A new study reveals that the brain uses two distinct neural pathways to regulate sugar and fat intake.
Category: food
Turning Point in Heart Health Occurs at 1 Key Age (It’s Younger Than You’d Think)
Emerging adulthood – the life stage that unfolds around ages 18–25 – is full of major transitions, such as starting college or learning a trade, making new friends and romantic connections, and generally becoming more independent.
It’s also a stage where behaviors that diminish heart health, such as spending more time sitting, consuming more fast food, and using more tobacco and alcohol, become more common.
In fact, only about 1 in 4 youths maintain positive health behavior patterns during the transition to adulthood.
Living computers powered by mushrooms
Mushrooms are known for their toughness and unusual biological properties, qualities that make them attractive for bioelectronics. This emerging field blends biology and technology to design innovative, sustainable materials for future computing systems.
Turning Mushrooms Into Living Memory Devices
Researchers at The Ohio State University recently discovered that edible fungi, such as shiitake mushrooms, can be cultivated and guided to function as organic memristors. These components act like memory cells that retain information about previous electrical states.
Physical activity raises daily calorie burn without conserving energy used elsewhere, study finds
The effects of physical activity don’t stop when the movement does. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Virginia Tech researchers, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Aberdeen and Shenzhen University, have found that being active adds to the total energy you use every day without causing the body to conserve energy in other ways.
This is important because the health benefits of increasing physical activity are already well-documented, but there is less research about how exercise impacts a person’s “energy budget,” or the allocation of energy to different bodily functions.
It has been thought that a person’s energy budget functions in one of two ways: like a fixed salary where energy is redistributed from other functions to cover the cost of movement, or like a flexible, commission-based system that is additive and allows for increased energy expenditure. The team wanted to determine which model better explains how the energy budget actually changes across different levels of physical activity.
Coastal gray wolves display unexpected hunting behavior with unknown ecosystem impact
On Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, gray wolves are doing something unexpected: hunting sea otters. This surprising dietary shift appears to have notable implications for both ecosystems and wolf health, but little is known about how the predators are capturing marine prey. Patrick Bailey, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rhode Island, is researching these understudied behaviors of gray wolves.
Using a creative mix of approaches—including wolf teeth samples and trail cameras—Bailey is exploring how coastal gray wolves are using marine resources, what this suggests about their behavioral and hunting adaptations, and how these adaptations differentiate them from other wolf populations.
On land, gray wolves are known to play a vital ecological role because of their ability to regulate food webs. “We don’t have a clear understanding of the connections between water and land food webs, but we suspect that they are much more prevalent than previously understood,” says Bailey, a member of Sarah Kienle’s CEAL Lab in the Department of Natural Resources Science. “Since wolves can alter land ecosystems so dramatically, it is possible that we will see similar patterns in aquatic habitats.”
An edible fungus could make paper and fabric liquid-proof
As an alternative to single-use plastic wrap and paper cup coatings, researchers in Langmuir report a way to waterproof materials using edible fungus. Along with fibers made from wood, the fungus produced a layer that blocks water, oil and grease absorption. In a proof-of-concept study, the impervious film grew on common materials such as paper, denim, polyester felt and thin wood, revealing its potential to replace plastic coatings with sustainable, natural materials.
“Our hope is that by providing more ways to potentially reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, we can help lessen the waste that ends up in landfills and the ocean; nature offers elegant, sustainable solutions to help us get there,” says Caitlin Howell, the corresponding author of the study from the University of Maine.
Fungi are more than their mushroom caps; underground they form an extensive, interwoven network of feathery filaments called mycelium. Recently, researchers have been inventing water-resistant materials made from these fibrous networks, including leather-like, electrically conductive gauze and spun yarn, because the surface of mycelium naturally repels water.
Gene variant that protects against norovirus spread with arrival of agriculture, prehistoric DNA reveals
The arrival of agriculture coincided with a sharp rise in a gene variant that protected against the virus that causes winter vomiting, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Linköping University report after analyzing DNA from over 4,300 prehistoric individuals and cultivating “mini guts.”
Winter vomiting disease is caused by the norovirus, which is most virulent during the colder half of the year. The infection clears up after a couple of days, but the protection it provides is short-lived, meaning that the same person can repeatedly fall sick in a short space of time. But some people cannot succumb to the virus, thanks to a particular gene variant.
“We wanted to trace the historical spread of the gene variant,” says Hugo Zeberg, senior lecturer in genetics at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
Floating Robotics: Advanced Greenhouse Automation Solutions
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Geographical Expansion of Avian Metapneumovirus Subtype B: First Detection and Molecular Characterization of Avian Metapneumovirus Subtype B in US Poultry
Avian metapneumovirus (aMPV), classified within the Pneumoviridae family, wreaks havoc on poultry health. It typically causes upper respiratory tract and reproductive tract infections, mainly in turkeys, chickens, and ducks. Four subtypes of AMPV (A, B, C, D) and two unclassified subtypes have been identified, of which subtypes A and B are widely distributed across the world. In January 2024, an outbreak of severe respiratory disease occurred on turkey and chicken farms across different states in the US. Metagenomics sequencing of selected tissue and swab samples confirmed the presence of aMPV subtype B. Subsequently, all samples were screened using an aMPV subtype A and B multiplex real-time RT-PCR kit. Of the 221 farms, 124 (56%) were found to be positive for aMPV-B. All samples were negative for subtype A.
Fungal secrets of a sunken ship: Advanced decay found throughout USS Cairo despite past wood preservation efforts
University of Minnesota researchers studied the microbial degradation of the USS Cairo, one of the first ironclad and steam-powered gunboats used in the United States Civil War. Studies of microbial degradation of historic woods are essential to help protect and preserve important cultural artifacts.
Built in 1861, the ship hit a torpedo and sank in December 1862 and was recovered about 100 years later from the Yazoo River. It has been on display at the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. Although the ship has a canopy cover, it is exposed to environmental elements.
“Continued degradation of this historic Civil War ship is causing serious concerns for its long-term preservation. To determine the appropriate conservation efforts, it is essential to understand the current condition of the wood and the microorganisms causing the degradation,” said lead author Robert Blanchette, a professor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.