Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: food

What honey bee brain chemistry tells us about human learning

A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC has for the first time identified specific patterns of brain chemical activity that predict how quickly individual honey bees learn new associations, offering important insights into the biological basis of learning and decision-making. The study, published in Science Advances, found that the balance between the neurotransmitters octopamine and tyramine can predict whether a bee will learn quickly, slowly, or not at all, as they associate an odor with a reward.

Because the same ancient brain chemicals that guide learning in bees also shape attention and learning in people, the findings may help scientists better understand why individual humans learn at different speeds—and how those processes may go awry in a variety of brain disorders.

Specific patterns of brain chemical activity appear before learning begins and again when a learned behavior first emerges, signaling how quickly an individual bee will learn. The research can help explain how chemicals in the brain drive attention and reinforce learning, with implications for fundamental biology, medicine, and agriculture.

New research reveals humans could have as many as 33 senses

We don’t experience the world through neat, separate senses—everything blends together. Smell, touch, sound, sight, and balance constantly influence one another, shaping how food tastes, objects feel, and even how heavy our bodies seem. Scientists now believe humans may have more than 20 distinct senses working at once. Everyday illusions and experiences reveal just how surprisingly complex perception really is.

Dyson Strawberry Farming: 5,127 Prototypes to 250% Yields

When James Dyson built his 5,127th prototype of a bagless vacuum cleaner, he had no idea that the same relentless engineering philosophy would one day transform him into Britain’s largest farmer. Today, Dyson strawberry farming represents one of the most ambitious applications of high-tech innovation to agriculture ever attempted in the United Kingdom.

The numbers tell an extraordinary story. After spending five years and creating over five thousand prototypes to perfect a single vacuum cleaner design, Dyson has now invested £140 million into a farming operation spanning 36,000 acres across five English counties. At the heart of this agricultural empire sits a 26-acre glasshouse in Lincolnshire, home to 1.25 million strawberry plants and technology that has increased yields by 250% compared to traditional farming methods.

This isn’t farming as your grandparents would recognize it. Inside Dyson’s facility, massive 5.5-meter “ferris wheel” structures rotate strawberry plants through optimal sunlight positions. Sixteen robotic arms delicately harvest ripe fruit using computer vision. UV-emitting robots patrol the aisles at night, destroying mould without chemicals. And all of it runs on renewable energy generated from an adjacent anaerobic digester.

What to watch as fungal infections rise: Species that can quickly ‘translate’ fat-use proteins

A new study by researchers at Kiel University and MPI-EvolBio describes how more efficient protein production drives the adaptation of fungi to the human body, potentially turning previously harmless species into emerging pathogens. In the wake of global change and the associated rise in temperatures, fungal infections are on the increase worldwide, threatening crops, wildlife and, also, human health. Many fungal species are completely harmless and fulfill important ecological functions, such as decomposing organic matter and releasing nutrients into the soil.

As symbionts of multicellular organisms, they perform useful functions for their host. On the other hand, some species are so-called opportunistic human pathogens: particularly in a weakened immune system, such fungi can colonize the body and cause serious and even life-threatening infections.

While fungi are often studied as pathogens of crops at institutions such as Kiel University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön (MPI-EvolBio), researchers are increasingly turning their attention to their harmful effects on humans. A research team led by Professor Eva Stukenbrock, head of the Environmental Genomics group at Kiel University and MPI-EvolBio, has conducted a new study to investigate why certain fungi might become human pathogens in the course of global change. To this end, the researchers analyzed various fungal species of the order Trichosporonales, which includes both harmless and dangerous species for humans.

Indigenous Food Is Medicine Program Feasibility for Navajo Patients

In this nonrandomized clinical trial, the MUTTON-HF intervention incorporating Indigenous recipes and locally sourced Native food was feasible and acceptable for patients with heart failure in rural Navajo Nation.

Question Among Navajo patients with heart failure living rurally on the reservation, is a medically tailored meal delivery program incorporating Indigenous foods and recipes feasible and acceptable?

