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UMass Amherst food scientists aim to make plant-based protein tastier and healthier

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As meat-eating continues to increase around the world, food scientists are focusing on ways to create healthier, better-tasting and more sustainable plant-based protein products that mimic meat, fish, milk, cheese and eggs.

It’s no simple task, says renowned food scientist David Julian McClements, University of Massachusetts Amherst Distinguished Professor and lead author of a paper in the new Nature journal, Science of Food, that explores the topic.

“With Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and other products coming on the market, there’s a huge interest in plant-based foods for improved sustainability, health and ethical reasons,” says McClements, a leading expert in food design and nanotechnology, and author of Future Foods: How Modern Science Is Transforming the Way We Eat. [Read more…] about UMass Amherst food scientists aim to make plant-based protein tastier and healthier

Ripeta joins the Digital Science family

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UK Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that it has fully acquired ripeta, an AI-based company aiming to help build trust in science.

This is a natural development based on Digital Science’s previous support and investment in the US-based start-up, which aims to make research more reproducible by identifying and highlighting elements of scholarly manuscripts that either appear to be difficult to reproduce or where additional provenance would increase the trust that can be placed in the paper.

Ripeta’s software uses sophisticated machine-learning and natural language processing algorithms to evaluate research manuscripts for evidence of reproducibility. In our data-rich research environment, excellence of communication of research ideas is increasingly tied to transparent presentation.

This includes appropriate referencing of techniques, methods and underlying data. Better research communication is essential for research to have its maximum impact. Ripeta aims to build trust in the research, its associated data, and the authors. [Read more…] about Ripeta joins the Digital Science family

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    The opportunities and risks of digitalization for sustainable developmentDigitalisation can support transitions towards a more sustainable society if technologies and processes are designed in line with suitable criteria. This requires a systemic focus on the risks and benefits of digital technologies across the three dimensions of sustainable development: the environment, society, and the economy. This is the conclusion…
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  • About
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    Science & Technology News aims to be one of the top and most trusted information providers in the sector. We publish stories ranging from technological advancements here on Earth and up to what is beyond in the realms of the unknown galaxies – and everything in between. This news website is…
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  • The Earth is flat. Everything else is just fake news. Or is it?
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    The Earth is flat. Everything else is just fake news. Or is it?‘Is Western culture balancing on a tightrope between science and humanities?’ asks Carlos Elias, author of new book Science on the Ropes, which explains why science has been dethroned from its prestigious position in Western culture and replaced by pseudoscientific conjecture and fake news Pseudoscience is on the rise and…
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  • For girls, learning science outside linked to better grades, knowledge
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    For girls, learning science outside linked to better grades, knowledgeIn a new study, North Carolina State University researchers found that an outdoor science program was linked to higher average science grades and an increase in a measure of science knowledge for a group of fifth grade girls in North Carolina. The findings, published in the International Journal of Science Education,…
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  • Researchers generate ‘the highest laser intensity ever reached’
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    Researchers generate ‘the highest laser intensity ever reached’Recently, laser scientists at the Center for Relativistic Laser Science (CoReLS) within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea realized the unprecedented laser intensity of 1023 W/cm2. This has been a milestone that has been pursued for almost two decades by many laser institutes around the world. An…
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The most discussed and shared research and commentary of 2020

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Covid-19, racial justice, climate change, the origins of life and other crucial issues all garnered attention in 2020.

The annual Altmetric Top 100 highlights research and scholarly commentary published in 2020 that generated significant international online attention and discussion – from patents and public policy documents to mainstream media, blogs, Wikipedia and social media platforms.

This year’s Top 100 represents the most discussed research from all disciplines, selecting the top five works by Altmetric Attention Score from twenty subjects.

Unsurprisingly, Covid-19 research accounts for roughly 30% of the Top 100 across many disciplines including biomedicine, built environment and design, and economics. Virus transmission and face mask protection were among the most heavily discussed topics. [Read more…] about The most discussed and shared research and commentary of 2020

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    Global warming already responsible for one in three heat-related deathsBetween 1991 and 2018, more than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role were attributable to human-induced global warming, according to a new article in Nature Climate Change. The study, the largest of its kind, was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine…
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A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to be true is cited more

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Papers in leading psychology, economic and science journals that fail to replicate and therefore are less likely to be true are often the most cited papers in academic research, according to a new study by the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management.

Published in Science Advances, the paper explores the ongoing “replication crisis” in which researchers have discovered that many findings in the fields of social sciences and medicine don’t hold up when other researchers try to repeat the experiments.

