Interference to astronomy the unintended consequence of faster internet

Curtin University

Curtin University researchers have undertaken the world’s biggest survey of low frequency satellite radio emissions, finding Starlink satellites are significantly interfering with radio astronomy observations, potentially impacting discovery and research.

 

Unintended signals from satellites - leaked from onboard electronics - can drown out the faint radio waves astronomers use to study the universe.

 

Researchers from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), hosted at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA), focused on the Starlink mega-constellation as it has the most satellites in orbit, at more than 7000 during the time of the study.

 

Starlink is a private satellite internet service launched by aerospace company, SpaceX, which promises faster internet connections, particularly for rural and remote areas.

 

The research team collected and analysed 76 million images of the sky using a prototype station for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope once fully built later this decade.

 

PhD candidate and study lead Dylan Grigg said the team detected more than 112,000 radio emissions from 1806 Starlink satellites, making it the most comprehensive catalogue of satellite radio emissions at low frequencies to date.

 

“Starlink is the most immediate and frequent source of potential interference for radio astronomy: it launched 477 satellites during this study’s four-month data collection period alone,” Mr Grigg said.

 

“In some datasets, we found up to 30 per cent of our images showed interference from a Starlink satellite.”

 

Mr Grigg said the issue wasn’t just the number of satellites, but the strength of the signals and the frequencies they were visible at.

 

“Some satellites were detected emitting in bands where no signals are supposed to be present at all, such as the 703 satellites we identified at 150.8 MHz, which is meant to be protected for radio astronomy,” Mr Grigg said.

 

“Because they may come from components like onboard electronics and they’re not part of an intentional signal, astronomers can’t easily predict them or filter them out.”

 

CIRA Executive Director and study co-author John Curtin Distinguished Professor Steven Tingay said there was scope for regulatory improvement to help avoid satellites interfering with research.

 

“Current International Telecommunication Union regulations focus on intentional transmissions and do not cover this type of unintended emission,” Professor Tingay said.

 

“Starlink isn’t the only satellite network, but it is by far the biggest and its emissions are now increasingly prominent in our data.

 

“We hope this study adds support for international efforts to update policies that regulate the impact of this technology on radio astronomy research, that are currently underway. 

 

“It is important to note that Starlink is not violating current regulations, so is doing nothing wrong.  Discussions we have had with SpaceX on the topic have been constructive.”

 

Professor Tingay said satellite technology and radio astronomy were both important but needed to exist in harmony.

 

“We’re standing on the edge of a golden era where the SKA will help answer the biggest questions in science: how the first stars formed, what dark matter is and even test Einstein’s theories,” Professor Tingay said.

 

“But it needs radio silence to succeed. We recognise the deep benefits of global connectivity but we need balance and that starts with an understanding of the problem, which is the goal of our work.”

 

‘The Growing Impact of Unintended Starlink Broadband Emission on Radio Astronomy in the SKA-Low Frequency Range’ was published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

 

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Journal

Astronomy and Astrophysics

DOI

10.1051/0004-6361/202554787 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

The growing impact of unintended Starlink broadband emission on radio astronomy in the SKA-Low frequency range

Article Publication Date

17-Jul-2025

 

Students more likely to pass oral exams at noon — and that might apply to job interviews, too

Physiological rhythms could explain why Italian university students were more likely to fail exams early or late in the day

Frontiers

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To succeed at university, Italian students need to pass interview-style oral exams. Now scientists have found that the time of the exam could be a critical factor influencing their success… or failure. Even when other factors were excluded, the chances of passing were highest around lunchtime, and lowest at the beginning or end of the day.  

“We show that academic assessment outcomes vary systematically across the day, with a clear peak in passing rates around midday,” said Prof Carmelo Mario Vicario, director of the Social-Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the University of Messina and lead author of the article in Frontiers in Psychology. “Students were more likely to pass in late morning compared to early morning or late afternoon.” 

“We believe this pattern could extend to job interviews or any evaluative process scheduled throughout the day,” added Vicario. “We would be very interested in investigating whether hiring decisions, too, fluctuate in fairness or outcome depending on time of day.” 

