food in Biological News

Agricultural research key to food security

Boosting agricultural research in the developing world is the key to ensuring food security for the world's poorest, says Adel el-Beltagy, Chair of the Global Form on Agricultural Research (GFAR), writing in the latest issue of the TWAS Newsletter, published last week. With nearly a billion peo...

ADA releases position paper on food and water safety

CHICAGO The American Dietetic Association has released an updated position paper on food and water safety that reviews the current situation in this country, identifies new tools that can help decrease illness and encourages continued research, education and technological advances to keep the foo...

Organic food not nutritionally better than conventionally-produced food

There is no evidence that organically produced foods are nutritionally superior to conventionally produced foodstuffs, according to a study published today in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition . Consumers appear willing to pay higher prices for organic foods based on their perceived h...

Freshwater fish at the top of the food chain evolve more slowly

Durham, NC For avid fishermen and anglers, the largemouth bass is a favorite freshwater fish with an appetite for minnows. A new study finds that once they evolved to eat other fish, largemouth bass and fellow fish-feeders have remained relatively unchanged compared with their insect- and snail-e...

EPA grant to University of Chicago for research on food allergy triggers

WASHINGTON The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a $433,100 grant to the University of Chicago to investigate how allergic reactions to food are initiated. The research is expected to lead to improved methods to assess whether pesticides produced in genetically engineered plants ca...

Protecting the food crops of the future

Biologists are investigating how to control when plants flower - to help farmers reap a bumper harvest. The University of Leeds team will also investigate whether the flowering process can be made more robust and able to withstand predicted changes in the climate. Professor of Plant Developme...

IUPUI study finds living near fast food outlet not a weighty problem for kids

INDIANAPOLIS A new study by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) researchers contradicts the conventional wisdom that living near a fast food outlet increases weight in children and that living near supermarkets, which sell fresh fruit and vegetables as well as so called junk...

Dioxins in food chain linked to breastfeeding ills

Exposure to dioxins during pregnancy harms the cells in rapidly-changing breast tissue, which may explain why some women have trouble breastfeeding or don't produce enough milk, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study. Researchers believe their findings, although only demons...

Consumers more likely to identify healthy food using traffic light nutrition labels

Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Consumers are five times more likely to identify healthy food when they see colour-coded traffic light nutrition labels than when labels present the information numerically by showing what percentage of the recommended daily nutrient intake each portion provides, new re...

Better water use could reduce future food crises

If the overall water resources in river basins were acknowledged and managed better, future food crises could be significantly reduced, say researchers from Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, Stockholm Environment Institute and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Th...

Rutgers study finds many consumers ignore food product recalls

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. Rutgers' Food Policy Institute (FPI) released a study today showing that many Americans fail to check their homes for recalled food products. Only about 60 percent of the studied sample reported ever having looked for recalled food in their homes, and only 10 percent said they...

Concerns about food safety to be spotlighted at U of Minnesota symposium

Recent nationwide outbreaks of food-borne illnesses have triggered calls for more regulation along with plunging consumer confidence. A symposium at the University of Minnesota this week will explore the complexities of the food-safety issue. The conference, "How Safe is our Food Supply? Expect...

Differences in neighborhood food environment may contribute to disparities in obesity

March 19, 2009 Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health examined the association of neighborhood food environments and "walkability" with body mass index (BMI) and obesity in New York City and found that a higher density of BMI-healthy food outlets is associated with a l...

Scientists gather to protect global food security from return of devastating wheat fungus

The sudden and unexpected re-emergence of a fungus that could cripple wheat production in Africa, Asia and, eventually, Europe and the Americas, has prompted wheat experts from around the world, led by Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, to gather March 17-20 in ...

Healthy food availability could depend on where you live -- so does the quality of your diet

The availability of healthy food choices and your quality of diet is associated with where you live, according to two studies conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined healthy food availability and diet quality among Baltimore City and Ba...

Biofuels ignite food crisis debate

Taking up valuable land and growing edible crops for biofuels poses a dilemma: Is it ethical to produce inefficient renewable energies at the expense of an already malnourished population? David Pimentel and his colleagues from Cornell University in New York highlight the problems linked to conver...

New book plants seed for biodiverse food production

(Flagstaff, Ariz., Jan. 2009) A Northern Arizona University political science professor is working with Southern African farmers studying their agricultural expertise and exposing trade agreements that could threaten the world's food supply. For more than 30 years, Carol Thompson has been consu...

Nations that sow food crops for biofuels may reap less than previously thought

MADISON -- Global yields of most biofuels crops, including corn, rapeseed and wheat, have been overestimated by 100 to 150 percent or more, suggesting many countries need to reset their expectations of agricultural biofuels to a more realistic level. That's according to a study led by Matt John...

Common food additive found to increase risk and speed spread of lung cancer

New research in an animal model suggests that a diet high in inorganic phosphates, which are found in a variety of processed foods including meats, cheeses, beverages, and bakery products, might speed growth of lung cancer tumors and may even contribute to the development of those tumors in indivi...

More food at lower cost

In the face of climate change, being able to increase crop yields by enabling plants to take up nutrients and water more efficiently becomes increasingly important, as fertiliser and water supplies incur significant energy and environmental costs. New research from the University of Bristol, pu...

