It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, October 31, 2025
Bamboo tissue paper may not be as eco-friendly as you think
In recent years, Chinese tissue paper made from bamboo has emerged as a trendy choice for eco-friendly shoppers. However, new research suggests these bamboo paper products may not offer significant climate benefits over tissue produced in the United States and, in some cases, may be more detrimental to the environment.
The findings are detailed in a new paper from North Carolina State University researchers, which compared the carbon footprint of bamboo tissue paper manufactured in China with that of conventional tissue paper manufactured in the U.S. and Canada. The researchers found that, while using bamboo biomass itself did not produce more greenhouse gases than traditional wood, the fossil fuel-heavy power grid in China led to significant increases in emissions compared with cleaner fuel sources used in North America.
“As far as emissions go, the technology used to create hygiene tissue paper is far more important than the type of fiber it’s made from,” said Naycari Forfora, lead author of the study and Ph.D candidate in the NC State College of Natural Resources. “Because the Chinese power grid is so reliant on coal for power, emissions throughout the entire tissue supply chain are higher than what we saw with the wood-based option.”
Ronalds Gonzalez, an associate professor at NC State University and co-author of the paper, said that manufacturing tissue paper from bamboo is not meaningfully different from using other wood sources.
“Bamboo is a crop like any other, and it goes through the same production processes as Brazilian or Canadian wood,” Gonzalez said. “Consumers often think of bamboo as a ‘tree-free’ option, but the trees used to make tissue are planted and harvested the same way that bamboo is. When you then factor in how coal-reliant the Chinese mills are, you start to see how emissions from this product are actually higher than others.”
Researchers found that Chinese bamboo tissue was responsible for nearly 2,400 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of tissue produced, compared to 1,824 kgCO2eq/ton for wood-based U.S. tissue. Chinese bamboo also underperformed in several environmental categories, including smog formation, respiratory effects and ecotoxicity. Of note, these differences largely disappeared when bamboo production occurred in areas with clean electrical grids, reinforcing the finding that technological improvements are significantly more impactful than a change in fiber type when developing decarbonization strategies.
The authors are members of the Sustainable & Alternative Fibers Initiative (SAFI) at NC State, the world’s largest coalition dedicated to advancing knowledge on the sustainability of both conventional and alternative fibers. SAFI brings together more than 30 local and global partners from industry, academia, and government to collaboratively drive innovation and responsible fiber development.
Note to editors: The abstract of the paper follows.
Comparative life cycle assessment of bamboo-containing and wood-based hygiene tissue: Implications of fiber sourcing and conversion technologies
Authors: Naycari Forfora, Ronalds Gonzalez, Rhonald Ortega, Isabel Urdaneta, Ivana Azuaje, Keren A. Vivas, Hasan Jameel, and Richard Venditti of NC State
Published: Sep. 23 in Advanced Functional Materials
DOI: 10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100337
Abstract: This study assesses the environmental impact of producing consumer bath tissue (CBT) in the United States using Brazilian bleached eucalyptus kraft (BEK) and Canadian northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) market pulps, in comparison to bamboo-based CBT from China. Additionally, the analysis includes considerations of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration from plant growth, and the biogenic global warming potential (GWPbio) based on biomass rotation periods.
Results indicate a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint (CF) of 1824 kg CO2eq/air-dry ton (ADt) for US CBT (70 % BEK/30 % NBSK) using Light Dry Creped (LDC) technology. Substituting BBK for BEK/NBSK increases CF to 2041 kg CO2eq/ADt, with Chinese manufactured CBT at 2400 kg CO2eq/ADt. Using Creped Trough Air Drying (CTAD), CF rises to 2531 and 2739 kg CO2eq/ADt for BEK-NBSK and BEK-BBK mixtures, respectively. Including SOC factors do not change the conclusions. While the GWPbio factors are highly dependent on the time horizon considered. These results emphasize production technologies’ critical role in tissue sustainability and challenge bamboo’s perceived environmental advantages.
Families exposed to war and political violence are more likely to behave aggressively toward each other, impacting all areas of children's lives even after the immediate threat of armed conflict has passed, new University of Michigan research shows.
The trauma alters family interactions and dynamics, creating harsh, aggressive interactions that transmit injury across the entire household system, says researcher Paul Boxer of U-M's Institute for Social Research.