Timing is everything 

The researchers were inspired by work which showed that judges were most likely to rule in favor of a defendant after meal breaks or at the beginning of a session. However, this could have been influenced by different types of case being presented at different times. So the researchers looked at oral exams, which are more subjective than legal decisions. If the time of day influences people’s judgement, large-scale data on exam outcomes should show evidence of it. 

“Oral exams in Italian universities are scheduled at set times, typically lasting 10 to 30 minutes per student,” explained Vicario. “There's no standardized format: professors ask questions based on the course content, and grades are assigned on the spot. These exams can be highly stressful due to their unpredictable nature and the strong weight they carry in academic progression.” 

A database from the University of Messina allowed researchers to access the results of exams conducted between October 2018 and February 2020. The researchers collected the time, date, and outcome of 104,552 assessments delivered by 680 examiners for 1,243 courses. They also used the number of credits granted towards a degree per exam to measure the difficulty of individual exams. This allowed them to exclude the difficulty of the exam as a factor and carry out statistical analysis evaluating the likelihood of passing based on the time when the exam began.  

Beating the curve 

The researchers found that only 57% of the exams were passed. The passing rate followed a bell curve with a peak at noon: there was no significant difference in your chance of passing if you sat your exam at 11:00 or 13:00, but your chances of passing were lower if you took the exam at 08:00 or 09:00, or at 15:00 or 16:00. The chance of passing was equivalent in the early morning and in the late afternoon.  

"These findings have wide-ranging implications,” commented Prof Alessio Avenanti of the University of Bologna, co-author of the study. “They highlight how biological rhythms — often overlooked in decision-making contexts — can subtly but significantly shape the outcome of high-stakes evaluations." 

Although the study can’t identify the mechanisms behind this pattern, the peak in passes at midday is consistent with evidence that cognitive performance improves over the course of the morning before declining during the afternoon. Students’ falling energy levels could lead to diminishing focus, compromising their performance. Professors might also be experiencing decision fatigue, leading them to mark more harshly.  

Meanwhile, poorer results earlier in the day could be down to competing chronotypes. People in their early 20s are usually night owls, while people in their 40s or older tend to be morning larks. The students might be least cognitively sharp at the time when the professors are most alert.  

“To counteract time-of-day effects, students might benefit from strategies like ensuring quality sleep, avoiding scheduling important exams during personal ‘low’ periods, and taking mental breaks before performance tasks,” suggested Vicario. “For institutions, delaying morning sessions or clustering key assessments in the late morning may improve outcomes.” 

But more research is needed to fully understand the factors which contribute to the time of day’s influence on students’ performance, and develop ways of improving the fairness of assessments.  

“While we controlled for exam difficulty, we can’t entirely exclude other unmeasured factors,” said Prof Massimo Mucciardi of the University of Messina, senior author. “We couldn’t access detailed student- or examiner-level data such as sleep habits, stress, or chronotype. This is why we encourage follow-up studies using physiological or behavioral measures to uncover the underlying mechanisms.” 

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Journal

Frontiers in Psychology

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1605041 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Timing matters! Academic assessment changes throughout the day

Article Publication Date

24-Jul-2025

COI Statement

The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision

 

New research details how our brains are drawn to and spot faces everywhere

University of Surrey

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New research details how our brains are drawn to and spot faces everywhere 

If you have ever spotted faces or human-like expressions in everyday objects, you may have experienced the phenomenon of face pareidolia. Now, a new study by the University of Surrey has looked into how this phenomenon grabs our attention, which could be used by advertisers in promoting future products. 

The study, published in i-Perception, investigated the differences between our attention being directed by averted gazes – when a subject looks away from another subject’s eyes or face  – and when it’s directed by pareidolia – imagined face-like objects.  

The researchers conducted four “gaze cueing task” experiments with a total of 54 participants, to measure how our attention is influenced by the direction of another subject’s gaze. They found that participants consistently shifted their attention in response to the appearance of both averted gazes and pareidolia. 

However, the underlying mechanisms through which attention is drawn are quite different. While we are primarily drawn to the eye region of averted gazes, we are drawn to pareidolia’s holistic structure of their “faces”, and as a result, experienced a stronger response and attention. 

