Feature Channels: Food and Water Safety

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Newswise: Revolutionizing Infant Formula Safety: A New Frontier in Pathogen Detection
Released: 5-Mar-2024 8:05 AM EST
Revolutionizing Infant Formula Safety: A New Frontier in Pathogen Detection
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Cronobacter sakazakii is a harmful germ that can be found in powdered baby formula. It can cause very serious health problems in infants, such as meningitis and septicemia. Right now, it takes a long time and is complicated to check if the germ is in the formula. However, a new study has created a special test that uses a computer program to find the germ in the formula. This new method makes it easier and faster to find the germ, which is known for causing serious illness in babies. It helps make sure that baby formula is safe to use.

29-Feb-2024 12:00 PM EST
Humans have driven the Earth’s freshwater cycle out of its stable state
Aalto University

New analysis shows that the global freshwater cycle has shifted far beyond pre-industrial conditions

Released: 29-Feb-2024 3:05 PM EST
Refrigerate lettuce to reduce risk of E. coli contamination, researchers say
College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Leafy green vegetables are important sources of dietary fiber and nutrients, but they can harbor harmful pathogens. In particular, lettuce has often been involved in outbreaks of foodborne illness across the U.S. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines factors that affect E. coli contamination on five different leafy greens – romaine lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, and collards.

Newswise: Want fewer microplastics in your tap water? Try boiling it first
23-Feb-2024 9:15 AM EST
Want fewer microplastics in your tap water? Try boiling it first
American Chemical Society (ACS)

Want to remove microplastics from water? Try brewing it for a cup of tea or coffee! Research reported in Environmental Science & Technology Letters shows that by boiling then filtering tap water, up to 90% of the nano- and microplastics present could be removed.

Newswise: Early-Life Airborne Lead Exposure Associated with Lower IQ and Self-Control in NIH Study
Released: 23-Feb-2024 7:05 AM EST
Early-Life Airborne Lead Exposure Associated with Lower IQ and Self-Control in NIH Study
Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes NIH

Children who lived in areas with higher levels of airborne lead in their first five years of life appeared to have slightly lower IQs and less self-control, with boys showing more sensitivity to lead exposure, according to a new study from the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program.

   
Released: 20-Feb-2024 3:05 PM EST
Water quality monitor, locust-inspired electronic nose under development
Washington University in St. Louis

Two teams of engineers led by faculty in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis will work toward developing products to monitor drinking water quality and to detect explosives with an electronic nose with one-year, $650,000 Convergence Accelerator Phase 1 grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Newswise: Fresh Meat: New Biosensor Accurately and Efficiently Determines Meat Freshness
15-Feb-2024 9:05 AM EST
Fresh Meat: New Biosensor Accurately and Efficiently Determines Meat Freshness
American Institute of Physics (AIP)

Despite the technological advances keeping meat fresh for as long as possible, certain aging processes are unavoidable. Adenosine triphosphate is a molecule produced by breathing and responsible for providing energy to cells. When an animal stops breathing, ATP synthesis also stops, and the existing molecules decompose into acid, diminishing first flavor and then safety. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are intermediate steps in this transition. Assessing their prevalence in meat indicates its freshness. In AIP Advances, researchers developed a biosensor using graphene electrodes modified by zinc oxide nanoparticles to measure HXA. The team demonstrated the sensor’s efficacy on pork meat.

Newswise: By growing animal cells in rice grains, scientists dish up hybrid food
Released: 14-Feb-2024 9:05 PM EST
By growing animal cells in rice grains, scientists dish up hybrid food
Cell Press

From lab-grown chicken to cricket-derived protein, these innovative alternatives offer hope for a planet struggling with the environmental and ethical impacts of industrial agriculture.

12-Feb-2024 10:05 AM EST
Ultra-processed foods score worse on food package labelling
University College London

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) contain more calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt than minimally-processed foods – but not all UPFs are unhealthy, according to new research from UCL.