Findings This nonrandomized clinical trial included 20 American Indian patients with heart failure receiving care at 2 Indian Health Service sites in rural Navajo Nation. A community-designed, Indigenous, medically tailored meal program was implemented; the intervention was deemed both feasible (90% of weekly meal boxes received by patients) and acceptable (mean Acceptability of Intervention Measure score, 17 of 20).

New CRISPR tool spreads through bacteria to disable antibiotic resistance genes

Antibiotic resistance (AR) has steadily accelerated in recent years to become a global health crisis. As deadly bacteria evolve new ways to elude drug treatments for a variety of illnesses, a growing number of “superbugs” have emerged, ramping up estimates of more than 10 million worldwide deaths per year by 2050.

Scientists are looking to recently developed technologies to address the pressing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are known to flourish in hospital settings, sewage treatment areas, animal husbandry locations, and fish farms. University of California San Diego scientists have now applied cutting-edge genetics tools to counteract antibiotic resistance.

The laboratories of UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences Professors Ethan Bier and Justin Meyer have collaborated on a novel method of removing antibiotic-resistant elements from populations of bacteria. The researchers developed a new CRISPR-based technology similar to gene drives, which are being applied in insect populations to disrupt the spread of harmful properties, such as parasites that cause malaria. The new Pro-Active Genetics (Pro-AG) tool called pPro-MobV is a second-generation technology that uses a similar approach to disable drug resistance in populations of bacteria.

Sleep disruption damages gut’s self-repair ability via stress signals from brain: A biological chain reaction

Chronic sleep disruption doesn’t just leave people tired and irritable. It may quietly undermine the gut’s ability to repair itself, increasing vulnerability to serious digestive diseases. A new study from the University of California, Irvine, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Agricultural University reveals, step by step, how disturbed sleep causes the brain to send harmful signals to the intestines, ultimately damaging the stem cells responsible for maintaining a healthy gut lining.

The research uncovers a previously unknown biological chain reaction linking the brain’s sleep center to intestinal health. The findings are published in Cell Stem Cell and offer new insight into why people with chronic sleep problems are more likely to develop gastrointestinal disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes-related gut complications and chronic inflammation.

Physicians have long known that irregular or insufficient sleep is associated with a wide range of health problems, from mood disorders to high blood pressure. Yet how changes in sleep can directly harm organs that do not sleep themselves, such as the intestines, has remained largely elusive. This study answers that question by tracing the damage from its neurological origins all the way to the gut’s regenerative machinery.

Google launches speech dataset for African languages

Google has collaborated with African universities and research institutions to launch WAXAL, an open-source speech database designed to support the development of voice-based artificial intelligence for African languages.

African institutions, including Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda in Rwanda, and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), participated in the data collection for this initiative. The dataset provides foundational data for 21 Sub-Saharan African languages, including Hausa, Luganda, Yoruba, and Acholi.

WAXAL is designed to support the development of speech recognition systems, voice assistants, text-to-speech tools, and other voice-enabled applications across sectors such as education, healthcare, agriculture, and public services.

From deer to chickadees: How fewer social encounters could raise extinction risk

Imagine an asteroid striking Earth and wiping out most of the human population. Even if some lucky people survived the impact, Homo sapiens might still face extinction, because the social networks humans rely on would collapse.

This dynamic also plays out in the wild.

Social interactions are essential for many animals, helping them to locate food, spot predators and raise offspring. Without such connections, individuals can struggle to survive.

Sweet reset: How sugar tastings help the brain quiet old memories

Memories must be flexible so animals can adapt when the world changes. FMI neuroscientists have found that in fruit flies, simply tasting a sugar reward again can weaken all previous associated memories. This process may inspire new ways to safely update harmful or unwanted memories. The paper is published in the journal Current Biology.

Memories help animals survive by guiding them on what to look for and what to avoid, such as remembering the smell of food or the warning signs of danger. But in a constantly changing world, those memories must also remain flexible. If a reward or threat no longer has the same meaning, the brain needs ways to update what it has learned without completely forgetting the past.

/* */