Dr Di Fu, Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey, said: 

"Our research shows that both averted gazes from real faces and perceived faces in objects can direct where we look, but they do so through different pathways. We process real faces through focusing on specific features, like the direction of the eyes. However, with face-like objects, we process their overall structure and where their “eye-like features” are positioned, resulting in a stronger attention response.” 

The findings of the study may have implications that go beyond a better understanding of how our brain processes information. Dr Fu adds: 

"Our findings may have practical implications too, particularly in areas like product advertising. Advertisers could potentially incorporate face-like arrangements with prominent eye-like elements into their designs, increasing consumer attention and leaving a more memorable impression of their products." 

 

[ENDS] 

 

• Dr Di Fu is available for interview, please contact mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk to arrange.   

• The full paper is available upon request, DOI: 10.1177/20416695251352129 

• An image of Dr Fu is available upon request. 

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Journal

i-Perception

DOI

10.1177/20416695251352129 

 

US National study finds healthcare provider stigma toward substance use disorder varies sharply by condition and provider

Emergency medicine physicians show highest stigma—but also play crucial role in linking patients to treatment

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

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A new national study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with colleagues at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center, and Emory University finds that stigma toward patients with substance use disorders (SUD) remains widespread among U.S. healthcare providers—and varies significantly across types of substances. The findings are published in the journal Addiction.

The study is the first national analysis to compare provider stigma across opioid (OUD), stimulant, and alcohol use disorders (AUD) with other chronic but often-stigmatized conditions like depression, HIV, and Type II diabetes. Researchers also assessed how stigma influences whether providers screen for SUD, offer referrals, or deliver treatment.

“While we've made progress in expanding access to evidence-based SUD treatment, stigma remains a profound barrier—often embedded in the clinical encounter itself,” said Carrigan Parish, DMD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. “Our findings show that many providers still feel uncomfortable treating patients with substance use disorders and that hesitancy leads directly to missed opportunities for care. In particular, emergency departments often serve as the first—and sometimes only—point of care for people with substance use disorders. We need to leverage those moments, not miss them.”

The study, conducted from October 2020 to October 2022, surveyed 1,081 primary care providers (PCPs), 600 emergency medicine providers (EMPs), and 627 dentists using a nationally representative random sample licensed from the American Medical and Dental Associations. Participants rated their agreement with 11 standardized stigma statements and reported their screening, referral, and treatment practices for six conditions: three SUDs (opioids, stimulants, alcohol) and three comparison medical conditions (Type II diabetes, depression, HIV).

Key findings:

• Stigma score toward stimulant use disorders was highest (36.3 points, followed by OUD (35.6 points) and AUD (32 points).
• For comparison, stigma scores were far lower for depression (26.2 points, HIV (25.8 points), and Type II diabetes (23.2 points), where providers also reported higher levels of compassion and treatment.
• More than 30 percent of providers said they prefer not to work with patients with OUD or stimulant use disorders—compared to just 2 percent for diabetes, and 9 percent for both HIV and depression.
• Emergency medicine physicians (EMPs) expressed the highest levels of stigma toward SUD, yet were also the most active in providing clinical care:
  • 28.4 percent reported providing drug use treatment
  • 27.2 percent prescribed medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) compared to just 12 percent and 10 percent of primary care physicians (PCPs) for drug use treatment and prescribing medications, respectively. 
• Dentists reported the lowest stigma levels toward all queried conditions—which may be due to greater clinical and moral distance from SUD treatment and viewing SUD-related practices as outside their scope of practice
• Stigma scores did not significantly differ by provider race, age, gender, region, or rurality, indicating that these attitudes span the healthcare workforce

“Overall, providers were less likely to feel they could effectively help patients with stimulant or opioid use disorders. In fact, 22 percent of providers said, ‘there is little I can do to help patients like this’—a response we almost never saw for other conditions,” said Daniel Feaster, PhD and professor of Biostatistics and one of the lead investigators at University of Miami.

“This isn’t just a matter of attitude—it’s about access. If a provider doubts treatment efficacy or holds stigmatizing beliefs, they’re less likely to screen or refer a patient. That becomes a system failure.”

