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Category: food – Page 6

This Common Blood Pressure Drug Extends Lifespan, Slows Aging in Animals

The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow down aging in worms, an effect that in humans could hypothetically help us live longer and keep us healthier in our latter years.

Previous research has shown rilmenidine mimics the effects of caloric restriction on a cellular level. Reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition within the body has been shown to extend lifespans in several animal models.

Whether this translates to human biology, or is a potential risk to our health, is a topic of ongoing debate. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the costs of extreme calorie cutting could lead to new ways to improve health in old age.

Early-life to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may fuel food preferences

Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in early life, including during gestation and infancy, results in a higher preference for sugary and fatty foods later in life, according to an animal study being presented Sunday at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are substances in the environment (air, soil or water supply), food sources, personal care products and manufactured products that interfere with the normal function of the body’s endocrine system. To determine if early-life exposure to these chemicals affects eating behaviors and preferences, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin conducted a study of 15 male and 15 female rats exposed to a common mixture of these chemicals during gestation or infancy.

“Our research indicates that endocrine-disrupting chemicals can physically alter the brain’s pathways that control reward preference and eating behavior. These results may partially explain increasing rates of obesity around the world,” said Emily N. Hilz, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas.

Tesla Autonomy Is AI’s Crowning Jewel; Diner Goes World Wide; Japan Trade Deal Announced

Questions to inspire discussion.

⚡ Q: What advantages does XAI’s proprietary cluster offer? A: XAI’s proprietary clusters, designed specifically for training, are uncatchable by competitors as they can’t be bought with money, creating an unbreachable moat in AI development.

Tesla’s Autonomy and Robotaxis.

🚗 Q: When is Tesla expected to launch unsupervised FSD? A: Tesla is expected to launch unsupervised FSD in the third quarter after polishing and testing, with version 14 potentially being unsupervised even if not allowed for public use.

🤖 Q: What is the significance of Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi launch? A: Tesla’s robotaxi launch is anticipated to be a historic moment, demonstrating that the complexity of autonomous driving technology has been overcome, allowing for leverage and scaling.

💰 Q: How might Tesla monetize its Autonomy feature? A: Tesla may charge monthly fees of $50-$100 for unsupervised use, including insurance, on top of personal insurance costs.

Continue reading “Tesla Autonomy Is AI’s Crowning Jewel; Diner Goes World Wide; Japan Trade Deal Announced” | >

I Tried the World’s First Tesla Diner (11 Hour Wait)

Questions to inspire discussion.

🍳 Q: What can diners expect in terms of food quality? A: The diner emphasizes local sourcing, natural ingredients, and fresh in-house preparation, with a menu designed by Eric Greensman, a professional chef.

Unique Offerings.

🤖 Q: What unique attractions does the Tesla diner offer? A: The diner showcases a fully functional Optimus robot on display and offers Tesla merchandise for purchase.

🍗 Q: Are there any special menu items or services? A: The diner features a self-service club with fried chicken and waffles, a souvenir cup for purchase, and a Tesla burger on the menu.

Practical Amenities.

Continue reading “I Tried the World’s First Tesla Diner (11 Hour Wait)” | >

New biodegradable plastic shines in vibrant colors without dyes or pigments

Plastics are one of the largest sources of pollution on Earth, lasting for years on land or in water. But a new type of brilliantly colored cellulose-based plastic detailed in ACS Nano could change that. By adding citric acid and squid ink to a cellulose-based polymer, researchers created a variety of structurally colored plastics that were comparable in strength to traditional plastics, but made from natural biodegradable ingredients and easily recycled using water.

Many plastics are dyed using specialized colorants, which can make these materials hard to recycle using typical processes. Over time, dyes can fade or leach into the environment, posing risks to wildlife. One way to make these colorants largely unnecessary could be a phenomenon called . This occurs when tiny structures in a material reflect certain wavelengths of light rather than a dye or pigment molecule. Structural color gives peacock feathers and butterfly wings their vibrant hues and dazzling shine, but certain display structural color as well.

Hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), a derivative of cellulose often used in foods and pharmaceuticals, is one example of a material that can display structural color. In , it shines in iridescent tones, but its have historically made it difficult to form into a solid plastic. Researchers Lei Hou, Peiyi Wu and colleagues wanted to see if they could fine-tune the chemistry of HPC to create vibrant, structurally colored plastics that worked as well as existing petroleum-based plastics and were environmentally friendly.

Bifacial thin-film solar cells harness sunlight from both sides for higher output

A research team successfully implemented CuInSe2 thin-film solar cells composed of copper (Cu), indium (In), and selenium (Se) on transparent electrode substrates. Furthermore, the team developed a “bifacial solar cell technology” that receives sunlight from both the front and back sides to generate power. This technology can be fabricated at low temperatures, enabling a simpler production process, and is broadly applicable to building-integrated solar power, agricultural solar power, and high-efficiency tandem solar cells in the future.

New approach allows drone swarms to autonomously navigate complex environments at high speed

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are now widely used worldwide to tackle various real-world tasks, including filming videos for various purposes, monitoring crops or other environments from above, assessing disaster zones, and conducting military operations. Despite their widespread use, most existing drones either need to be fully or partly operated by human agents.

In addition, many drones are unable to navigate cluttered, crowded or unknown environments without colliding with nearby objects. Those that can navigate these environments typically rely on expensive or bulky components, such as advanced sensors, graphics processing units (GPUs) or .

Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have recently introduced a new insect-inspired approach that could enable teams of multiple drones to autonomously navigate complex environments while moving at high speed. Their proposed approach, introduced in a paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, relies on both a deep learning algorithm and core physics principles.

Genetically modified gut bacteria show promise for combating kidney stones in clinical trial

The human gut microbiome has been shown to impact health in a myriad of ways. The type and abundance of different bacteria can impact everything from the immune system to the nervous system. Now, researchers at Stanford University are taking advantage of the microbiome’s potential for fighting disease by genetically modifying certain bacteria to reduce a substance that causes kidney stones. If scientists are successful at modifying gut bacteria, this can lead to therapeutic treatments for a wide range of diseases.

However, the study, published in Science, shows that this is not a simple task. The researchers used the bacterium Phocaeicola vulgatus, which is already found in the microbiome of humans, and modified it to break down and also to consume porphyran, a nutrient derived from seaweed. The porphyran was used as a way to control the population of Phocaeicola vulgatus by either adding more porphyran or reducing the amount, which should kill off the bacteria due to a lack of food.

The study was made up of three parts: one testing the modified bacteria on rats, one trial with healthy humans and one trial on people with enteric hyperoxaluria (EH). EH is a condition in which the body absorbs too much oxalate from food, leading to and other kidney issues, if not treated.

Inhaled farm dust alters gut bacteria and weakens intestinal barrier in mice

Inhaling agricultural dust may pose significant risks to gut health for workers in animal agriculture, a University of California, Riverside, study has found.

Led by Declan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine, the study expands on prior findings that hog farm causes airway inflammation. The researchers now report in the Journal of Applied Toxicology that inhaling this dust also alters the gut microbiome and impairs intestinal function, including increased “” or intestinal permeability. Leaky gut is associated with a range of chronic diseases, including , celiac disease, and type 1 diabetes.

“Exposure to swine farm dust, which contains high levels of bacteria and endotoxins, caused both airway inflammation and increased passage of gut bacterial products into the bloodstream in our mouse models,” said Meli’sa Crawford, a former postdoctoral researcher in McCole’s lab and the paper’s first author. “But what’s especially striking is the impact we observed on the and metabolism.”

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