#Food Science and Technology

[buindia]

Several benefits of food technology have been effectively transforming the food industry. Keep reading to explore more.

[igmpi]

Get the post graduate diploma from FFSQ, IGMPI in Food Science and Technology.

[gmanmedias]

Ramona Flowers ep. 3

❤️ ❤️ ❤️

💛 💛 💛

❤️ ❤️ ❤️

[pale-blue-home]

🌾🍚🧬 A new strain of rice offers hope for drought-stricken communities in Chile! Chilean scientists are trialing the “Jaspe” rice strain, described as more environmentally conscious, “less-thirsty,” and “climate-smart.” Trials have also proven the strain to be high-yield with the right growing method, producing nearly ten times more than a conventional rice field!

[wachinyeya]

June 6, 2025, Kaleigh Harrison

A team from Northwestern University has developed a new graphene oxide-based coating poised to reshape the $60 billion food packaging industry. The material is designed as a direct alternative to plastic linings and PFAS-based barriers that have long raised environmental and health concerns. Unlike many existing PFAS-free options that either underperform or drive up costs, the graphene oxide coating shows competitive strength, barrier resistance, and affordability—key attributes that align with both regulatory and commercial demands.

The coating, now under patent, is the result of a collaboration between materials scientist SonBinh Nguyen and mechanical engineer Timothy Wei. Through GO-Eco, a Northwestern-affiliated startup, the technology has transitioned from lab development into industry testing. Wei, who also serves as chief scientist at Chang Robotics, emphasized the goal was to move beyond theory and into viable manufacturing solutions.

Tests conducted at Western Michigan University’s Paper Pilot Plant reported performance improvements ranging from 30 to 50 percent in barrier resistance and substrate strength when compared to current commercial coatings. These results were achieved with only small additions of graphene oxide, helping maintain price parity—critical for large-scale adoption across sectors like quick service restaurants, consumer packaging, and grocery retail.

Stronger, Safer, and More Sustainable

Unlike PFAS-based coatings, the graphene oxide formula can be applied to a variety of materials—such as molded fiber products, cardboard boxes, and disposable paperware—without affecting recyclability or compostability. This gives it a notable edge as businesses face increasing demand to meet sustainability targets without sacrificing product quality.

The single-atom-thick structure of graphene oxide delivers practical advantages: it’s non-toxic, lightweight, and adaptable to existing production workflows. Field tests have confirmed the coating’s applicability across packaging types, from cups and straws to clamshell containers and produce bags. For businesses focused on customer experience, the additional strength and leak-resistance also help reduce complaints over soggy or flimsy packaging.

GO-Eco has secured early-stage investment from a national tableware manufacturer and is actively collaborating with partners to finalize product development. Regulatory approvals for food contact safety are in process, alongside certifications for compostability and recyclability—two key considerations for packaging buyers navigating evolving compliance requirements.

[cupids-stimboards]

werid science

🔌 🥔 👁️ / 💡 x 💡 / 👁️ 🥔 🔌

[kafkasapartment]

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A post shared by World Economic Forum (@worldeconomicforum)

worldeconomicforum: Some of @swegreen_'s compact farms can grow as much as 15,000 vegetables monthly.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Mercury content in tuna can be reduced with new packaging solution

Fish is a high-quality source of protein, containing omega-3 fatty acids and many other beneficial nutrients. However, the accumulation of toxic mercury also makes fish consumption a concern, of which tuna is particularly susceptible. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have come up with a novel approach to packaging canned tuna infused in a water-based solution of amino acid cysteine. It was shown to remove up to 35% of the accumulated mercury in canned tuna, significantly reducing human exposure to mercury via food. The research is published in the journal Global Challenges. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mercury is one of the ten most harmful chemicals for humans. Exposure can damage the central nervous system, with fetuses and young children being particularly sensitive to the effects. That is why dietary recommendations for pregnant women advise caution with tuna consumption.

Read more.

[explore-blog]

Oliver Sacks on how chocolate cast its spell upon humanity, from biochemistry to culture.

[rifki16]

Anti-Sisyphus: A Reflection after being rejected from a PhD Program at DTU

I have been trying to get back to writing, for non-academic purposes, again. And after my latest PhD application rejection, I figure, this might be the best opportunity for me to start writing non-academic analytic essays again.

