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Category: food – Page 3

AI-guided enzyme discovery enables 98.6% breakdown of polyurethane foam in hours

As the use of AI spreads through every industry and becomes more of a part of our lives every day, researchers are also looking into ways it can be used to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. One of these problems is the world’s reliance on plastics for making everything from clothing to medical supplies to food wrappers, which is creating a massive amount of non-biodegradable waste—with more and more piling on every day. Much of this ends up wreaking havoc on various ecosystems and creating an overabundance of microplastics that end up in our food and water supplies.

Clearly, there is a need for recycling these materials. However, plastics remain one of the most difficult materials to recycle efficiently. But now, a team of researchers might have found a way to facilitate the process with the help of AI. Their study, published in Science, details how a helped them find enzymes that can break down plastics faster and more efficiently than any they’ve found on their own.

Global initiative advances next-generation light sensors based on emerging materials

A global team of experts from academia and industry has joined forces in a landmark Consensus Statement on next-generation photodetectors based on emerging light-responsive materials, which could accelerate innovative applications across health care, smart homes, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Professor Vincenzo Pecunia, head of the Sustainable Optoelectronics Research Group (www.sfu.ca/see/soe), has led this global initiative culminating in the publication of a Consensus Statement in Nature Photonics. Featured on the journal’s cover, the paper provides a unified framework for characterizing, reporting, and benchmarking emerging light-sensing technologies. These guidelines could catalyze the adoption of such sensors across a wide range of applications, enhancing quality of life, productivity, and sustainability.

Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, are devices that convert light into electrical signals. They are at the heart of countless smart devices and represent a valued at over $30 billion, reflecting both their ubiquity and economic significance. Emerging photodetectors—including those based on organic semiconductors, perovskites, , and two-dimensional materials—could take this field even further by enabling ultrathin, flexible, stretchable, and lightweight sensors. These next-generation photodetectors promise lower costs, enhanced performance, and unique functionalities, paving the way for applications that were previously impossible.

Why we used to sleep in two segments — and how the modern shift changed our sense of time

From the article:

“In multi-week sleep studies that simulate long winter nights in darkness and remove clocks or evening light, people in lab studies often end up adopting two sleeps with a calm waking interval. A 2017 study of a Madagascan agricultural community without electricity found people still mostly slept in two segments, rising at about midnight.”

There’s a reason you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night.

Rare lost allele that boosts soybean seed protein identified

A research team led by Prof. Hou Xingliang from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has used genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify a rare allele that controls seed protein content and was lost during soybean domestication.

Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Oct. 30.

Domesticating into crops represents a breakthrough in human history, yet key beneficial traits are often lost in the process. Soybeans are a good example. Modern soybean cultivars have lower seed protein content (30%–40%) than their wild ancestors, wild soybeans (Glycine soja), which typically contain 50%–60% protein. Since soybeans (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) are the primary source of plant-based protein for both and , increasing seed protein content is a critical goal for .

Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs

The study, titled “,” was conducted by a large research team that included UC Berkeley Psychology Postdoctoral Researcher Emily Sanford, UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Jan Engelmann and Utrecht University Psychology Professor Hanna Schleihauf. Their findings showed that chimpanzees — like humans — can change their minds based on the strength of available evidence, a key feature of rational thought.

Working at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, the researchers presented chimps with two boxes, one containing food. Initially, the animals received a clue suggesting which box held the reward. Later, they were given stronger evidence pointing to the other box. The chimps frequently switched their choices in response to the new clues.

“Chimpanzees were able to revise their beliefs when better evidence became available,” said Sanford, who is a researcher in the UC Berkeley Social Origins Lab. “This kind of flexible reasoning is something we often associate with 4-year-old children. It was exciting to show that chimps can do this too.”

To ensure the findings reflected genuine reasoning rather than instinct, the team incorporated tightly controlled experiments and computational modeling. These analyses ruled out simpler explanations, such as the chimps favoring the latest signal (recency bias) or reacting to the most obvious cue. The models confirmed that the chimps’ decision-making aligned with rational strategies of belief revision.

“We recorded their first choice, then their second, and compared whether they revised their beliefs,” Sanford said. “We also used computational models to test how their choices matched up with various reasoning strategies.”

The study challenges the traditional view that rationality — the ability to form and revise beliefs based on evidence — is exclusive to humans.

“The difference between humans and chimpanzees isn’t a categorical leap. It’s more like a continuum,” Sanford said.

Continue reading “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” | >

How a chorus of synchronized frequencies helps you digest your food

Synchronization abounds in nature: from the flashing lights of fireflies to the movement of fish wriggling through the ocean, biological systems are often in rhythmic movement with each other. The mechanics of how this synchronization happens are complex.

For instance, in the vasculature of the brain, blood vessels oscillate, expanding and contracting as needed. When there is , the arterioles expand to increase blood flow, oxygen and nutrients. These oscillations are self-sustained, but the arterioles also work in concert with each other. How this happens is not well understood.

To uncover the answer, researchers at the University of California San Diego looked to another part of the body: the gut. Here they found that oscillators operating at similar frequencies lock onto each other in succession, creating a staircase effect. Their work appears in Physical Review Letters.

Tool reveals how your dinner affects risk of 30,875 species land-dwelling animals going extinct

University of Cambridge researchers have developed a new way to measure the impact of our food production on other species’ survival around the world.

It reveals that between 700 and 1,100 species of vertebrate are likely to go extinct in the next 100 years, if global land-use for agriculture does not change. This figure does not account for future population growth, and is probably a huge underestimate.

By considering the productivity of any piece of land, the team can figure out the “per kilogram impact” of each commodity per year on biodiversity.

Psychology study suggests chimpanzees might be rational thinkers

Chimpanzees may have more in common with human thinkers than previously thought. A new study published in Science by an international team of researchers provides evidence that chimpanzees can rationally revise their beliefs when presented with new information.

The study, titled “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs,” was conducted by a large research team that included UC Berkeley Psychology Postdoctoral Researcher Emily Sanford, UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Jan Engelmann and Utrecht University Psychology Professor Hanna Schleihauf. Their findings showed that chimpanzees—like humans—can change their minds based on the strength of available evidence, a key feature of rational thought.

Working at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, the researchers presented with two boxes, one containing food. Initially, the animals received a clue suggesting which box held the reward. Later, they were given stronger evidence pointing to the other box. The chimps frequently switched their choices in response to the new clues.

Creepy Science That’s Changing the World in Surprising Ways

From mini-brains and spider-inspired gloves to edible wolf apple coatings and microplastic-filled retinas, scientists are transforming creepy concepts into life-improving innovations. Lab-grown brain organoids could replace animal testing, web-slinging gloves can spin instant wound dressings, and wolf apple starch may keep veggies fresh longer. Meanwhile, the discovery of microplastics in human eyes reveals a haunting truth about our environment’s reach inside us.

Lab-Grown “Mini-Brains” Offer New Insight into the Human Mind

Scientists writing in ACS Sensors have successfully grown a small brain organoid in a petri dish, creating a powerful new tool for studying how nerve cells interact without the use of animal testing. Over two years, human nerve cells multiplied and organized themselves into a three-dimensional “mini-brain” that displayed electrical activity similar to real brain tissue. Researchers say this breakthrough could help scientists better understand how the human brain communicates and functions—or, as they joke, provide “a lab-grown lunch option for zombies.”

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