Newswise: URI Nutrition study to help inform official USDA dietary guidelines
Released: 12-Feb-2024 11:05 AM EST
URI Nutrition study to help inform official USDA dietary guidelines
University of Rhode Island

Evidence to support the assumption that ultra-processed foods are all bad for one’s health is limited, and the nutritional quality of processed foods has not been considered by official U.S. Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines. University of Rhode Island Nutrition Professor Kathleen Melanson aims to help inform the newest guidelines, due out in 2025, as she begins a nutritional study funded by a $300,000 grant from the USDA.

Newswise: Paper: Multistate foodborne illness outbreaks impact restaurant stock price, public perception
Released: 5-Feb-2024 2:05 PM EST
Paper: Multistate foodborne illness outbreaks impact restaurant stock price, public perception
College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

As demand for food from restaurants soars in the U.S., so does the importance in understanding the impacts of foodborne illness outbreaks. A new paper co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert in food marketing and food policy finds that outbreaks spanning multiple states bring swift financial losses, increased media attention and a public-relations hit that makes smaller outbreaks more financially damaging.

Newswise: image.jpg
Released: 5-Feb-2024 12:05 PM EST
Expert provides food safety tips following charcuterie meat Salmonella outbreak
Virginia Tech

Whether it’s building out a big spread for the Super Bowl or planning a Valentine’s Day meal, lots of people will be heading to the store these next few weeks to stock up on food. One item many might be considering is charcuterie.

Newswise: New options at Dallas food pantry boost food security
Released: 1-Feb-2024 12:05 PM EST
New options at Dallas food pantry boost food security
UT Southwestern Medical Center

Nutritious meal kits and no-prep meals improved food security and perceived dietary quality among clients of a Dallas food pantry, according to a pilot study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Released: 1-Feb-2024 9:05 AM EST
What’s on Your Plate?
Children's Hospital Los Angeles

The Food Pyramid that many of us learned about in school is now ancient history. That old guideline on food groups and servings has been replaced by MyPlate.

Newswise: Pandemic Lockdowns and Water Quality: A Revealing Study on Building Usage
Released: 1-Feb-2024 9:05 AM EST
Pandemic Lockdowns and Water Quality: A Revealing Study on Building Usage
Chinese Academy of Sciences

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lower occupancy in buildings led to reduced water use, raising concerns about water quality due to stagnation.

Released: 31-Jan-2024 12:05 PM EST
Detecting hepatitis viruses in wastewater
Ruhr-Universität Bochum

In addition to collecting water samples from the Rhine-Herne canal and the Emscher river over the course of a year, Fiona Rau had access to further wastewater samples from 21 sewage treatment plants in NRW.

   
Released: 30-Jan-2024 2:05 PM EST
Our winter of discontent: Get the latest news on the flu in the Influenza channel
Newswise

The latest research and expertise on the flue can be found in the Influenza channel on Newswise.

Newswise: Single Dose Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) Provides Lasting Efficacy in Children
24-Jan-2024 4:05 PM EST
Single Dose Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) Provides Lasting Efficacy in Children
University of Maryland School of Medicine

A single dose of the typhoid conjugate vaccine, Typbar TCV®, provides lasting efficacy in preventing typhoid fever in children ages 9 months to 12 years old, according to a new study conducted by researchers at University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD) and led by in-country partners at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust (MLW) Clinical Research Programme.

Released: 25-Jan-2024 3:05 PM EST
White House rule dramatically deregulated wetlands, streams and drinking water
University of California, Berkeley

The 1972 Clean Water Act protects the "waters of the United States" but does not precisely define which streams and wetlands this phrase covers, leaving it to presidential administrations, regulators, and courts to decide.

Newswise: A salad space oddity: Lettuce more susceptible to bacterial infections away from Earth
Released: 25-Jan-2024 8:05 AM EST
A salad space oddity: Lettuce more susceptible to bacterial infections away from Earth
University of Delaware

University of Delaware researchers grew lettuce under conditions that imitated the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station and found those plants grown under the manufactured microgravity were more prone to infections from Salmonella.

Released: 19-Jan-2024 1:05 PM EST
Don't wait for an emergency to get the latest emergency medicine news
Newswise

Find the latest research and features on emergency medicine in the Emergency Medicine channel on Newswise.