"Exposure to conflict operates as a source of real persistent stress and increases aggressiveness between parents, like hitting, yelling and other forms of combat—in turn, increasing their use of harsh forms of discipline with their children and ultimately the child's tendencies to behave aggressively," he said.
Tracking over 1,000 Israeli and Palestinian youth aged 8, 11 and 14, from 2007 to 2015, the study may provide the first full cross-cultural test of how the macro-level stress of political conflict cascades through the household system to shape child development.
The research, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development, is supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
"We had long been interested in how experiences with violence impact children and families, but did not have the chance to study this issue under conditions of persistent and intense violence," Boxer said. "In 2005, the NICHD offered a special call for proposals to examine the impact of violence exposure on children and we put together this project in response."
The data shows that political violence doesn't stop at the borders of a battlefield—it enters homes. Researchers say that even years after the immediate threat has passed, its psychological and relational impacts can echo throughout families, influencing how parents relate to one another and to their children.
The study's findings come at a time when global conflict is at record levels. In the last year alone, more than 200,000 people were killed in armed conflicts and 1 in 8 people worldwide lived within 5 kilometers of political violence.
During the decade covered by the research, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,500 people, with 21% of them minors, tragically underscoring the devastating human toll of protracted conflict.
"Based on the data we have, it has been surprising to see how interethnic-political violence really does impact all areas of a child's life," Boxer said. "This new paper further shows, interestingly, that family interactions impacted by the strain of issues such as food insecurity and parental joblessness can also be challenged by encounters with war violence."
Although the study period ended nearly a decade before the current Israel-Gaza war, its implications are urgent. Boxer and colleagues say that the current escalation of violence will likely intensify the family-level stress processes documented in their data.
Their findings underscore the need for multilevel interventions that address both macro-level drivers of political violence and micro-level family processes that perpetuate harm.
Programs that strengthen parental mental health, reduce family aggression and promote nonviolent conflict resolution may help break the intergenerational transmission of trauma and aggression in war-affected communities, Boxer said.
"Our findings provide clear rationale for ensuring that such programming includes activities and approaches that target spousal relationships and parenting practices to the extent possible, engaging whole families in services and not just children," he said. "I hope our results humanize the impact of war on families that, by and large, are innocent bystanders in conflict zones."
First transplant in pigs of modified porcine kidneys with human renal organoids
Researchers have developed a pioneering technology that enables human kidney organoids to be produced on a scalable basis. They can be combined with pig kidneys outside the body and transplanted back into the same animal in a viable manner
ENG: Confocal microscopy image of a kidney organoid on day 16 of differentiation. The cells have been labelled different colours using immunofluorescence to identify specific components: LTL (green: renal tubules), WT1 (red: podocytes), PODXL (yellow: podocytes) and DAPI (blue: cell nuclei). This image shows the organisation of the different cell types within the kidney organoid.
A research team led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and collaborating with the Biomedical Research Institute of A Coruña (INIBIC), as well as other international research groups, has developed pioneering technology that enables human kidney organoids to be produced in a scalable manner. This technology allows the organoids to be combined with pig kidneys outside the body and then transplanted back into the same animal to evaluate their viability. This breakthrough study, published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, is a significant milestone in regenerative and personalised medicine. It paves the way for the use of kidney organoids derived from human stem cells in cell therapy clinical trials.
Led by Dr Núria Montserrat, who was a principal investigator at IBEC at the time of the study and is now Minister of Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia, this work is the result of over a decade of scientific research dedicated to regenerative medicine and organ bioengineering. As a result of this sustained research, the team has succeeded in combining human kidney organoids with live pig kidneys connected to normothermic perfusion machines for the first time. These devices are commonly used in operating rooms to keep organs alive and oxygenated outside the body prior to transplantation. They have enabled the research team to insert human organoids into pig kidneys and monitor their integration and function in real time.
“Our research shows that combining organoid and ex vivo perfusion technologies can enable cellular interventions under fully controlled conditions,” explains Dr Montserrat. ‘The long-term goal is to be able to regenerate or repair an organ before transplantation. This could reduce waiting times for chronic patients and increase the number of viable organs for transplantation.”
A scalable, secure technology
A kidney organoid is a three-dimensional structure measuring a few micrometres in size that is grown, in a laboratory, from human stem cells. While not a complete organ, it reproduces many of its main structures and functions. Thanks to these characteristics, organoids enable us to study kidney development, test new drugs, and it is hoped that they can eventually be used to repair damaged kidney tissue or improve organs intended for transplantation.
