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Category: food – Page 130

Pigs live in modular pens in barns with airy lattice-like facades on this Croatian farm designed by architecture studio Skroz.

Skroz designed the Eco Pig Farm for Sin Ravnice, one of the first professional breeders dedicated to the long-neglected Slavonian Black pig, which is indigenous to the Slavonia region of eastern Croatia.

The pig is prized for its bacon and the local specialty sausage “kulen”, but its numbers dwindled during the 20th century as factory farming increased, because the breed requires access to pasture.

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Josh SeehermanI don’t think he’s wrong.

Art ToegemannIt’s adjusting to users sharing a password.

Shubham Ghosh Roy shared a link.

At the interface between chemistry and physics, the process of crystallization is omnipresent in nature and industry. It is the basis for the formation of snowflakes but also of certain active ingredients used in pharmacology. For the phenomenon to occur for a given substance, it must first go through a stage called nucleation, during which the molecules organize themselves and create the optimal conditions for the formation of crystals. While it has been difficult to observe pre-nucleation dynamics, this key process has now been revealed by the work of a research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE). The scientists have succeeded in visualizing this process spectroscopically in real time and on a micrometric scale, paving the way to the design of safer and more stable active substances. These results can be found in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Crystallization is a chemical and physical process used in many fields, from the pharmaceutical industry to food processing. It is used to isolate a gaseous or liquid substance in the form of crystals. However, this phenomenon is not unique to industry; it is ubiquitous in nature and can be seen, for example, in snowflakes, coral or kidney stones.

For crystals to form from substances, they must first go through a crucial stage called nucleation. It is during this first phase that the molecules begin to arrange themselves to form “nuclei,” stable clusters of molecules, which leads to the development and growth of . This process occurs stochastically, meaning it is not predictable when and where a nucleus form. “Until now, scientists have been struggling to visualize this first stage at the molecular level. The microscopic picture of crystal nucleation has been under intense debate. Recent studies suggest that molecules seem to form some disordered organization before the formation of nuclei. Then how does the crystalline order emerge from them? That is a big question,” explains Takuji Adachi, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the UNIGE Faculty of Science.

Continue reading “Revolutionary images of the birth of crystals” | >

The processing of food at high volumes has traditionally posed many problems for robots and cobots, and has lagged behind other industries. Foods have a variety of shapes and sizes and can be delicate in nature. These variables can be challenging when a robot tries to grasp an item. The delicate often has strict requirements for quality, making them even harder to grasp (think: strawberries).

Non-automotive robot orders now represent 58% of the North American total. Unit sales to the food and consumer goods sector alone increased 29% in 2021 over 2020, according to Association for Advancing Automation (A3).

“More industries recognized that robotics could help reverse productivity declines and fill repetitive jobs human workers don’t want. It is no longer a choice whether to deploy robots and automation,” says Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. “It’s now an absolute imperative. As we’ve long believed—and users continue to confirm—robots help companies compete, ultimately creating more jobs to handle their growth.”

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For those not paying attention, Tesla has been unable to build cars in China for a few weeks as China shuts down due to a zero Covid policy. Here’s a short video about life in China:

China’s financial hub Shanghai has started easing its lockdown in some areas on Monday, despite reporting a record high of more than 25,000 new Covid-19 infections, as authorities sought to get the city moving again after more than two weeks.

Pressure has been building on authorities in the country’s most populous city, and one of its wealthiest, from residents growing increasingly frustrated as the curbs dragged on, leaving some struggling to find enough food and medicine. Footage circulating online showed people screaming from their balconies, with the person filming claiming it was because people had grown tired of China’s strict lockdown rules.

Shanghai to ease lockdown despite surge in Covid cases ► https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/11/shanghai-to-ea…ovid-cases.

The Guardian publishes independent journalism, made possible by supporters. Contribute to The Guardian today ► https://bit.ly/3uhA7zg.

Continue reading “Residents in locked down Shanghai scream from their balconies: ‘This cannot last’” | >

Milling rice to separate the grain from the husks produces about 100 million tons of rice husk waste globally each year. Scientists searching for a scalable method to fabricate quantum dots have developed a way to recycle rice husks to create the first silicon quantum dot (QD) LED light. Their new method transforms agricultural waste into state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in a low-cost, environmentally friendly way.

The research team from the Natural Science Center for Basic Research and Development, Hiroshima University, published their findings on January 28, 2022, in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

“Since typical QDs often involve toxic material, such as cadmium, lead, or other , have been frequently deliberated when using nanomaterials. Our proposed process and for QDs minimizes these concerns,” said Ken-ichi Saitow, lead study author and a professor of chemistry at Hiroshima University.

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We produce more than 380 million tonnes of plastic every year, with over 8 million tons of plastic waste escaping into our oceans. Scientists have come up with a creative solution to address this growing plastic problem, and the best thing is that their solution smells and tastes divine.

By getting help from a genetically modified bacteria, a team of researchers at the University of Edinburgh was able to turn plastic bottles into vanilla flavoring. This is the first time a valuable chemical has been achieved from plastic waste.

The study, published in the journal Green Chemistry, explains how bacteria may be used to transform plastic into vanillin, a compound that is used not just in food, but also in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

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After eating up about one billion base pairs to fuel its synthetic biology and cell programming efforts, Ginkgo Bioworks is going back for seconds, with another large order from the DNA weaver Twis | After eating up about one billion base pairs to fuel its synthetic biology and cell programming efforts, Ginkgo Bioworks is going back for seconds, with another large order from the DNA weaver Twist Bioscience.

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