The study also highlighted key institutional barriers that may reinforce stigma, including:

• Time constraints 
• Lack of training
• Limited referral resources
• Discomfort discussing SUD with patients
• Legal concerns
• Minimal privacy in clinical settings

Senior author Lisa R. Metsch, professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia Mailman School and Dean of the School of General Studies at Columbia University added, “We heard over and over that providers feel unequipped or unsupported to treat SUD—despite being on the frontlines. That’s especially true in primary care settings, where time pressures and limited resources are a daily challenge.” Metsch also added, “Notably, the majority of health providers agreed that insurance plans should cover patients with SUD at the same degree as they cover patients with other health conditions.” 

Dentists, although typically less involved in treating SUD, are well-positioned to recognize oral signs of substance use and refer patients to appropriate care—but they, too, face gaps in training and systemic support. 

“Going forward, we should strive to be more cognizant of the many treatment and provider roles we have distinguished in this study. By unpacking all the variations, we can start to build smarter interventions—tailored by specialty, setting, and substance,” said Parish. 

Other co-authors are Viviana E. Horigian, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Harold A. Pollack, University of Chicago School of Social Work; Xiaoming Wang and Petra Jacobs, National Institute of Drug Abuse; Christina Drymon and Elizabeth Allen, National Opinion Research Center; Carlos del Rio, Emory University School of Medicine; and Margaret R. Pereyra and Lauren Gooden, Columbia Mailman School.

The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, grant 5UG1DA013720-23.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the third largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.mailman.columbia.edu.

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Journal

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.70122 

Article Title

Healthcare provider stigma toward patients with substance use disorders

 

Breakthrough engineered enzyme for recycling of PET bottle and blended fibers at moderate temperatures

National Institutes of Natural Sciences

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image: 

Engineered PET2 Enzyme for Recycling of PET Bottle and Blended Fibers at Moderate Temperatures

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Credit: Akihiko Nakamura

Summary

• Addressing the global plastic waste crisis, particularly hard-to-recycle blended PET fibers, demands environmentally friendlier recycling methods.
• Researchers engineered a novel PET hydrolase PET2-21M and established large-scale production in yeast. This enzyme dramatically boosted PET bottle-grade PET breakdown.
• In parallel, its direct precursor PET2-14M-6Hot successfully degraded challenging blended fibers (PET/cotton, PET/PU) at moderate temperatures.
• This breakthrough offers a promising, energy-efficient path for a circular plastics economy, accelerating industrial-scale recycling of diverse polymer wastes.

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A research team led by Professor Akihiko Nakamura of the Research Institute of Green Science and Technology, Shizuoka University (also a cross-appointment professor at the Institute for Molecular Science until March 2025), in collaboration with Researchers Takashi Matsuzaki and Toshiyuki Saeki of Kirin Holdings Co., Ltd., Professor Ryota Iino of the Institute for Molecular Science, and Professor Nobuyasu Koga of the Institute for Protein Research, The University of Osaka, have successfully engineered a novel PET hydrolase enzyme, PET2-21M, achieving a remarkable improvement in the biodegradation of bottle-grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. High activity toward PET/cotton and PET/polyurethane (PU) textile blends was also demonstrated separately with the closely related variant PET2-14M-6Hot. This significant breakthrough addresses the urgent global challenge of recycling PET waste by offering a sustainable and efficient alternative to conventional recycling processes.

PET is a widely utilized synthetic polymer prominent in bottles, textiles, and packaging materials, representing approximately 83% of the synthetic fiber market. Despite its intrinsic recyclability, traditional mechanical recycling methods frequently result in material quality degradation and exhibit limited effectiveness for complex blended materials such as PET/cotton and PET/PU. Chemical recycling, while capable of producing high-purity materials, typically demands harsh conditions and environmentally hazardous reagents, thus limiting its practical sustainability.