I got rejected by the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) for a PhD program under their Department of Technology, Management, and Economics. The PhD program is also under the EU MOVEO project, a project which tries to conduct research on the inclusivity of transport in the EU. This rejection hits quite differently than the others - hence why I'm writing on my Tumblr page again. This is the tenth PhD application rejection I got, so far in the span of less than a year since my master's graduation ceremony. I had felt differently and more optimistically about this PhD application and program because the program is directly about STS, the field which tries to use social studies perspectives on the social of the natural sciences, a field which I'm madly interested in, and have extensive knowledge about and experience in. I really took time in making the reflective essay used for the application. I have the relevant experience of conducting STS research, which I think would actually be my competitive advantage compared to the other applicants, considering that not a lot of STS research has been done. I have quite a clear understanding of what I will do with the research if I had gotten accepted to the program - something which I don't always have about the PhD programs I applied to.

The rejection email arrived yesterday, on Saturday, at 2-ish PM, my time, or 9-is AM Danish time. I did not get a notification for the email at first. I just realized about the email when I opened the Gmail application several minutes after it had arrived. I was on the train back to my parents' place, and I did not want to ruin my mood during the trip, so I decided to open it after I got home and with my friends, Lars and Leo, being at least virtually present as I opened it. Several times during the trip, I clicked on the email again and again, and I had to restrain myself from reading the email; I couldn't understand the first part of the email anyway, as it's written in Danish. When I arrived at my parents' place, I became more and more anxious about what's inside the email.

In all my past applications, I have only managed to get into a further selection stage for one application, for the Cawthron Institute Scholarship at the Victoria University of Wellington's Geography/Environmental Studies PhD program. When I got the email about the first stage result of that scholarship, I was about to run at 6-ish AM my time, as New Zealand is several hours ahead of me. When I did my morning 24-minute running routine that day, I was already telling myself to brace for the bad news of being rejected by the scholarship team. I was at peace with that apocalyptic prediction about the email. I felt good about not having to worry about what that email entailed, what it could mean for me. I felt this sense of peace. When I got back to my place, I pushed the activity slot of opening that email quite back in the queue as I did not really need to read about being rejected and some templatic, fake, consolation message about the rejection and their attempt to rescucitate my motivation to apply to some other PhD applicaitons out there. I finally got to opening the email, I think it was already during brunch time. Then, there it was in the email, I got into the next stage of the selection process for the scholarship. I was so surprised. I really did not think that I could get it.

Now, that is sort of the go-to sign I'm looking for whenever I'm about to open a reply to my PhD applications: "Am I feeling at peace before opening the email?" When I eventually got rejected from that scholarship at the last selection stage, I wasn't feeling the same peace feeling after seeing the reply email in my inbox. The false belief then became reinforced so strongly in my head that I forced myself not to be giddy or to feel that fervently in any way whenever I received a reply. I suppose that it doesn't work since, even though I made myself feel "peace", I still got rejected again and again. I also did not have that feeling when I eventually lied down last night in my bed and opened the email. Underneath the Danish text, the English text plainly said that I got rejected, without any explanations of why, just rejection. Another reason why this rejection hurts quite deeply is that I don't have many other PhD applications on rotation - something which made me question my "suitability" in academia.

This whole ordeal, PhD applications, has been like an anti-Sisyphus activity for me. As Sisyphus was condemned to roll up a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll down and Sisyphus to roll it back up, I, on the other hand, feel like I have to plunge myself further and further into this unknown, dark, and consuming abyss. Just like a blackhole, this abyss, which I'm falling further and further seems to also "take", "absorb", every mass, or in my case, spirit and confidence, away from me. I find the abyss analogy apt as all but one of the application processes I applied to did not leave any meaningful feedback about what made me get rejected from the application, and hence, I feel like I'm pouring all of this energy and effort just for some unexplained "black box"-effectuated hands to beat me up again and again as I'm diving deeper and deeper into the abyss.

I know that I have been saying to myself that I might not fit in academia every time I got rejected for a PhD program. However, this time, this rejection feels very different; it feels like it knocks down the last worth pillar I have about my sense of belonging in the academic world.

I know it's about the journey. I know it's about giving yourself hope in times of darkness. It just hurts. It really hurts to be rejected by fellow STS researchers.

I used to feel angry, pissed off at the PhD process which rejected me. Now, I'm just tired. I'm thinking that maybe I have to find other routes from fleeing this country.

On the other hand, when I looked back ever since that second rejection by Cawthron Institute, a lot of things have changed. Back then, I never really thought that I could ever take my PhD abroad. Now, I know that I can - even though I still question the time frame of when it will happen. I know which universities have funded PhD programs. I still have four other PhD applications ahead of me, one of which I have a good feeling and interest in.