Nuclear science for food security

Vienna, 2 December 2008 - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today called for increased investment in a plant breeding technique that could bolster efforts aimed at pulling millions of people out of the hunger trap. IAEA scientists use radiation to produce improved high-yielding plan...

Scientists developing food allergy treatment

A team of scientists from across Europe are embarking on new research to develop a treatment for food allergy. "Food allergy affects around 10 million EU citizens and there is no cure," says Dr Clare Mills of the Institute of Food Research, a lead partner in the Food Allergy Specific Therapy (F...

Springer launches Food Security

Hardly a day passes without the challenge of global food security featuring prominently in the media. The recent impact of the topic is such that the term "food security" has now become part of everyday discussion. In this challenging context, Springer is launching the scientific journal Food Sec...

Major conference on food Dec. 1-2, 2008

The world's largest alliance on agricultural research will convene more than 700 leading food and environmental scientists, policy makers and donor representatives in Maputo, Mozambique, on 1-2 December 2008 to discuss the best approaches for meeting the food needs of the poor in Africa. Four cr...

USAID grant awarded to improve food security in Africa

Blacksburg, Va. -- Amid global concerns about food security, the U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded a $1 million grant to Virginia Tech's Office of International Research, Education, and Development to improve agricultural productivity and ease trade barriers in Africa. The A...

Scripps Florida scientists awarded $1.5M to fight major water and food parasites

This award includes $1.5 million granted to the laboratory of William Roush, Ph.D., of Scripps Florida, a division of The Scripps Research Institute. Other participants in the consortium are University of California, San Diego (UCSD), University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and University ...

identiMetrics & BIO-key(R) Provide Biometric Finger Scanning for School Food Service Nationwide

Solution Enables Schools to Help Meet Federal Meal Reimbursement Requirements WALL, N.J. and FLOURTOWN, Pa., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BIO-key International, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BKYI), a leader in finger-based biometric identification and wireless...

Link possible between pet food contamination and baby formula contamination

Reston, VA (October 28, 2008) -- A study(1) published in the November issue of a scientific journal, Toxicological Sciences, which is published by Oxford Journals on behalf of the Society of Toxicology, describes the kidney toxicity of melamine and cyanuric acid based on research that was done t...

World Food Day brings attention to food security around the globe

Food Security: From Local to Global, will be the focus of the Society for Nutrition Education's 2009 annual conference, but this single event is just one small step in fighting world hunger. Food security remains a top priority around the world and requires immediate attention in order to combat t...

Wielding microbe against microbe, beetle defends its food source

MADISON -- As the southern pine beetle moves through the forest boring tunnels inside the bark of trees, it brings with it both a helper and a competitor. The helper is a fungus that the insect plants inside the tunnels as food for its young. But also riding along is a tiny, hitchhiking mite, whic...

Advance offers revolution in food safety testing

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Microbiologists at Oregon State University have developed a new technology to detect illness-causing bacteria an advance that could revolutionize the food industry, improving the actual protection to consumers while avoiding the costly waste and massive recalls of products that...

McGill conference on Global Food Crisis draws impressive list of international participants

McGill University's upcoming Conference on Global Food Security (Sept. 24-26) has attracted a long list of important players in key organizations around the world to discuss solutions to a problem that might have fallen off media radar screens, but which has not gone away. The latest developmen...

Pictures of hot fudge sundaes arouse: Understanding emotions improves our food choices

Menus and advertising affect our emotions, and if we understand those emotions, we make better food choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research . Authors Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers (all University of Kentucky) examined the "emotional intel...

Making snack food choices

Philadelphia, PA, September 11, 2008 People who are asked whether they would choose between a "good" snack and a "bad" snack might not follow their intentions when the snacks arrive. In an article in the September/October 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior , Dutch rese...

Rising energy, food prices major threats to wetlands as farmers eye new areas for crops

Critical food shortages and growing demand for bio-fuels and hydro-electricity due to high fossil fuel prices rank among the greatest threats today to the preservation of precious wetlands worldwide as farmers and developers look for new areas for agriculture, energy crop plantations and hydro dam...

Scientists learn how food affects the brain

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders. "Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain," said Fernando Gmez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and ph...

NIAID announces grants to stimulate food allergy research

Twelve investigators have received grants totaling $5 million over two years to lead high-impact, innovative studies of food allergy, a significant public health concern. This program, called Exploratory Investigations in Food Allergy, is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious ...

Use of nanomaterials in food packaging poses regulatory challenges

Washington, DC Engineered nanoscale materials (ENMs), which contain novel properties that offer potential benefits for use in food packaging, raise new safety evaluation challenges for regulators and industry, according to a report released today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) ...

Study finds Chinese food good for your heart

(PHILADELPHIA) A clinical study on patients who have suffered a heart attack found that a partially purified extract of Chinese red yeast rice, Xuezhikang (XZK), reduced the risk of repeat heart attacks by 45%, revascularization (bypass surgery/angioplasty), cardiovascular mortality and total mor...

Research measures movement of nanomaterials in simple model food chain

New research* shows that while engineered nanomaterials can be transferred up the lowest levels of the food chain from single celled organisms to higher multicelled ones, the amount transferred was relatively low and there was no evidence of the nanomaterials concentrating in the higher level orga...