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The ability to recognize and respond to emotionally-charged situations is essential to a species’ evolutionary success. A new study published in Nature Communications advances our understanding of how the brain responds to emotionally charged objects and scenes.

The research, led by Trinity College Dublin neuroscientist Prof. Sonia Bishop, and Google researcher Samy Abdel-Ghaffar while he was a Ph.D. student in Prof. Bishop’s lab at UC Berkeley, has identified how the represents different categories of emotional stimuli in a way that allows for more than a simple “approach/avoid” dichotomy when guiding behavioral responses.

Sonia Bishop, now Chair of Psychology in Trinity’s School of Psychology, and senior author of the paper, explains, It is hugely important for all species to be able to recognize and respond appropriately to emotionally salient stimuli, whether that means not eating rotten food, running from a bear, approaching an attractive person in a bar or comforting a tearful child.

Global food waste is a cross-cutting issue that starts during agricultural production, available food supply, and continues all of the way to the landfill.

Over 30% of food is lost or wasted each year. This number is even more striking, given the large number of hungry people in the world. Wasted food is not only inefficient, it’s a social justice issue – as all the food wasted could be used to serve the food recovery hierarchy and prevent perfectly good food from being wasted.

Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have now developed a new way to make microbes hardy enough to withstand these extreme conditions.

Their method involves mixing bacteria with food and drug additives from a list of compounds that the FDA classifies as “generally regarded as safe.” The researchers identified formulations that help to stabilize several different types of microbes, including yeast and bacteria, and they showed that these formulations could withstand high temperatures, radiation, and industrial processing that can damage unprotected microbes.

Headworn tech from a University of Michigan startup could protect agricultural and industrial workers from airborne pathogens.

Taza Aya has created a hard hat with an air curtain that prevents nearly all aerosols from reaching the face, using nonthermal plasma to ensure air purity. Proven effective in tests, this innovative device is designed for industries needing strong respiratory protection and will be available by 2025.

Taza Aya’s Innovative Technology

Vending machines are an old charming piece of technology that supposedly makes the lives of people easier by making water, snacks and food in general readily available.


American Rounds says that it aims to redefine convenience in ammunition purchasing, as its ammo dispensers can be accessed round the clock.

The company’s website also promises a ‘hassle-free buying experience every time,’ and of a smooth transaction every time a prospective buyer reaches it.

The ‘smart automated’ bullet dispensing machines use AI technology to identify the buyer’s details before allowing the purchase, according to American Rounds website.

As part of the 2024 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Eric Small discusses systemic therapy treatment in advanced prostate cancer, including AR-targeted therapy. The presentation includes definitions of disease states, categories of treatment types, and standards in treatment selection.
Recorded on 03/09/2024. [Show ID: 39768]

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Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have now developed a new way to make microbes hardy enough to withstand these extreme conditions.

Their method involves mixing bacteria with food and drug additives from a list of compounds that the FDA classifies as “generally regarded as safe.” The researchers identified formulations that help to stabilize several different types of microbes, including yeast and bacteria, and they showed that these formulations could withstand high temperatures, radiation, and industrial processing that can damage unprotected microbes.

In an even more extreme test, some of the microbes recently returned from a trip to the International Space Station, coordinated by Space Center Houston Manager of Science and Research Phyllis Friello, and the researchers are now analyzing how well the microbes were able to withstand those conditions.

Like a scene from the movies, a team of researchers from Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) has developed new ways to freely produce and customize the food that we eat.

Their findings have been published in the journal Future Foods as “Multi-material direct ink writing 3D food printing using multi-channel nozzle.”

Three-dimensional (3D) printing using is currently the favored approach to shaping foods with unique structures, textures, and nutritional compositions.

A compact, lightweight sensor system with infrared imaging capabilities developed by an international team of engineers could be easily fitted to a drone for remote crop monitoring.

This flat-optics technology has the potential to replace traditional optical lens applications for environmental sensing in a range of industries.

This innovation could result in cheaper groceries as farmers would be able to pinpoint which crops require irrigation, fertilization and pest control, instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, thereby potentially boosting their harvests.

The study notes, “Our study shows that the environmental resilience of S. caninervis is superior to that of some of highly stress-tolerant microorganisms and tardigrades.”


What plants would be most suitable for a future Mars settlement? This is what a recent study published in The Innovation hopes to address as a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated how the desert moss known as Syntrichia caninervis (S. caninervis) can survive extremely harsh conditions, specifically conditions on the planet Mars. This study holds the potential to help researchers, engineers, and future Mars astronauts better understand the types of plants they can grow, and even eat, while living on the Red Planet.

For the study, the researchers subjected S. caninervis to a series of brutal tests, including severe dryness, freezing temperatures, and large doses of gamma radiation, all of which are the environmental conditions on Mars and far harsher than humans and plants can manage. However, the researchers discovered that S. caninervis was able to recover 98 percent of its water loss within seconds after being severely dried out. The moss also achieved full recovery after being subjected to-80 degrees Celsius-112 degrees Fahrenheit) for 3 to 5 years along with-196 degrees Celsius (−320 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 to 30 days.

Additionally, the moss demonstrated extreme resiliency to 5,000 Grays (Gy) of gamma radiation with 500 Gy being found to promote plant growth. For context, 5,000 Gy would kill most plants and only 50 Gy would be lethal to humans. Finally, the moss was subjected to 95 percent carbon dioxide in temperatures ranging from-60 degrees Celsius (−76 degrees Fahrenheit) to 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), which are precise Martian surface environmental conditions, for periods of 1, 2, 3, and 7 days. The researchers found that the moss achieved full recovery after 30 days of returning to normal environmental conditions.