asthma, and COPD, struggle during spikes in air pollution, the new Intermountain Health study demonstrates that cardiac inflammation levels specifically rise in people with heart disease during periods of poor air quality.  

“These biomarkers rose in response to air pollution in people who already had heart disease, but not in patients who were heart disease free, showing that heart failure patients are not as able to adapt to changes in the environment,” said Benjamin Horne, PhD, principal investigator of the study and professor of research at Intermountain Health.

For the retrospective study, Intermountain Health researchers worked with scientists at Stanford University and the Harvard School of Public Health to examine the blood of patients enrolled in the Intermountain INSPIRE registry, which collects blood and other biological samples, medical information and laboratory data from healthy individuals and those who have been diagnosed with a variety of medical conditions.

Researchers specifically looked at blood tests for 115 different proteins that are signs of increased inflammation in the body.

They then examined blood draws of 44 patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, and 35 people without heart disease. Some blood was drawn on days with low air pollution, where ambient PM2.5 levels were under 7 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) of air; those test results were compared to draws done in other people on days when air pollution spiked to PM2.5 levels of 20 μg/m3 or over.

These spikes were caused by either wildfire smoke in the summer, or during a winter inversion, where air pollution is trapped when warm air holds pollution closer to the ground.

Researchers found that two inflammatory markers — CCL27 and IL-18 — were elevated in heart failure patients, but did not change in those without heart disease, indicating that such air pollution events put more strain on the bodies of patients who already have heart problems.

These findings “give us some information about mechanisms in people with heart failure who are having inflammation and suggest they’re not as capable in responding to acute inflammation as people who are healthy,” said Dr. Horne.

He added that the results from the study suggest that heart failure patients need to take extra precautions during times when air pollution is high.

“It’s important that individuals with known heart disease, including those diagnosed with heart failure, need to be especially cautious during periods of poor air quality. This includes exercising indoors, making sure to take their prescribed medications, and avoiding areas like roadways and highways where there’s a lot more traffic and pollution,” he said.

 

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Amid record year for dengue infections, new study finds climate change responsible for 19% of today’s rising dengue burden

Second study reveals how one Brazilian city escaped a historic outbreak this year by deploying mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria that interferes with dengue transmission

American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene

NEW ORLEANS (November 16, 2024) — Climate change is having a massive global impact on dengue transmission, accounting for 19% of the current dengue burden, with a potential to spark an additional 40%-60% spike by 2050 — and by as much as 150%-200% in some areas — according to a new study presented today at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

The findings from researchers at Stanford and Harvard Universities offer the most definitive evidence to date that climate change is a big factor driving a global surge in the mosquito-borne disease. Countries in the Americas alone have recorded almost 12 million cases in 2024 compared to 4.6 million in 2023, and locally acquired infections have been reported in California and Florida. The study also carries warnings of even sharper increases to come.

“We looked at data on dengue incidence and climate variation across 21 countries in Asia and the Americas and found that there is a clear and direct relationship between rising temperatures and rising infections,” said Erin Mordecai, PhD, an infectious disease ecologist at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and the study’s senior author. “It’s evidence that climate change already has become a significant threat to human health and, for dengue in particular, our data suggests the impact could get much worse.”

While some dengue infections produce only mild symptoms, others cause excruciating joint pain (earning dengue the nickname “breakbone fever”), and severe cases can lead to bleeding complications and shock. There are no drugs to treat the disease and while there are two licensed dengue vaccines available, some dengue experts have pointed to challenges with both that could limit widespread adoption.

The study finds that amid dengue’s growing threat, moderating global warming by reducing emissions would also moderate climate impacts on dengue infections. The analysis shows that with sharp cuts in emissions, areas now on track to experience a 60% increase would instead see about a 40% rise in dengue infections between now and 2050. However, with global climate models predicting that temperatures will continue to increase even with large reductions in emissions, the researchers found that 17 of the 21 countries studied still would see climate-driven increases in dengue even under the most optimistic scenarios for carbon cuts.

Mordecai said the study was inspired by laboratory tests that found mosquitoes that carry dengue progressively churn out more and more virus as temperatures rise within a specific range. She said this temperature-induced bump starts at about 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), then intensifies before peaking at about 28 or 29 C (about 82 F).

