Nikon Makes New Product Distribution a Snap

Top consumer goods manufacturers now recognize that success requires more than just making market-leading products. Having the right distribution network is just as critical. Nikon Inc. is the world’s leader in precision optics, 35mm and digital imaging technology. So it’s no surprise that when the company saw the next big trend in photographic technology —digital cameras— they were ready to deliver with some of the most advanced product designs in the marketplace. But to ensure that retailers could meet the demand of tech-hungry consumers and professional photographers, Nikon, re-engineered its distribution network to keep them well supplied.

Bread mold may build a better rechargeable battery

You probably don’t think much of fungi, and especially those that turn bread moldy, but researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on March 17, 2016 have evidence that might just change your mind. Their findings suggest that a red bread mold could be the key to producing more sustainable electrochemical materials for use in rechargeable batteries.

Researcher effort to enhance plant’s tolerance to stress

With the world’s population exploding to well over 7 billion, feeding the human race is getting even more challenging. Increasing the yield from crops such as wheat, maize, rice and barley, is paramount to growing enough food.

In addition, crop production is now affected by stressors such as drought, climate change and the salinization of fields — presenting obstacles to our future food supply.

Researchers with Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences, University of Arizona, University of North Texas and with the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, have discovered a way to enhance a plant’s tolerance to stress, which in turn improves how it uses water and nutrients from the soil. These improvements increase plant biomass and yield.

Oilseed plants for biofuel: An industrial development

A Kansas State University biochemistry professor has reached a milestone in building a better biofuel: producing high levels of lipids with modified properties in oil seeds.

Timothy Durrett, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and collaborators at Michigan State University and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln have modified Camelina sativa — a nonfood oilseed crop — and produced the highest levels of modified seed lipids to date. By modifying the oilseed biochemistry in Camelina sativa, the researchers have achieved very high levels of an oil with reduced viscosity and improved cold temperature characteristics.

The goal of the research is to alter oilseeds to produce large amounts of modified oil that can be used as improved biofuels or even industrial and food-related applications.

Fish oil replacement from fatty acids of GM oilseed crops

Oil from genetically modified (GM) oil seed crops could replace fish oil as a primary source of the beneficial Omega-3 fatty acid EPA — according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Researchers studied the effect in mice of consuming feed enriched with oil from glasshouse-grown genetically engineered Camelina sativa, developed at the agricultural science centre Rothamsted Research.

The goal of the research was to discover whether mammals (using mice as a model) can absorb and accumulate EPA from this novel source of omega-3s.

GM Crops, the Developing Country and New Alliance

The majority of genetically modified (GM) crops are now cultivated in the developing world. In 2014, around 53% of the 182m hectares (nearly two million square kilometres) of GM crops were grown in these countries.

In reality, though, the “developing world” is a catch-all for many different countries. Brazil and Argentina are way out in front, planting nearly 70m hectares of GM soy, maize and cotton. India has 11.6m hectares of GM cotton alone. China has a broader spread but much smaller quantities, while in sub-Saharan Africa, there are 2.7m hectares of GM soy, maize and cotton in South Africa, and 0.5m hectares of cotton in Burkina Faso. Bangladesh is the latest addition to the so-called GM nations.

By far the most common GM crops are those that can tolerate herbicides. They suit the large “mono-cropped” farming systems found in the US, Argentina and Brazil. Among smallholdings, notably in India, China and South Africa, the biggest GM crop is Bt cotton, which incorporates a toxin that kills pests. It has been at the centre of the debate about the extent to which GM can help the poor.

Food Waste Recovery Improves Sustainability of Food Systems

Sustainability is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, this definition is difficult to be understood or applied by organizations that have specific responsibilities to the society, beyond their economic and legal obligations. Responsibility means that people, planet and profit should be considered as a whole system, needing balance. By balancing the social and environmental elements of sustainability, long-term profitability could be achieved.

A food system is defined as the sum of all the diverse elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc) and activities related to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and their socio-economic and environmental outcomes. Sustainability could be illustrated through the product stewardship concept, which is defined by the shared responsibilities that all participants in a product’s life cycle have for minimizing its environmental and health impacts. A product’s responsibilities in a supply chain do not end when the product is delivered to consumers. This means that product manufacturers, retailers, users and disposers are responsible for the health, safety and environmental impacts of their products across their life cycle (e.g. from raw material extraction to use and disposal).  Thus, there is a need for balancing food products responsibilities (e.g. economic, social and environmental) throughout the supply chain.

Recent study suggests vitamin D could repair nerve damage in multiple sclerosis

According to new research from the University of Cambridge, a protein activated by vitamin D could be involved in repairing damage to myelin in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The study offers significant evidence that vitamin D could be a possible treatment for MS in the future.

Researchers identified that the ‘vitamin D receptor’ protein pairs with an existing protein, called the RXR gamma receptor, already known to be involved in the repair of myelin, the protecive sheath surrounding nerve fibres. By adding vitamin D to brain stem cells where the proteins were present, they found the production rate of oligodendrocytes (myelin making cells) increased by 80%. When they blocked the vitamin D receptor to stop it from working, the RXR gamma protein alone was unable to stimulate the production of oligodendrocytes.

Eat More Processed Meat Do Cause Cancer

High consumption of processed meat are at increased risk of early death, in particular due to cardiovascular diseases but also to cancer

People who eat a lot of processed meat such as bacon, sausages, ham and burgers run a greater risk of premature death and developing conditions such as cancer and heart disease, research shows. Processed meat has been modified to either extend its shelf life or change the taste and the main methods are smoking , curing, or adding salt or preservatives. Simply putting beef through a mincer does not mean the resulting mince is “processed” unless it is modified further. Processed meat includes bacon, hot dogs, sausages, corned beef, beef jerky, salami and ham as well as canned meat and  meat-based sauces. It is the chemicals involved in the processing which could be increasing the risk of cancer. High temperature cooking, such as on a barbeque, can also create carcinogenic chemicals.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency affiliated with WHO, has evaluated the carciogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. If they were all had an extra 50g of bacon a day for the rest of their lives then the risk would increase by 18% to around seven in 100 people getting bowel cancer.

A Cure Worse than the Disease?

Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’ – that is the motto of enlightenment. – I. Kant

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who took Hume’s challenge seriously – indeed, more seriously than Hume himself (Kant, 2004). If science is so critical to our understanding of the universe, he reasoned, it must be possible to place it on a firm epistemic foundation, which requires defusing the problem of induction. And so he set out to do just this, though whether and in what sense he succeeded in this project is still a matter of debate.

Kant accepts the empiricist idea that we have no direct access to information about the “real” world (noumena) beyond our mental representations (phenomena). Since metaphysics is about the ultimate nature of reality, any empiricist making metaphysical claims is in the awkward position of using sensation as a guide to the supposedly extra-sensory causes of sensation. To make matters worse, Kant argues persuasively that our sensation is not a passive faculty on which the world impresses itself, but instead involves active (if subconscious) interpretation (a claim richly confirmed by modern psychology). This makes it impossible to know the nature of the world beyond our experience with any confidence – we are trapped in our own minds, as it were. To use a simple analogy, it’s as if we spend our entire lives locked inside a movie theatre with only the images on the screen as a guide to the outside world. We have no way to tell whether and to what extent the images correspond to what’s outside. And since we also know that our expectations and desires influence what see on the screen, we have strong grounds to be skeptical about any claim concerning the world beyond the theatre.