The USDA has officially approved gene-edited foods.
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Category: food – Page 275
Scientists are increasingly betting their time and effort that the way to control the world is through proteins. Proteins are what makes life animated. They take information encoded in DNA and turn it into intricate three-dimensional structures, many of which act as tiny machines. Proteins work to ferry oxygen through the bloodstream, extract energy from food, fire neurons, and attack invaders. One can think of DNA as working in the service of the proteins, carrying the information on how, when and in what quantities to make them.
Living things make thousands of different proteins, but soon there could be many more, as scientists are starting to learn to design new ones from scratch with specific purposes in mind. Some are looking to design new proteins for drugs and vaccines, while others are seeking cleaner catalysts for the chemical industry and new materials.
David Baker, director for the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, compares protein design to the advent of custom tool-making. At some point, proto-humans went beyond merely finding uses for pieces of wood, rock or bone, and started designing tools to suit specific needs â from screwdrivers to sports cars.
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Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of health care or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol intake. In research to be published soon in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers note that future adaptations of these sensors could enable the detection and recording of a wide range of nutrients, chemicals and physiological states.
Previous wearable devices for monitoring dietary intake suffered from limitations such as requiring the use of a mouth guard, bulky wiring, or necessitating frequent replacement as the sensors rapidly degraded. Tufts engineers sought a more adoptable technology and developed a sensor with a mere 2mm x 2mm footprint that can flexibly conform and bond to the irregular surface of a tooth. In a similar fashion to the way a toll is collected on a highway, the sensors transmit their data wirelessly in response to an incoming radiofrequency signal.
The sensors are made up of three sandwiched layers: a central âbioresponsiveâ layer that absorbs the nutrient or other chemicals to be detected, and outer layers consisting of two square-shaped gold rings. Together, the three layers act like a tiny antenna, collecting and transmitting waves in the radiofrequency spectrum. As an incoming wave hits the sensor, some of it is cancelled out and the rest transmitted back, just like a patch of blue paint absorbs redder wavelengths and reflects the blue back to our eyes.
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Biotech lobbyists and companies are trying to get the Trump administration to hand regulation of genetically edited animals over to the USDA, which has more lenient rules than the FDA, which currently regulates animals.
Low-fat pigs? Chickens with cancer-fighting eggs?
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A team of plant geneticists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has identified a protein receptor on stem cells involved in plant development that can issue different instructions about how to grow depending on what peptide (protein fragment) activates it.
This is the first such multi-functional receptor found to work in this way to control plant development. The new findings obtained by CSHL Professor David Jackson and colleagues may have important implications for efforts to boost yields of essential food crops such as corn and rice.
Plant growth and development depend on structures called meristems â reservoirs in plants that contain stem cells. When prompted by peptide signals, stem cells in the meristem develop into any of the plantâs organs â roots, leaves, or flowers, for example. These signals generally work like a key (the peptide) fitting into a lock on the surface of a cell (the protein receptor). The lock opens momentarily, triggering the release of a chemical messenger inside the cell. The messenger carries instructions for the cell to do something, such as grow into a root or flower cell or even stop growing altogether. Conventionally, one or more peptides fit into a receptor to release a single type of chemical messenger.
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New York Cityâs discerning high-end chefs often ship in rare herbs and edible flowers from other states or even overseas. But Farm.One, an organic farm in the basement of an office building in Manhattan, can pick and deliver the precious leaves and flowers within the same day, says Robert Laing, the companyâs CEO.
With its stacked shelves of hydroponic plants and grow lights, Farm. One is part of a growing movement of vertical farming across the world. The tech-enabled system uses less space and water than traditional farming.
Watch the video above to learn more about how it works.
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