Her team then looked at 21 dengue endemic countries, including Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam and Cambodia, which regularly collect data on infection rates. They also looked at other factors that can affect dengue infection rates — like rainfall patterns, seasonal changes, virus types, economic shocks and population density — in order to isolate whether there was a distinct temperature effect.  

Mordecai said that dengue-endemic areas that are just now entering that 20 C to 29 C sweet-spot for virus transmission — parts of Peru, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil — could face the biggest future risks, with infections over the next few decades rising 150% to 200%.

Meanwhile, the study found that areas already on the high end of the temperature range, like southern Vietnam, will experience little additional climate impacts and potentially a minor decrease. Overall, the analysis revealed that there are at least 257 million people now living in places where climate warming could cause dengue incidence to double in the next 25 years.

Mordecai said the study probably underestimates the climate-related dengue threat. That’s because researchers were unable to predict potential climate impacts on dengue-endemic areas that have not consistently tracked infections, which includes large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Also, Mordecai said they were unable to quantify future impacts for areas like the southern regions of the continental United States, where dengue is just starting to emerge as a local threat. “But as more and more of the U.S. moves into that optimal temperature range for dengue, the number of locally acquired infections will likely rise, though it’s too early to say how that will affect the global burden,” she said.

A Possible Solution: A Second Study Credits Common Bacteria with Protecting Brazilian City from Dengue Storm

With climate change acting as an accelerant fueling dengue’s surge, new findings presented at the ASTMH Annual Meeting provide some of the best evidence to date that releasing mosquitoes that carry a common bacteria called Wolbachia may offer a powerful tool to fend off intense outbreaks of the disease.

The study by researchers from the World Mosquito Program found that in 2024, as Brazil battled its largest dengue outbreak on record, there was only a small rise in Niterói, a city of half a million people close to Rio de Janeiro. The study credits the fact that five years ago, a partnership between the World Mosquito Program and Brazil’s Ministry of Health blanketed three-quarters of Niterói with mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacteria that has been shown to inhibit a mosquito’s ability to transmit dengue and other viruses. Deployments into the remaining areas were completed in May 2023.

“We already saw infections essentially flatline in Niterói after the Wolbachia deployment, and while there was a small increase in 2024, the caseload was still 90% lower than before the deployment — and nothing like what was happening in the rest of Brazil,” said Katie Anders, PhD, director of impact assessment at the World Mosquito Program, which has been leading a global effort to fight dengue with Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes. “The fact that Wolbachia has sustained itself in the mosquito population for years now and remained effective during a record year for dengue outbreaks shows that Wolbachia can provide long-term protection for communities against the increasingly frequent surges in dengue that we’re seeing globally.”

Anders said that since Wolbachia has been rolled out across Niterói, dengue incidence has dropped to an average of 84 cases per 100,000 people per year, compared to an average rate of 913 cases per 100,000 people per year in the 10 years pre-Wolbachia. The 1,736 dengue cases reported in Niterói from January to June 2024 represent a rate of 336 per 100,000 in 2024. That’s compared to a rate of 3,121 nationwide and 1,816 in Rio de Janeiro state during the same period. Overall, in 2024, Brazil has recorded 9.6 million dengue cases — more than twice as many as in 2023 — and 5,300 dengue-related deaths. 

Other trials spearheaded by the World Mosquito Program, including large-scale releases in urban areas of Colombia and Indonesia, have reported significant reductions in dengue. They also have shown that Wolbachia is safe for humans, animals and the surrounding environment. But Anders said the protective effect documented in Niterói stands out for occurring amid such an intense wave of disease. 

“In Brazil, we’re in the process of moving past Wolbachia as an experimental measure to its use as a cornerstone of dengue control,” said Luciano Moreira, PhD, the World Mosquito Program project lead in Brazil. “We’ve partnered with the Brazilian government to build a Wolbachia mosquito production facility that will enable deployment in multiple cities simultaneously — with the goal of protecting many millions of people.”

Anders noted that the production facility in Brazil is a significant step because one the biggest barriers to using Wolbachia on a large scale is that it requires releasing a large number of infected mosquitoes to spread the bacteria into the local mosquito population. She also said that governments and donors must be willing to invest with an understanding that Wolbachia is a preventative measure, not a tool for combating an ongoing outbreak — it requires a couple of years to implement and reach full effectiveness.

However, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes transmit the bacteria to their offspring, which, according to Anders, means its protective effect could persist in a local population for many years. She said that evidence from the site of a 2011 release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in Northern Australia showed the bacteria was still present in 90% of the local mosquito population more than 10 years after releases finished.

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About the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, founded in 1903, is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. It accomplishes this through generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices, fostering career development, recognizing excellence, and advocating for investment in tropical medicine/global health research. For more information, visit astmh.org.

 

Hormone therapy reshapes the skeleton in transgender individuals who previously blocked puberty

Bioscientifica Ltd

Skeletal size may be altered by gender-affirming hormone therapy only if puberty has also been suppressed during adolescence, according to research presented at the 62nd Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting in Liverpool. The findings from this research, carried out by Amsterdam UMC, not only help researchers further understand the roles sex hormones play on the skeleton but may also improve counselling on gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals.

Skeletons of men and women vary in size and proportion. For instance, men typically have broader shoulders while women have a wider pelvis. Gender-affirming hormones are used to better align an individual’s physical appearance with their gender identity. What’s more, puberty blockers (gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues) can be used to delay or prevent the changes associated with puberty in transgender youth. However, how sex hormones affect the skeleton such as the shoulders and pelvis of transgender individuals is still unclear.

To investigate this, researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Center (UMC) in the Netherlands analysed data on the shoulder and pelvis dimensions of 121 transgender women and 122 transgender men who were either undergoing gender-affirming hormone therapy – with or without previously taking puberty blockers – or had not taken any therapy.  The researchers found that only transgender men who had been treated with puberty blockers from early puberty, followed by hormone therapy, had broader shoulders and a smaller pelvic inlet (upper opening of the pelvis) compared to untreated individuals, while transgender women had smaller shoulders only after treatment from early puberty. In addition, transgender women under treatment had a larger pelvis, but this change was most noticeable in those who started blocking puberty earlier.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the effect of both gender-affirming hormones and puberty blockers on the pelvic dimensions,” said Ms Lidewij Boogers, a PhD student at Amsterdam UMC who led the study. “Shoulder width is only affected when puberty suppression is initiated in early puberty, while pelvic dimensions may be sensitive to hormonal changes even after puberty has ended.”

Ms Boogers added: “Since skeletal dimensions from individuals who started puberty suppression in early puberty were most similar to those of the affirmed gender, our findings suggest that irreversible skeletal changes occur during puberty.”

The researchers will next assess the extent to which physical changes that occur during puberty suppression and gender-affirming hormones impact body image and quality of life in transgender adolescents. “We are currently conducting a prospective study, with the collected data we aim to further evaluate the relation between physical changes and psychological outcomes in this population. This could help optimise treatment and improve counselling for individuals who seek treatment,” said Ms Boogers.

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Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

 MUTUAL  AID

New model can help understand coexistence in nature

Uppsala University

 

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A seabird colony i Norway, on which this model could be applied.
Photographer: Claus Rüffler

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Credit: Claus Rüffler

Different species of seabirds can coexist on small, isolated islands despite eating the same kind of fish. A researcher at Uppsala University has been involved in developing a mathematical model that can be used to better understand how this ecosystem works.

“Our model shows that coexistence occurs naturally when species differ in their ability to catch fish and to efficiently fly long distances to the area where they catch fish,” says Claus Rüffler, Associate Professor of Animal Ecology at Uppsala University.

Seabirds can breed in very large colonies, sometimes consisting of several hundred thousand pairs. Ecologists working with seabirds have long been interested in what regulates the size of such colonies. Researchers at Uppsala University and the University of Lausanne have developed a mathematical model that studies how the behavioural decisions of seabirds about where to catch fish affect the distribution of fish around a breeding colony, how this in turn regulates the size of bird populations, and how different bird species breeding in the same colony and eating the same resource can coexist.

According to basic ecological theory, two different species cannot exist on the same limiting resource – the better competitor is expected to drive the other to extinction. The researchers wanted to understand what makes the coexistence of seabird species breeding on the same isolated island possible.

“For all species, it would be most beneficial to fish close to the island because it would cost them the least energy. But bird species differ in traits such as wing length and how deep they can dive. Our model shows that different species, all maximising their energy intake, automatically use different distances from the colony,” says Rüffler.

