First-in-North-America resource touts research into health benefits of fermented foods

New network helps consumers, researchers and food industry find and share trusted information about ‘ferment-ceuticals'

Lawson Research Institute

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Fermented foods may be as good for your gut health as they are for your palate. A new Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative is connecting health researchers with consumers and the food industry.

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Credit: Credit: St. Joseph's Health Care London

London (Ont.) – A one-stop network, the first of its kind in North America, has begun sharing easily digested research, recipes and other resources about the health benefits of fermented foods.

The new Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative (CFFI) launches officially on Nov. 17 with a gathering of research and industry experts from across the country and Europe.

The collaboration helps consumers, researchers, health professionals and food industry share trusted, science-based expertise and information about fermented foods.

Funded by the Weston Family Foundation, the initiative is led by Jeremy Burton, PhD, who heads of one of Canada’s largest microbiome research programs and is Interim Vice President Research at St. Joseph’s Health Care London and Lawson Research Institute. His research leadership is joined by Raylene Reimer, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of Calgary; and University of Alberta professor Ben Willing, PhD, former Canada Research Chair in Microbiology of Nutrigenomics.

Fermented foods such as sourdough bread, sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha offer more than just good taste and an economical way to preserve food, Burton says. Large, population-based studies show people who eat fermented foods are generally healthier, with fewer digestive issues and lower risk of chronic diseases.

“How exactly does that work – and why? Well, that’s the big question we’re trying to solve,” Burton says. “One day, I believe, ‘ferment-ceuticals’ will be engrained in our diets and our health vocabulary.”

St. Joseph's is a leader in the field. A paper authored by the team and published this week in Advances in Nutrition represents the most comprehensive synthesis to date of research on fermented foods and human health.

Connor Flynn, a London, Ont., chef, master food preserver and high school teacher whose video recipes are included in the CFFI website, adds, “Fermenting foods is an old practice that’s never fallen out of flavour, but has sometimes fallen out of favour to North Americans. Now it has become popular again.”
To learn more about the CFFI, including fermented food recipes, head to fermentedfoods.ca.

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Scientist Jeremy Burton of Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph's Health Care London, heads one of Canada's largest gut microbiome programs. He has spearheaded a North-American first: the Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative, which connects fermented-foods health research with consumers and the food industry.

Credit

Credit: St. Joseph's Health Care London

About St. Joseph’s Health Care London
Renowned for compassionate care, St. Joseph’s Health Care London is a leading academic health care centre in Canada dedicated to helping people live to their fullest by minimizing the effects of injury, disease and disability through excellence in care, teaching and research. Through Lawson Research Institute, our innovation arm, and with collaborative engagement with other health and academic partners, St. Joseph’s has become an international leader in the areas of: chronic disease management; medical imaging; specialized mental health care; rehabilitation and specialized geriatrics; and surgery. St. Joseph’s operates through a wide range of hospital, clinic and long-term and community-based settings, including: St. Joseph’s Hospital; Parkwood Institute; Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care; and the Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care.

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Journal

Advances in Nutrition

DOI

10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100554 

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Current Research in Fermented Foods: Bridging Tradition and Science

Article Publication Date

11-Nov-2025

 

Mechanical power by linking Earth’s warmth to space

University of California - Davis

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UC Davis engineering professor Jeremy Munday has developed an experimental engine that can generate mechanical power from the temperature difference between the Earth and deep space when placed outdoors at night. The device, a type of machine called a Stirling engine, could be used for example to ventilate buildings or run fans in a greenhouse at night. 

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Credit: Mario Rodriguez/UC Davis

Engineers at the University of California, Davis, have invented a device that can generate mechanical power at night by linking the natural warmth around us to the cold depths of space. The invention could be used, for example, to ventilate greenhouses or other buildings. The work is described Nov. 12 in Science Advances. 

The invention is a type of machine called a Stirling engine. Other machines such as internal combustion engines generate power from a large heat gradient, said Jeremy Munday, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis and co-author on the paper. In contrast, a Stirling engine can work based on a small difference in temperature, such as that between a hot cup of coffee and its surroundings. 

“These engines are very efficient when only small temperature differences exist, whereas other types of engines work better with larger temperature differences and can produce more power,” Munday said. 

Typically, a Stirling engine is directly connected to a heat source on one side and a cooler environment on the other side. 

“If you just set it on the table, it’s not going to produce any power on its own because all sides are the same temperature,” Munday said. 

One way to generate a temperature difference, of course, is to heat up one side by burning fuel. Munday and graduate student researcher Tristan Deppe wondered if instead they could connect the cold side to something very, very cold but also very far away: deep space. 

“It doesn't actually have to touch space physically, it can just interact radiatively with space,” Munday said. It’s like standing outside on a cold, clear night: Your head will quickly start to feel cold as heat radiates away. 

Deppe and Munday’s idea was to take a simple Stirling engine (essentially a piston driving a flywheel), put it on a panel that acts as a heat-radiating antenna and sit the whole thing on the ground outdoors at night. The ground acts as the warm side of the engine and the antenna channels the cold of space. 

