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Category: food – Page 155

In a study in Nature Plants, Yiping Qi, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland (UMD), introduces a new and improved CRISPR 3.0 system in plants, focusing on gene activation instead of traditional gene editing. This third generation CRISPR system focuses on multiplexed gene activation, meaning that it can boost the function of multiple genes simultaneously. According to the researchers, this system boasts four to six times the activation capacity of current state-of-the-art CRISPR technology, demonstrating high accuracy and efficiency in up to seven genes at once. While CRISPR is more often known for its gene editing capabilities that can knock out genes that are undesirable, activating genes to gain functionality is essential to creating better plants and crops for the future.

“While my lab has produced systems for simultaneous gene editing [multiplexed editing] before, editing is mostly about generating loss of function to improve the crop,” explains Qi. “But if you think about it, that strategy is finite, because there aren’t endless genes that you can turn off and actually still gain something valuable. Logically, it is a very limited way to engineer and breed better traits, whereas the plant may have already evolved to have different pathways, defense mechanisms, and traits that just need a boost. Through activation, you can really uplift pathways or enhance existing capacity, even achieve a novel function. Instead of shutting things down, you can take advantage of the functionality already there in the genome and enhance what you know is useful.”

In his new paper, Qi and his team validated the CRISPR 3.0 system in rice, tomatoes, and Arabidopsis (the most popular model plant species, commonly known as rockcress). The team showed that it is possible to simultaneously activate many kinds of genes, including faster flowering to speed up the breeding process. But this is just one of the many advantages of multiplexed activation, says Qi.

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The same bacteria that cause inflammation also trigger weight loss.

A new study investigating how a low-calorie diet alters gut microbial populations is reporting unexpected results. The findings reveal a strange relationship between extreme caloric restriction and increased levels of a pathogenic bacteria linked to inflammatory bowel disease.

The research began by recruiting 80 overweight or obese subjects. Half the cohort were directed to maintain a stable weight for 16 weeks, while the other half completed a medically supervised weight-loss program including eight weeks of a very low calorie diet (800 kcal per day).

At the end of the study period the researchers took fecal samples from the participants and found those in the diet cohort showed substantial gut microbiome alterations, including generally reduced bacterial diversity. Reiner Jumpertz von Schwartzenberg, first author on the new study, says that alongside reducing the overall numbers of gut bacteria present, the dieting seemed to distinctly alter the behavior of the remaining microbes.

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A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, the University of Naples Federico II, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences has found that making food from air would be far more efficient than growing crops. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their analysis and comparison of the efficiency of growing crops (soybeans) and using a food-from-air technique.

For several years, researchers around the world have been looking into the idea of growing “ from air,” combining a renewable fuel resource with carbon from the air to create food for a type of bacteria that create edible protein. One such project is Solar Foods in Finland, where researchers have the goal of building a demonstration plant by 2023. In this new effort, the researchers sought to compare the efficiency of growing a staple crop, soybeans, with growing food from air.

To make their comparisons, the researchers used a food-from-air system that uses solar energy panels to make electricity, which is combined with from the air to produce food for microbes grown in a bioreactor. The protein the microbes produce is then treated to remove and then dried to produce a powder suitable for consumption by humans and animals.

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There are still many unsolved mysteries about the human brain and its development. Now, a novel study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry sheds new light on the neurobiological origins of our individual traits.

Functional connectivity is the coordinated activity – activation or deactivation – through time between separate brain regions, regardless of their physical closeness or the type of neural connections between them. Changes in functional connectivity can be a sign of mental health disorders such as depression, eating disorders, and schizophrenia, and are thought to have developmental origins.

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Breaking — see how an overabundance of methane at Saturn’s ice moon Enceladus may be evidence for life there!

You can support Galactic Gregs by supporting the sister channel Green Gregs by clicking the links below:
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See the Special Deals at My Patriot Supply (great space mission food): www.PrepWithGreg.com.
For gardening in your space habitat (or on Earth) Galactic Gregs has teamed up with True Leaf Market to bring you a great selection of seed for your planting. Check it out: http://www.pntrac.com/t/TUJGRklGSkJGTU1IS0hCRkpIRk1K

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The plasticizers contained in many everyday objects can impair important brain functions in humans. Biologists from the University of Bayreuth warn of this danger in an article in Communications Biology. Their study shows that even small amounts of the plasticizers bisphenol A and bisphenol S disrupt the transmission of signals between nerve cells in the brains of fish. The researchers consider it very likely that similar interference can also occur in the brains of adult humans. They, therefore, call for the rapid development of alternative plasticizers that do not pose a risk to the central nervous system.

Bisphenols are plasticizers that are found in a large number of plastic products worldwide — for example, in food packaging, plastic tableware, drinking bottles, toys, tooth fillings, and babies’ dummies. In recent years, numerous health risks have already been associated with them, especially with bisphenol A (BPA). The Bayreuth research team led by Dr. Peter Machnik at the Animal Physiology research group (led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schuster) has now for the first time investigated the effects of plasticizers on signal transmission between nerve cells in the adult brain. The study covers not only BPA, but also bisphenol S (BPS), which is often considered less harmful to health. Their findings: Both plasticizers impair communication between the nerve cells of the brain.

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