The model predicts that seabirds will divide the waters around a colony into different circular zones, with each species using its own zone to fish in.

“Our model is fundamentally about coexistence and biodiversity. Understanding this is important in itself – we humans have a desire to understand how nature works. However, such an understanding is also crucial for any management strategy for an endangered ecosystem. Also, we believe that our results contribute to ecology more generally because the mechanism for coexistence discovered in our model likely applies to systems other than seabirds,” Rüffler concludes.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2411780121 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Central place foragers, prey depletion halos, and how behavioral niche partitioning promotes consumer coexistence

 

Cocoa or green tea could protect you from the negative effects of fatty foods during mental stress - study

University of Birmingham

New research has found that a flavanol-rich cocoa drink can protect the body’s vasculature against stress even after eating high-fat food.

Food choices made during periods of stress can influence the effect of stress on cardiovascular health. For example, recent research from the University of Birmingham found that high-fat foods can negatively affect vascular function and oxygen delivery to the brain, meanwhile flavanol  compounds found in abundance in cocoa and green tea can protect vascular function during periods of everyday stress.

Now, in a new study, the same research team has found that drinking cocoa high in flavanols in combination with a fatty meal can counteract some of the impact of fatty food and protect the vascular system from stress.

The research has been published today (18th November) in the journal Food and Function.

Dr Catarina Rendeiro, Assistant Professor in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and leading author said: “We know that when people are stressed, they tend to gravitate towards high-fat foods. We have previously shown that fatty food can impair the body’s vascular recovery from stress. In this study, we wanted to see if adding a high-flavanol food to the fatty meal would alleviate the negative impact of stress in the body”

Rosalind Baynham, first author on the paper, explained: “Flavanols are a type of compound that occur in different fruits, vegetables, tea and nuts including berries and unprocessed cocoa. Flavanols are known to have health benefits, particularly for regulating blood pressure and protecting cardiovascular health.

“We took a group of young healthy adults and gave them two butter croissants with 10 g salted butter, 1.5 slices of cheddar cheese and 250 ml whole milk as breakfast, and either a high-flavanol cocoa or a low-flavanol cocoa drink. Following a rest period, we asked the participants to complete a mental maths test which increased in speed for eight minutes, alerting them when they got an answer wrong. During the 8 minute rest period and 8 minute mental maths test, we measured forearm blood flow, cardiovascular activity and prefrontal cortex (PFC) tissue oxygenation. We also measured vascular function using Brachial Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD), which is a prognostic measure for future risk of cardiovascular disease. This stress task induced significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure, similar to the stress you may encounter in daily life.”

The cocoa beverages were prepared by dissolving 12 g cocoa powder into 250 ml of whole milk. The low-flavanol powder was an alkalized cocoa powder which was processed to reduce total flavanols to 5.6 mg per serving; and the high-flavanol cocoa powder was a non-alkalized powder, delivering 695.0 mg total flavanols per serving. Alkalization is a process typically used in chocolate making to enhance flavour, but unfortunately it reduces the amount of flavanols.

The team confirmed that consuming fatty foods with the low-flavanol drink when mentally stressed reduced vascular function (by 1.29% FMD) and lasted up to 90 minutes after the stressful event was over. The findings also showed that the cocoa drink high in flavanols was effective at preventing the decline in vascular function following stress and fat consumption. Brachial flow-mediated dilatation was significantly higher following high-flavanol cocoa compared to low-flavanol cocoa 30 and 90 minutes after the stressful period. The team had also found in their previous work, that eating high-fat foods attenuated cerebral oxygenation in the pre-frontal cortex, during stress. However, cocoa flavanols did not improve cerebral oxygenation or impact mood.

Dr Catarina Rendeiro, Assistant Professor in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Birmingham, added: “This research shows that drinking or eating a food high in flavanols can be used as a strategy to mitigate some of the impact of poorer food choices on the vascular system. This can help us make more informed decisions about what we eat and drink during stressful periods.”

In the supermarket look for a minimally processed cocoa powder, and if cocoa isn’t quite your beverage of choice, there are other ways you can get a higher dose of flavanols, such as green tea, black tea and berries. Recent published guidelines for flavanol intake recommend between 400 to 600 mg/day, which can be achieved for example, by consuming two cups of black or green tea, or a combination of berries, apples and high-quality cocoa.

Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Professor of Biological Psychology at the University of Birmingham, and author of this paper added: “Modern life is stressful and the impact of stress on our health and the economy has been well documented, so any changes we can make to protect ourselves from some of the symptoms of stress is positive. For those who tend to reach for a treat when stressed or depend on convenient food because they work high-pressure jobs or are time-poor, incorporating some of these small changes could make a real difference.”

ENDS

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Journal

Food & Function

DOI

10.1039/D4FO03834G 

 

Biodiversity in the city: Designing urban spaces for humans and animals

Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Animals and plants also live and thrive on public squares. This creates opportunities for greater biodiversity and well-being for the human population. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have studied at 103 locations in Munich how various factors affect flora and fauna. They advocate a close examination of local conditions and a more nature-focussed approach to the design of public spaces.

Biodiversity is the foundation of functional ecosystems: diverse ecosystems are more stable and have greater resiliency to the effects of climate change. However, humans also benefit directly from having a wide range of plant and animal life in their surroundings. A growing number of studies have demonstrated the positive effects on the human immune system, moods and the microbiome, as the microorganism population of the body is known. “Especially with rising urbanization, it makes sense to take a closer look at the coexistence of humans and animals in the city,” says Wolfgang Weisser, Professor of Terrestrial Ecology at TUM.

Together with Andrew J. Fairbairn and Sebastian T. Meyer, the first authors of the study, and students and staff of the chair, Wolfgang Weisser studied biodiversity at 103 public squares in Munich. The team looked at such factors as size, the occurrence of lawn, plant and tree growth, artificial light sources and green in the surroundings of the location within a 1,000 meter radius. The squares varied from almost entirely sealed to park-like squares.

Their results show, with Munich as an example, how greatly the different spaces can differ in the animals and other organisms that can live there. At the heavily sealed Marienplatz, the researchers counted only 20 species, with just one bird and moss species as well as insects and bat species. Meanwhile, at Pfrontener Platz, a space with lawns, bushes and trees, they found 156 taxa, including 21 different kinds of birds. At Johannisplatz, 118 species are present, as it has trees, hedges and some grassy areas despite being sealed to a relatively large extent.

More detailed planning needed for plantings

Unsurprisingly, more plants are beneficial to many animal species. This is a factor that urban planning models already take into account. However, the study also shows that lawns, trees and bushes vary widely in terms of the diversity and numbers of the species they attract. So far, public spaces are designed with humans in mind, with little consideration to animals and other species.

Almost all of the species investigated benefit from lawns as they are home to soil organisms that also serve as a food source, for hedgehogs and birds, for example. Trees and bushes also have positive effects, especially when combined with grassy vegetation. At the same time the team was able to show that some species also seek the heat of the city center, while others prefer the cooler outlying areas, where there is also less light pollution.

Consciously planning for the coexistence of humans and animals

Based on those insights, the researchers concluded that the chances for greater biodiversity are increased if, instead of applying the same patterns to every location, planners take into account the local conditions and the needs of different species. To encourage more bee species, for example, they should not only plant nectar-bearing flowers, but also provide open space as habitat for the bees and a source of nest-building material – even  close to the city center because pollinators like warm conditions.

“We understand that spaces fulfil various functions and that not every area is suitable for large-scale restructuring,” says Wolfgang Weisser. “But with just a few measures one can already achieve a lot and allow for positive people-nature-relationships. If we incorporate factors with a positive influence on biodiversity in urban planning, we can utilize the available potential to do good not only for nature but also for ourselves.”

Publication:
Fairbairn, A.J., Meyer, S.T., Mühlbauer, M. et al.: Urban biodiversity is affected by human-designed features of public squares. Nat Cities 1 (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00126-5

Further recent publications on the coexistence of humans and animals:

• Weisser, W. W., Hauck, T. E.: Animal-Aided Design – planning for biodiversity in the built environment by embedding a species’ life-cycle into landscape architectural and urban design processes. Landscape Research (2024). DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2024.2383482
• Visintin, C., Garrard, G. E., Weisser, W. W. et al.: Designing cities for everyday nature. Conservation Biology, (2024). DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14328

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Journal

Nature Cities

DOI

10.1038/s44284-024-00126-5 

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Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Urban biodiversity is affected by human-designed features of public squares