The abyss might not have beaten me in taking all of my mass away from me, but it sure is depleting. And as I only try to gauge the things ahead of me, I become even more depressed about where I am. I know I have come a long way. I now have a tool belt, which I think can get me out of the abyss and land on a good PhD program. But it sure sucks to be falling this deep, this far, and without a light to guide me.

[merrymoonjewelry]

Summer Fling: Captivate and Sparkle with Our Stunning London Blue Topaz Ring

[coochiequeens]

Boycott the beauty industry. Ladies in jobs where you get more tips if you wear makeup please look at the ingredients

May 8, 2025 By Ronnie Cohen

A study recruited Black and Latina women and asked them to log all the beauty products they use in a week. More than half of the women used products with known carcinogens.

More than half of Black and Latina women in Los Angeles who participated in a new study regularly used personal-care products containing a known carcinogen.

Study participants photographed the ingredient lists of all the products they used at home over the course of a week. The journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters published the study Wednesday.

Of 64 women, researchers found that 53% reported using soap, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, skin lightener, eyeliner, eyelash glue and other beauty products that contained formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives — toxins found to cause cancer in humans.

"It's really concerning that we are intentionally putting chemicals that release a carcinogen into our products that we apply to ourselves every day," said lead author Robin Dodson, associate director of research at Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts nonprofit studying environmental causes of breast cancer.

"Formaldehyde is a great preservative," she said. "That's why it's used as an embalming fluid. And we do have to remember formaldehyde is a carcinogen."

The study is among the first to demonstrate that formaldehyde-releasing preservatives are present in a wide range of beauty products.   The research, collected in 2021, focused on Black and Latina women after previous studies showed they are more often exposed to formaldehyde in nail and hair products than white women. Researchers have questioned whether African American women's frequent use of chemical hair straighteners, suspected of containing formaldehyde-releasing agents, might explain why breast, uterine and ovarian cancers kill disproportionately more Black than white women.

In 2023, a dozen years after a federal agency classified formaldehyde a human carcinogen, the Food and Drug Administration was tentatively scheduled to unveil a proposal to consider banning the chemical in hair straighteners. Two years later, the government still has failed to act. The FDA declined to comment.

The new study shows that formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing products are present not only in hair relaxers but in a wide variety of beauty products, including some that women apply to their bodies far more frequently than chemical hair straighteners.

One study participant used three formaldehyde products: a leave-in conditioner, a rinse-off conditioner and a body wash. Another participant washed with hand soap with formaldehyde-releasing agents an average of twice a day.

An array of products

The sheer number of products — 1,143 over seven days — the 64 participants used struck Tracey Woodruff, who directs the University of California at San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment. The women in the study used an average of 17 different products a day — as few as 5 and as many as 43.

"It speaks to the pressure women have to look a certain way," said Woodruff, who was not involved with the new research.   Social and economic pressures frequently compel Black women to alter their appearance to conform to white beauty standards, said study co-author Janette Robinson Flint, executive director of Black Women for Wellness. She called for government oversight of personal-care products. "We shouldn't have to be chemists to figure out what kinds of products will make us sick," she said. 

"Beauty norms that focus on white presentation definitely are resulting in people using products that can be harmful to their health," Woodruff said. "This is part of the legacy and history of discrimination against the Black and Latinx population." 

Woodruff would have liked the study to also compare product use by white women in an effort to assess whether beauty-product use is contributing to health inequities.

Woodruff and Dodson joined Flint in calling for government oversight and regulation of cosmetics and other personal-care products.

Banned in Europe

In addition to being a carcinogen, formaldehyde, a colorless and smelly gas, can cause rashes and can sicken those who breathe it in, according to the FDA. Formaldehyde-releasing products need not be listed as formaldehyde on ingredient labels. Instead, they are listed by their chemical names, such as DMDM hydantoin, short for 1,3-dimethylol-5,5-dimethylhydantoin, which, as Dodson noted, doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. 

The European Union banned formaldehyde as a cosmetic ingredient in 2009, and any cosmetic product containing a formaldehyde-releasing preservative above a miniscule concentration must include a warning. At least 12 states, including California and Washington, have recently proposed or enacted laws to regulate the use of formaldehyde in cosmetics. 

How well the laws will protect consumers remains to be seen. Reports to the California Department of Public Health's Safe Cosmetics Program do show a tenfold drop in products containing formaldehyde from 2009 to 2022.