       
Newswise: 'It was a breath of fresh air' – treatment of rare tumor helps KCH patient feel like herself again
Released: 18-Jan-2024 11:05 AM EST
'It was a breath of fresh air' – treatment of rare tumor helps KCH patient feel like herself again
University of Kentucky

With one smile, 18-year-old Payton Ebertshauer of London can light up any room.

Released: 17-Jan-2024 12:05 PM EST
Penny Pennington Elected Chair of Danforth Plant Science Center Board; New Directors Include Blunt, Burlin
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

ST. LOUIS, MO., January 17, 2023 — The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center announced today that Penny Pennington has been elected chair of the Danforth Center Board of Directors.

Released: 16-Jan-2024 11:05 AM EST
Rice engineers propose hybrid urban water sourcing model
Rice University

Houston’s water and wastewater system could be more resilient with the development of hybrid urban water supply systems that combine conventional, centralized water sources with reclaimed wastewater, according to a study by Rice University engineers published in Nature Water.

Newswise: A roadmap for rescuing Utah's Great Salt Lake
Released: 16-Jan-2024 9:05 AM EST
A roadmap for rescuing Utah's Great Salt Lake
University of Utah

Conserving water won’t be enough to restore the depleted Great Salt Lake, the signature Utah landscape whose existence as a functioning ecosystem remains seriously imperiled from low water levels and rising salinity. Much of the water saved by Utah cities and farms through various conservation measures will have to be allowed to flow into the terminal lake if its levels are to rebound and remain at a safe level, according to Utah’s Great Salt Lake Strike Team. The panel of university and agency experts has released its latest data analysis just ahead of Utah’s upcoming legislative session.

Newswise: Year-end survey spotlights food safety, age-related consumer behavior, out-of-stock trends
Released: 16-Jan-2024 7:05 AM EST
Year-end survey spotlights food safety, age-related consumer behavior, out-of-stock trends
Purdue University

Building off the previous month’s survey, the December 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report digs deeper into the relationships between food-date labels and the decision to discard food.

Released: 10-Jan-2024 2:05 PM EST
New EPA Research Highlights Food Waste Contributions to Climate Change
Environmental Protection Agency - Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response (CESER)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that over one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten, wasting the resources used to produce, transport, process, and distribute it – and much of it is sent to landfills, where it breaks down and generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Released: 10-Jan-2024 1:30 PM EST
Can drinking alkaline water help prevent kidney stones? Not likely, study finds
Wolters Kluwer Health: Lippincott

 Bottled water marketed as "alkaline water" is unlikely to be an effective alternative for prevention of recurrent urinary stones, reports a study in the January issue of The Journal of Urology®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

Released: 9-Jan-2024 12:05 PM EST
Is spa water a fossil of water? Uncover the real ultra-deep water cycles
University of Tsukuba

Although most natural spa waters primarily originate from atmospheric precipitation, such as rain and snow (known as meteoric water), the present study explored the unique qualities of certain spa waters.

Released: 9-Jan-2024 10:05 AM EST
Study of Unintentional Contaminants in Food Packaging Urges Scrutiny
Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences

Researchers detect hydrocarbons, PAHs and other chemicals in recycled plastics, raising concerns about detecting and evaluating risks in plastic packaging.

5-Jan-2024 12:05 PM EST
What’s in Your Bottled Water? Study Suggests There May Be Hundreds of Thousands of Tiny Plastic Bits
Rutgers University-New Brunswick

A breakthrough microscopic technique that can detect minute particles of plastic in bottled water that can pass into human blood, cells and the placenta with unknown health effects has been developed by a team of researchers from Rutgers and Columbia universities.

Released: 4-Jan-2024 2:00 PM EST
Starting a family with the help of science: The latest research in Fertility
Newswise

Find the latest research and features on fertility in the Fertility News Source on Newswise.

       
Newswise: New reasons eating less fat should be one of your resolutions
Released: 3-Jan-2024 5:05 PM EST
New reasons eating less fat should be one of your resolutions
University of California, Riverside

A UC Riverside study to motivate your new year’s resolutions: it demonstrates that high-fat diets affect genes linked not only to obesity, colon cancer and irritable bowels, but also to the immune system, brain function, and potentially COVID-19 risk.

