Lifeboat Foundation

In their never-ending quest for increased efficiency, many farmers are now turning to agricultural robots to cut down on operation costs. But can automation give agriculture the boost it needs to meet the demands of 9 billion people?

“Thus, our data demonstrate the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) cryobiosis under the conditions of natural cryoconservation,” the researchers said in a study published in Doklady Biological Sciences.

This year, the European Union heavily restricted four types of phthalates in consumer products because of their possible health effects. Phthalates are plasticisers, ubiquitous chemicals that soften plastics in many consumer products. They are present in food wrappings, clothes, packaging, car parts, cosmetics and fragrances.

Over time, these plasticisers end up in the air, soil, water, food and household dust. They can also end up in our bodies. This is worrying because they are implicated in reproductive abnormalities in mammals. Studies of people have linked plasticisers to sperm damage, lower fertility, early puberty in girls and thyroid effects. The phthalates will be now legally be restricted to 0.1% in weight in articles used by consumers or in outdoor areas.

But scientists are increasingly concerned not just about single chemicals, which are found in people’s bodies at levels that are usually not toxic, but about what happens to toxicity when these chemicals mix.

Continue reading “Chemical mixtures pose ‘underestimated’ risk to human health say scientists” »

Honey is a culinary staple that can be found in kitchens around the world. Its long shelf life and medicinal properties make it a unique, multipurpose natural product. Although it seems that a lot is known about the sweet substance, surprisingly little is known about its proteins. Check out research in the Journal of Natural Products with new data on honey proteins that could lead to new medicinal applications:

American chemical society: chemistry for life.

Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto’s popular weed killer Roundup, has been linked to liver disease in animal models. In a new study, the first of its kind, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine report an association between the herbicide and negative effects upon the human liver.

In a study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, a team led by Paul J. Mills, Ph.D., professor and chief in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine, examined glyphosate excretion in the urine samples of two patient groups—those with a diagnosis of NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a type of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD), and those without. The results, they found, were significant: Regardless of age, race, body mass index (BMI), ethnicity or diabetes status, glyphosate residue was significantly higher in patients with NASH than it was in patients with a healthier liver.

The findings, coupled with prior animal studies, said Mills, suggest a link between the use of commercial glyphosate in our food supply, which has increased significantly over the past 25 years, and the prevalence of NAFLD in the United States, which too has been on the rise for two decades.

Continue reading “It’s in the weeds: Herbicide linked to human liver disease” »

University of Sydney research provides new evidence that nanoparticles, which are present in many food items, may have a substantial and harmful influence on human health.

The study investigated the health impacts of food additive E171 (titanium dioxide nanoparticles) which is commonly used in high quantities in foods and some medicines as a whitening agent. Found in more than 900 food products such as chewing gum and mayonnaise, E171 is consumed in high proportion everyday by the general population.

Published in Frontiers in Nutrition, the mice study found that consumption of food containing E171 has an impact on the gut microbiota (defined by the trillions of bacteria that inhabit the gut) which could trigger diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases and colorectal cancer.

Continue reading “Common food additive E171 found to affect gut microbiota” »

Growing food without plants or animals sounds far-fetched. But it could stop environmental destruction, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot.

Huge plastic waste dumps float in the Oceans bigger than continents. Some 10% of world’s plastic waste finds its way into the sea and ends up in the central regions where slow moving circular currents trap debris into one large constantly moving mass of plastic. This is slowly being broken down into a plastic dust that marine wildlife mistake for food. Small fish consume tiny bits of plastic as if they were normal plankton. Those fish are then consumed by larger species and the plastic contamination moves up the food chain. Over a million seabirds, as well as more than 100 thousand marine mammals, die every year from ingesting plastic debris. Some researchers estimate that there are over six kilos of plastic for every kilo of naturally occurring plankton in the Pacific plastic waste dump.

Dead seabirds having mistaken plastics for food, have been found with discarded plastic lighters, water bottle caps and scraps of plastic bags in their stomachs. / Oceanic gyres: the circular movement of the ocean waters concentrates the plastic in the centre of the oceans.

But maybe things are not as bad as it looks: scientists working on the pollution saw that it did not grow in 22 years, even if the plastic production grew fourfold. An organism may be eating plastic in the ocean, but whether the bug is green or mean remains to be seen.

Continue reading “Plastic eating bacteria in the oceans” »

And one day they may be able to reproduce on their own.