Insect farming is a small – but growing – industry globally, with bugs touted as a sustainable and cheap food that is high in protein, vitamins, fibre and minerals. Their cultivation, meanwhile, has much less environmental impact than meat.
With predictions that the insect market could grow significantly, it is not just scientists cooking up ways to put bugs on the menu but also some of the world’s largest food and agricultural companies.
Posted in biotech/medical, food
In a classic episode of an old-school TV comedy called I Love Lucy, we see Lucille Ball stepping into an assembly line job at a candy factory. As the pace of the conveyor belt exceeds her ability to wrap the candy, the frenzy gets the best of her. She shoves candy into her pockets, into her hat, into her mouth—it’s a job fail.
As we know, faster doesn’t always mean better. And precision can take a big bite out of speed.
Sometimes, though, innovative minds come up with a new strategy that improves both efficiency and precision.
Think about it. Your brain is always “on.” It takes care of your thoughts and movements, your breathing and heartbeat, your senses — it works hard 24/7, even while you’re asleep. This means your brain requires a constant supply of fuel. That “fuel” comes from the foods you eat — and what’s in that fuel makes all the difference. Put simply, what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain and, ultimately, your mood.
Like an expensive car, your brain functions best when it gets only premium fuel. Eating high-quality foods that contain lots of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants nourishes the brain and protects it from oxidative stress — the “waste” (free radicals) produced when the body uses oxygen, which can damage cells.
Unfortunately, just like an expensive car, your brain can be damaged if you ingest anything other than premium fuel. If substances from “low-premium” fuel (such as what you get from processed or refined foods) get to the brain, it has little ability to get rid of them. Diets high in refined sugars, for example, are harmful to the brain. In addition to worsening your body’s regulation of insulin, they also promote inflammation and oxidative stress. Multiple studies have found a correlation between a diet high in refined sugars and impaired brain function — and even a worsening of symptoms of mood disorders, such as depression.
This could be happening to me.
An international research team led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found that microorganisms living in the gut may alter the aging process, which could lead to the development of food-based treatment to slow it down.
All living organisms, including human beings, coexist with a myriad of microbial species living in and on them, and research conducted over the last 20 years has established their important role in nutrition, physiology, metabolism and behavior.
Using mice, the team led by Professor Sven Pettersson from the NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, transplanted gut microbes from old mice (24 months old) into young, germ-free mice (six weeks old). After eight weeks, the young mice had increased intestinal growth and production of neurons in the brain, known as neurogenesis.
When an undiagnosed rare genetic disease caused his young son’s kidneys to fail, Professor Chris Toumazou vowed to find a way of uncovering hidden health risks.
The professor of biomedical engineering realised that, although his son’s condition could not have been prevented, the family could have managed his lifestyle very differently had they known about his condition.
So, he embarked on a mission to help people change their lifestyles and avoid getting sick.
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a widely used machine-learning technique that entails training AI agents or robots using a system of reward and punishment. So far, researchers in the field of robotics have primarily applied RL techniques in tasks that are completed over relatively short periods of time, such as moving forward or grasping objects.
A team of researchers at Google and Berkeley AI Research has recently developed a new approach that combines RL with learning by imitation, a process called relay policy learning. This approach, introduced in a paper prepublished on arXiv and presented at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) 2019 in Osaka, can be used to train artificial agents to tackle multi-stage and long-horizon tasks, such as object manipulation tasks that span over longer periods of time.
“Our research originated from many, mostly unsuccessful, experiments with very long tasks using reinforcement learning (RL),” Abhishek Gupta, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “Today, RL in robotics is mostly applied in tasks that can be accomplished in a short span of time, such as grasping, pushing objects, walking forward, etc. While these applications have a lot value, our goal was to apply reinforcement learning to tasks that require multiple sub-objectives and operate on much longer timescales, such as setting a table or cleaning a kitchen.”
Scientists at Harvard have created a texture in meat grown in a lab close to the actual animal meat we’re used to. Would you eat it?
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Human meat consumption is bad for the planet—livestock raised for food makes up for approximately 14–18% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and the land requirements to grow their food is responsible for nearly 80% of all deforestation in the Amazon.
80%!
So scientists have been working to create a realistic imitation for animal meat in a lab, and with a recent breakthrough researchers from Harvard have come one step closer to making lab-grown meat taste and feel like the real deal.
How?
Gelatin.
This vegetarian butcher makes plant-based meals that look and taste like real meat. Look out for our weekly Pioneers for the Planet videos, a collaboration with WWF #Netflix #OurPlanet #ShareOurPlanet #VoiceForThePlanet