"In the very near short term, tomorrow, I think consumers should do the best they can to read product labels," Dodson said. "In the longer term, I think there has to be a regulatory solution. It has to come down to ingredient bans, likely at the state level."

[lmgmm06]

Walking

Based on the song: girl from ipanema

[orcelito]

Had a moment of listening to music I liked back when I was a teenager (& still like) and having a whole. Realization . That I like myself as I am now sooooo much better than I like teenage me. And I started thinking about Why.

There's a lot to it I'm pretty sure, & most of it centers around the fact that I just... didn't really know who I was as a person. I didn't really have hobbies outside of what I did in school (aka orchestra) and like. Video games + anime. I did creative writing in middle school, but dropped off in high school for... some reason? I still made original characters and played around with them a lot, but it was mostly just in drawing and thinking about them. I never actually *wrote*, and I in fact didn't get back into creative writing at all until I was 23 years old. I was someone who had spent so long hiding behind others and just doing what I was told that I just... didn't have any real direction. I didn't know what I even *wanted*. I thought I knew, but in hindsight, I can confidently say that I didn't. I was just an insecure teen drifting through life and not thinking about things beyond what was immediately in front of me. Which is pretty standard for teenagers I guess, but not all of them. Not at all.

Compared to now, where I have Many hobbies, most notably being writing. As I am now, I am just Intrinsically a writer. And it's weird to remember that I wasn't even really *writing* before 5 years ago (besides text rps, which did a lot for developing my writing skill! But still aren't a replacement for writing individually). As a teen, I wasnt into dnd, I was incredibly out of shape, & I was a lot less aggressive and focused. I was the type to avoid sports!!! I hated them!!!! But as I am now, I Love biking and can easily bike for an hour+ no problem (I remember being a teen and trying to go on just 10 minute bike rides in the summer and just *dying* from it), & I love working out. I wanna be strong!!! I LOVE being strong!!! And I was an absolute mess with things like public speaking & working in groups, vs now where I can do an impromptu presentation no problem & I'm often the unofficial leader in group projects bc im typically the one who does the organizing and allotments of work. A side effect of working as a supervisor and then assistant manager for so long. I have a lot more confidence in my perceptions and judgements, & I have the self-assurance to assert these things. And this is only really the tip of the iceberg with all the differences.

I just feel like an entirely different person, almost. The cores are the same, or at least damn near similar, with the things I want out of life & the sorts of things I enjoy, but it's like. The difference between finding a random rock off the side of the road & then that rock when it's been sanded and carved and decorated to be something individual and unique. You look at them side by side and it's something dull vs something shiny and intricate. The origins can't be ignored and dismissed, & I certainly would never resent younger me for just doing the best with what I knew at the time. But it's just astounding how much difference time and experience will have for growing and developing as a person. Things I consider integral to my personhood weren't even thoughts in my mind back then. We are almost entirely different people.

[researchatory]

The Surprising Study Snack: Chocolate for Better Memory | @researchatory

Level up your study game with a little dark chocolate! Research suggests it can enhance focus and memory retention. Just a small piece might give you that extra edge. 😉

#StudyTips #BrainFood #ChocolateLover #MemoryBoost #DarkChocolateBenefits #StudentLife #CognitiveFunction #StudyFuel

That's fascinating! It's always interesting to see how everyday things can have surprising effects on our cognitive abilities. So, a little bit of dark chocolate might actually be a study buddy in disguise. It makes sense that increased blood flow and those stimulating compounds could give the brain a little boost when it's working hard.

It's good to know it's not a magic bullet, though. Consistent effort and effective study techniques are still key. But the idea of a small, enjoyable treat potentially enhancing learning is definitely appealing!

Keywords - (Studying, Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Brain Food, Memory, Learning, Focus, Concentration, Cognition, Education, Student, Desk, Books, Notes, Snack, Treat, Brain Boost, Cognitive Enhancement, Academic, Knowledge, Flavonoids, Caffeine , Theobromine, Blood Flow, Alertness , Memory Retention, Test Scores, Cognitive Performance, Study Session, Exam Prep, Learning Tips, Student Life, Study Motivation, Smart Snacking)

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Edible electronics are being developed to assist rescue operations and go inside hospital patients

Professor Dario Floreano is a Swiss-Italian roboticist and engineer engaged in a bold research venture: the creation of edible robots and digestible electronics. However counterintuitive it may seem, combining food science and robotic science could yield enormous benefits. These range from airlifts of food to advanced health monitoring. Boundary breaking "Our goal is to start replacing electronic parts by edible components," said Floreano, who is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

Read more.