Newswise: Greener and Feasible Production: Enzymatic Methods for Mono- and Diacylglycerol Synthesis in the Food Industry
Released: 2-Jan-2024 9:10 PM EST
Greener and Feasible Production: Enzymatic Methods for Mono- and Diacylglycerol Synthesis in the Food Industry
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Monoacylglycerols (MAGs) and diacylglycerols (DAGs) are nonionic molecules found in minor amounts in oils and fats, exhibiting hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties.

Released: 2-Jan-2024 2:05 PM EST
‘Nutritional quality must be at the heart of climate smart agriculture’ - researchers
University of Leeds

Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa need to diversify away from growing maize and switch to crops that are resilient to climate change and supply enough key micronutrients for the population, according to a major research study.

Newswise: Finding the ‘goldilocks’ zone or conditions in rice irrigation
Released: 28-Dec-2023 8:05 AM EST
Finding the ‘goldilocks’ zone or conditions in rice irrigation
Texas A&M AgriLife

Alternate wetting and drying, a rice irrigation practice dating back to the 1980s, is part of a broader Texas A&M AgriLife study investigating its potential to reduce water and fertilizer use.

Released: 21-Dec-2023 3:50 PM EST
IAFNS Webinar Series on Roles of Sodium: A Check-In on Progress, Emerging Science and Next Steps
Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences

Series of seven free IAFNS webinars on what’s new on the role of Sodium in diet, health, consumer preferences, food safety and quality — setting the stage for an expert dialogue to inform future public health guidance.

   
Newswise: image.jpg
Released: 18-Dec-2023 9:30 AM EST
Holiday story ideas: Smart toy safety, managing holiday stress, economics of Christmas music, and more
Virginia Tech

The Virginia Tech media relations office has the following experts available for interviews on holiday related topics.

Newswise: SNAP recipients may struggle to meet dietary goals, especially in food deserts
Released: 14-Dec-2023 1:05 PM EST
SNAP recipients may struggle to meet dietary goals, especially in food deserts
University of Notre Dame

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s largest nutrition program, helping 41 million participants afford “nutritious food essential to health and well-being.

Newswise: Consumers grapple with confusion over food-date labels
Released: 14-Dec-2023 8:05 AM EST
Consumers grapple with confusion over food-date labels
Purdue University

The use of food-date labels such as “use-by” and “best if used by” causes consumer confusion that results in many Americans discarding food that is safe to eat or donate, according to the November 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report.

Newswise: Wheat Sequencing Consortium Awarded NSF Grant to Mine Wheat Diversity for Food Security
Released: 13-Dec-2023 9:00 AM EST
Wheat Sequencing Consortium Awarded NSF Grant to Mine Wheat Diversity for Food Security
International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) is starting a two-year project, with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to mine an untapped genetic resource for wheat improvement by sequencing the genomes of ancient varieties representing the worldwide diversity of bread wheat.

Released: 12-Dec-2023 6:05 AM EST
If a piece of Turkey gets stuck in your throat this Christmas, there is no point in trying to free it with Cola
Amsterdam UMC

Cola. A drink forever associated with the Christmas season. And also, for many, a liquid that can help clear a blocked oesophagus. Something that may be a bit more likely at this time of year.

Newswise: Department of Food Science and Technology researcher explores agrifood system solutions
Released: 11-Dec-2023 3:05 AM EST
Department of Food Science and Technology researcher explores agrifood system solutions
Texas A&M AgriLife

Reza Ovissipour, Ph.D., a Texas A&M AgriLife Research assistant professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Food Science and Technology, is actively contributing to solutions for the crucial food-related challenges of today — and tomorrow.

Released: 7-Dec-2023 2:15 PM EST
Looking for unique stories about the winter holidays? Check out the Winter Holidays channel
Newswise

It's the moooost wonderful time...of the year! Are you looking for new story ideas that are focused on the winter holiday season? Perhaps you're working on a story on on managing stress and anxiety? Perhaps you're working on a story on seasonal affective disorder? Or perhaps your editor asked you to write a story on tracking Santa? Look no further. Check out the Winter Holidays channel.

       


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