In response, enzymatic recycling has emerged as an attractive alternative due to its capability to depolymerize PET into its original monomeric constituents under milder aqueous conditions. To enhance the PET-degrading efficiency of the enzyme PET2, researchers adopted an extensive engineering strategy. They systematically employed both random and targeted mutagenesis, combining seven newly identified beneficial mutations with a previously-reported engineered variant PET2-7M, resulting in the highly active PET2-14M enzyme. Additional surface modifications, which introduced positive charges to improve substrate binding, and strategic alterations in the substrate-binding cleft based on another enzyme HotPETase as a structural template, led to the creation of PET2-14M-6Hot. Further optimization produced the final engineered variant PET2-21M. Furthermore, large-scale productions of the PET2-14M-6Hot and PET2-21M were achieved in the yeast host, Komagataella phaffii. Notably, PET2-14M-6Hot reached yields of up to 691 mg L⁻¹ after 137 hours of cultivation, demonstrating high expression efficiency without glycosylation-induced heterogeneity.

The PET2-21M demonstrated significantly enhanced catalytic activity compared to the original enzyme wild-type PET2, with initial small-scale assays revealing a total product yield approximately 28.6 times greater. Subsequent scaled-up experiments in 300 mL reactors further validated these improvements; notably, PET2-21M depolymerized approximately 95% of commercial bottle-grade PET powder (20 g L⁻¹) within 24 hours at 60 °C, while the benchmark enzyme LCC-ICCG required its optimal temperature of 72 °C to reach a comparable conversion of 91%.

The superiority of PET2-21M was particularly evident under reduced enzyme loading conditions. Even when enzyme concentration was halved to 2.5 mg L⁻¹, PET2-21M maintained around 50% degradation efficiency, nearly doubling the performance of LCC-ICCG, which achieved only 26% conversion under identical conditions. This highlights PET2-21M’s substantial potential to lower catalytic requirements and associated costs.

Importantly, PET2-21M retained its competitive advantage under higher substrate loading conditions (40 g L⁻¹). At an enzyme dosage of 10 mg L⁻¹, PET2-21M achieved a 79% conversion at 60 °C, closely rivaling LCC-ICCG’s 95% conversion at its higher optimal temperature (72 °C). Furthermore, upon reducing enzyme dosage to 5 mg L⁻¹, PET2-21M still outperformed LCC-ICCG, demonstrating a 44% conversion compared to 29% for LCC-ICCG. This robust performance at moderate temperatures and reduced enzyme-to-substrate ratios positions PET2-21M as a highly promising candidate for industrial PET recycling processes, potentially enabling substantial reductions in both energy consumption and catalyst expenditure.

To evaluate the recycling potential of engineered PET hydrolases for textile waste, the PET2-14M-6Hot was compared with the benchmark enzyme LCC-ICCG on pure PET fibers and textile blends. At 60 °C, PET2-14M-6Hot generated 75.7 mM total degradation products from pure PET fibers within 24 hours, representing a 1.4-fold improvement over LCC-ICCG tested at its optimal 70 °C. Similarly, PET2-14M-6Hot achieved higher catalytic efficiency on PET/cotton (65/35 wt%) blends, producing 62.8 mM products versus 46.7 mM by LCC-ICCG, with minimal interference from cotton fibers.

For the challenging PET/PU textile blends (85/15 wt%), both enzymes exhibited reduced activity above PU’s glass-transition temperature (Tg ≈ 55 °C). Nevertheless, at a lower reaction temperature of 50 °C, PET2-14M-6Hot maintained substantial catalytic activity, yielding 19.2 mM degradation products—more than double the 8.2 mM obtained by LCC-ICCG under identical conditions. This underscores PET2-14M-6Hot’s superior capacity for processing complex blended textiles, which have traditionally resisted enzymatic degradation.

These results confirm the engineered PET2 enzyme family's significant potential for industrial-scale enzymatic recycling. Their ability to efficiently degrade diverse PET waste streams, including challenging textile blends at moderate temperatures, strongly supports broader applicability and sustainability benefits in PET recycling processes.