This study presents a systematic and scalable method for producing thousands of human kidney organoids using microaggregation and genetic engineering techniques, which is a first.
“Despite the great clinical potential of organoids, one of the major challenges in applying this technology to real medical treatments has been to produce these organoids in a scalable, uniform and affordable way. Now, with our new method, we can generate thousands of kidney organoids under controlled conditions in a short time with great precision, without the need for complex components. This opens the door to applications such as drug screening and disease research,' says Dr Elena Garreta, a senior researcher in the IBEC's Puripotency for Organ Regeneration group and a co-first author of the study.
Furthermore, perfusing the organoids within the kidneys using the aforementioned machines offers a key advantage: it allows the physiological parameters of the organ to be measured in real time, enabling any signs of damage or rejection to be detected immediately. Experiments were performed both ex vivo (outside the organism) and in vivo (in the same animal), using a porcine transplant model that is highly similar to the human kidney.
The research team observed that, 24 and 48 hours after transplantation, the human organoids remained integrated into the porcine renal tissue. They maintained their viability and did not trigger any significant immune response. The transplanted kidney continued to function normally and there were no signs of damage or toxicity.
Towards organ regeneration prior to transplantation
According to the authors, this methodology enables us to envisage a clinical scenario in which organs intended for transplantation can be treated and prepared prior to implantation. Collaboration with the Biomedical Research Institute of A Coruña (INIBIC), the National Transplant Organisation (ONT) and other institutions, such as the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), has been essential in transferring this research into a realistic preclinical surgical setting.
A collaborative, high-impact project.
The article, entitled “Systematic production of human kidney organoids for transplantation in porcine kidneys during ex vivo machine perfusion”, is the result of a collaboration between IBEC, CIBER-BBN, INIBIC, ONT, UB, the Navarra Health Research Institute, the Málaga Biomedical Research Institute, the University of California, the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration in California, the Institute for Food Science Research (CSIC-UAM), the University Medical Centre Groningen, University Hospitals Leuven, the National Centre of Microbiology (ISCIII), the HM Hospitals Health Research Institute, the University of Leuven, CIBERONC, and the Networking Biomedical Research Centre in Bioengineering. The company EBERS Medical Technology SL, which developed the perfusion machines used, also participated in the work.
Dr Elena Garreta is an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology at the University of Barcelona (UB).
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) is a CERCA center, three times recognized as a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence, and holds the TECNIO label as a technology developer and business facilitator. IBEC is a member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and conducts multidisciplinary research at the forefront of engineering and life sciences to generate knowledge. The institute integrates fields such as nanomedicine, biophysics, biotechnology, tissue engineering, and applications of information technologies in the health sector. IBEC, established in 2005, is a collaborative effort of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the University of Barcelona (UB), and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).
Systematic production of human kidney organoids for transplantation in porcine kidneys during ex vivo machine perfusion
Article Publication Date
31-Oct-2025
Caption
ENG: Porcine kidney connected to the normothermic perfusion machine. This device allows the kidney to be preserved alive and oxygenated ex vivo (outside the body). The image shows the moment of infusion of human renal organoids into the porcine kidney.
Statements in English by Elena Garreta Bahima.Garreta is a senior researcher in the Pluripotency for Organ Regeneration group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology at the University of Barcelona (UB) and a co-first author of the study.
ENG: Three-dimensional images (Z-stack) of kidney organoids on day 16 of differentiation obtained by confocal microscopy. The cells have been labelled with different colours using immunofluorescence to identify specific components: MEIS (green: interstitial cells), CD31 (red: endothelial cells), LTL (magenta: renal tubules) and DAPI (blue: cell nuclei). This image shows how the different cell types are organised within the kidney organoid. Organoid generated from the aggregation of 250,000 renal progenitor cells obtained from human pluripotent stem cells following a differentiation process.
ENG: Elena Garreta Bahima y Daniel Moya Rull working in the laboratories of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). Garreta is a senior researcher in the Pluripotency for Organ Regeneration group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology at the University of Barcelona (UB) and a co-first author of the study. Moya is a laboratory technician in the Pluripotency for Organ Regeneration group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), and is also a co-first author of the study.