A year of night time experiments shows that the small device can indeed generate at least 400 milliwatts of mechanical power per square meter. The researchers used the device experimentally to directly power a fan and also coupled it to a small electrical motor to generate current. 

The experiments show that it is possible to generate useful amounts of power from the night sky. The potential is greatest in areas where humidity is low and night skies are usually clear, Munday said. The principle could be used, for example, to ventilate greenhouses or residential buildings. 

UC Davis has filed a provisional patent related to the work. 

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adw6833 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Mechanical power generation using Earth’s ambient radiation

Article Publication Date

12-Nov-2025

COI Statement

The authors of the paper are inventors on a US provisional patent application submitted by University of California, Davis on 9 August 2024 that pertains to aspects of this work. The authors declare that they have no other competing interests.

 

How climate change brings wildlife to the yard

Pumas, bobcats and bears, oh my: People clash more with wildlife in drought years

University of California - Davis

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A bear is seen on a trail camera sitting in a bathtub at Hopland Research and Extension Center in Hopland, California.

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Credit: Courtesy Brashares Lab, UC Berkeley

As climate change increases the frequency of droughts, UCLA and UC Davis researchers found one overlooked side effect: People report more conflicts with wildlife during drought, when resources are scarce.

For every inch that annual rainfall decreases, scientists found a 2% to 3% increase in reported clashes with a variety of carnivores during drought years, according to a paper published today, Nov. 12, in the journal Science Advances. 

The researchers pored through seven years of data from the Wildlife Incident Reporting database, run by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The results are likely broadly applicable outside of California, said lead author Kendall Calhoun, a postdoctoral researcher and conservation ecologist affiliated with both UCLA and UC Davis.

“Climate change will increase human-wildlife interactions, and as droughts and wildfires become more extreme, we have to plan ways to coexist with wildlife,” said Calhoun, a member of Justine Smith’s lab at UC Davis and of UCLA’s Tingley lab on ecology and conservation. “Animals coming into human spaces are generally framed as wildlife trying to take resources from humans, but it’s often because we’ve taken the resources away from the wild areas.”

Wildlife interactions don’t increase with all animals during droughts, but four animals stood out in the data. Across all ranges of precipitation, for every 1-inch decrease in annual rainfall, the researchers found reported conflicts increased: 

• 2.1% for mountain lions
• 2.2% for coyotes
• 2.6% for black bears
• 3% for bobcats

But what counts as a conflict? 

“That’s the big question, and it often depends on the person reporting it,” Calhoun said. “If you have birds in an agricultural area, they could provide ecosystem services like eating harmful insects, or they could be raiding the crops. One person might have sympathy for wildlife grazing from their tomato garden, while another person might call it property damage.”

Actual attacks on people are exceedingly rare and not included in the same database, Calhoun explained. In the study, the researchers analyzed reports to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife highlighting property damage and “nuisances,” rather than reports categorized as lower-level “concerns” or “sightings.”

So are there more coyotes moving through urban areas during droughts? It’s hard to say, Calhoun said.

“It’s unclear whether the number of reports increases because there are subjectively more conflicts, or because people perceive wildlife more negatively when their own resources are more stressed,” he said. “Regardless, it’s clear that climate change will mean more conflict between humans and animals if we don’t create more climate-resilient landscapes for wildlife.”

Studies have shown the benefits of creating such safe zones and other refuges for wildlife. Calhoun anticipates that the resources in those areas could dissuade animals from venturing into more human-dominated spaces.

“Now that we know how droughts make wildlife interactions worse, why couldn’t we make them better?” he said. “Mitigating how much water we take out of natural landscapes could mitigate conflict.”

There are few comprehensive databases collecting community-reported wildlife incidents, making the CDFW database used for the study a rare and valuable resource, Calhoun noted, without which his research could not succeed. It’s an important example of community-driven science, Calhoun said.

Calhoun’s research expertise focuses on megafires, and how climate-change driven fire trends influence animal habitats. Animals can often flee the fire itself, but to find food, water and shelter, they have to move into areas protected from the flames – and that often means into human-inhabited areas, Calhoun said.

“I look at ways to improve human-wildlife interactions, and climate change is going to make that path more difficult,” Calhoun said. “But if we can make it worse, then we can make it better. People just need to be invested in their local environment to make conservation work.” 

Bobcats glimpsed by a camera trap at Hopland Research and Extension Center in Hopland, California.

Credit

Courtesy Breshares Lab, UC Berkeley

A coyote passes a trail camera in Quail Ridge Nature Reserve in Napa County, California.

Credit

Kendall Calhoun, UCLA/UCDavis

A mountain lion walks near a camera trap at Hastings Natural History Reserve in Carmel Valley.

Credit

Kendall Calhoun, UCLA/UC Davis

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adx0286 

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Human-wildlife conflict is amplified during periods of drought

Article Publication Date

12-Nov-2025