The paper reveals that findings from studies that cannot be verified when the experiments are repeated have a bigger influence over time. The unreliable research tends to be cited as if the results were true long after the publication failed to replicate. [Read more…] about A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to be true is cited more

Scientists use ‘sandwich’ model to make solar panels more efficient

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In a world hungry for cheaper, more efficient renewable energy, Australian researchers have served up a treat.

Work led by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science has shown that the two-dimensional (2D) thin films used in some perovskite solar cells closely resemble a sandwich. Perovskite is an exciting material at the forefront of solar energy research and design.

Previously, scientists thought these 2D perovskite films had a ‘gradient’ structure, in which certain components were found deep in the material, with other complementary elements only located nearer to the surface, like topping on a cracker. [Read more…] about Scientists use ‘sandwich’ model to make solar panels more efficient

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Richard King Mellon Foundation awards Carnegie Mellon $150 million to support science research

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Carnegie Mellon University and the Richard King Mellon Foundation have announced that the two long-time partners will together make a transformational investment in science and technology leadership at the university; in a more vibrant future for the Hazelwood neighborhood; and in Pittsburgh’s ongoing economic renaissance.

The Foundation has approved a $150 million grant to CMU – the largest single grant in the Foundation’s 74-year history. The first $75 million is the lead gift for a new cutting-edge science building on the CMU campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

The second $75 million will seed a new robotics innovation center and an institute focused on advanced materials and manufacturing at Hazelwood Green – a former riverside steel mill site that will attract the jobs and industries of the new economy, while enabling development of a true mixed-use destination that will be a positive and inclusive part of Hazelwood. [Read more…] about Richard King Mellon Foundation awards Carnegie Mellon $150 million to support science research

Small galaxies likely played important role in evolution of the Universe

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A new study led by University of Minnesota astrophysicists shows that high-energy light from small galaxies may have played a key role in the early evolution of the Universe.

The research gives insight into how the Universe became reionized, a problem that astronomers have been trying to solve for years.

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy. [Read more…] about Small galaxies likely played important role in evolution of the Universe

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Cancer rates in medieval Britain around 10 times higher than previously thought, study suggests

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The first study to use x-rays and CT scans to detect evidence of cancer among the skeletal remains of a pre-industrial population suggests that between 9-14% of adults in medieval Britain had the disease at the time of their death.

This puts cancer prevalence in a time before exposure to tumour-inducing chemicals from industry and tobacco at around ten times higher than previously thought, according to researchers.

Prior research into historic cancer rates using the archaeological record has been limited to examining the bone exterior for lesions. It suggested that cancer was rare, affecting less than 1% of the population. [Read more…] about Cancer rates in medieval Britain around 10 times higher than previously thought, study suggests

Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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Rising sea levels and more powerful cyclonic storms, phenomena driven by the warming of oceans due to climate change, puts at immediate or potential risk an estimated 680 million people living in low-lying coastal zones (a number projected to reach more than one billion by 2050). In nations like Bangladesh these populations are already moving to escape sea-level rise.

In a new study, “Modeling human migration under environmental change: a case study of the effect of sea level rise in Bangladesh,” researchers led by Maurizio Porfiri, an engineer at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, apply data science to predict how the cascading effects of the migration in Bangladesh will ultimately affect 1.3 million people across the country by 2050. The work has implications for coastal populations worldwide.

The new study, co-authors of which include first author Pietro De Lellis, an engineer at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and Manuel Ruiz Marin, a mathematician at the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain, presents a mathematical model of human migration that considers not just economic factors but also human behavior – whether people are unwilling or unable to leave and if they later return home. [Read more…] about Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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    Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental changeOn an expedition to the Central Andean Plateau, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and colleagues were astounded to find a huge fossil-tree buried in the cold, grassy plain. The plant fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the…
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The growing promise of community-based monitoring and citizen science

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Over recent decades, community-based environmental monitoring (often called “citizen science”) has exploded in popularity, aided both by smartphones and rapid gains in computing power that make the analysis of large data sets far easier.

Publishing in BioScience, handling editors Rick Bonney, of Cornell University, Finn Danielsen, of the Nordic Foundation for Development and Ecology, and colleagues share a special section that highlights numerous community-based monitoring programs currently under way.

They also describe the potential for such efforts to advance the scientific enterprise well into the future and make recommendations for best practices and future directions. [Read more…] about The growing promise of community-based monitoring and citizen science