These findings represent a substantial advance towards realizing a more sustainable and economically viable circular plastics economy. The engineered PET2 enzymes’ superior ability to depolymerize PET and complex fiber blends at moderate temperatures holds significant promise for practical industrial recycling operations, particularly in handling difficult-to-process blended textile waste. Future research efforts target further optimization of enzyme efficiency at even lower reaction temperatures and in the blended materials, ultimately facilitating broader industrial adoption and minimizing the environmental footprint of global plastic recycling efforts.
 

Information of the paper

Authors: Takashi Matsuzaki, Toshiyuki Saeki, Fuhito Yamazaki, Natsuka Koyama, Tatsunori Okubo, Daiki Hombe, Yui Ogura, Yoshihito Hashino, Rie Tatsumi-Koga, Nobuyasu Koga, Ryota Iino, Akihiko Nakamura
Journal Name: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
Journal Title: "Development and Production of Moderate-Thermophilic PET Hydrolase for PET Bottle and Fiber Recycling"
DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.5c01602
 

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Journal

ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

DOI

10.1021/acssuschemeng.5c01602 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Development and Production of Moderate-Thermophilic PET Hydrolase for PET Bottle and Fiber Recycling

 

Cracking the code to trying vegan eggs

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

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As the demand for plant-based meat and dairy options grows, vegan burgers, nuggets, and beverages have been in the spotlight for sustainable protein alternatives. But unlike their meatless burger counterparts, plant-based eggs haven’t received the same attention from researchers — until now.  

Enter Da Eun Kim, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Brenna Ellison, a professor at Purdue University. Together, they set out to answer a deceptively simple question: What makes someone willing to purchase a vegan egg? 

Their new study is one of the first to examine this question. Using an experimental method known as a vignette design, researchers tested how factors such as price, product type, and setting influence people’s behavior.  

“We wanted to measure the consumer's perception about plant-based eggs,” said Kim, who is a graduate student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois. “A vignette experiment allowed us to create hypothetical scenarios and isolate what consumers really think.” 

Instead of directly asking people if they would purchase a plant-based egg, the vignette method asked participants to imagine they were about to eat breakfast. This meal would take place either at home or in a restaurant, and consumers had a choice between scrambled eggs or pancakes made with plant-based eggs.  

The results were both surprising and informative.   

“We expected the setting to be more important, as we thought the novelty of the plant-based egg product would lead people to want to eat it in a restaurant where chefs know how to prepare the product in a way that tastes good,” Ellison said. “Surprisingly, the location of where you were eating, whether it be at a restaurant versus at home, didn't have as much of an effect as we imagined.” 

Additionally, consumers were more likely to purchase plant-based eggs when they were mixed into something familiar, like pancakes, instead of served on their own.  

The team also asked participants to rate how plant-based eggs would compare to traditional ones. Unsurprisingly, expected taste and appearance still favor the classic egg. But the plant-based version came out on top for environmental impact and animal welfare. This reflects a broader trend in food science, where ethical motivations are beginning to influence consumer choices.

Does this mean every consumer will want to purchase plant-based eggs? “Probably not,” Ellison said. “However, we did find that consumers who had previous experience trying plant-based eggs were more likely to purchase them compared to people without that experience. This suggests that consumers had a positive experience with the product previously.”

While familiarity with plant-based eggs is helpful, familiarity with the end product, such as pancakes, may also be key. “Introducing them as an ingredient, especially in a product that consumers are comfortable with, is a way to get people over any ‘mental hurdles’ associated with trying plant-based eggs,” Ellison said.  

These results offer a clear message for the industry: give people an easy, tasty, and recognizable way to try something new. 

“There are still sensory barriers,” Kim said. “I’ve tried the liquid version that comes in a bottle, like egg whites. The taste was different, but I was surprised the texture was very similar to traditional eggs.”  

That firsthand experience echoes the study’s findings; while taste and texture still matter, many consumers just need a nudge to take the first bite. And the best way to do that may be through a subtle swap in a familiar dish. 

While plant-based eggs might not be ready to replace the classic scramble at every breakfast table, they are finding their niche. Science shows that people may not be ready to eat them plain — but mix them in, make it easy, and meet consumers where they are. 

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Journal

Foods

DOI

10.3390/foods14101742 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Consumer Perceptions and Purchase Behavior Towards Plant-Based Eggs: A Vignette Experiment