Developments crucial as world’s natural supply is at risk
COLUMBUS, Ohio – With disease and high demand posing threats to the world’s primary natural rubber supply in Southeast Asia, scientists are working to ramp up the U.S. rubber market by advancing methods to extract latex from two sustainable North American plant sources: a dandelion species and a desert shrub.
Researchers reported their methods to improve efficiency and increase latex yield in two recent publications, building upon decades of research led by Katrina Cornish, professor of horticulture and crop science and food, agricultural and biological engineering at The Ohio State University.
Cornish and colleagues have added specialized agents during processing of the...
It turns out yogurt may have a previously unknown benefit: eliminating garlic odors.
A new study conducted in a lab – with follow-up human breath tests being planned – showed that whole milk plain yogurt prevented almost all of the volatile compounds responsible for garlic’s pungent scent from escaping into the air. Researchers tested the garlic deodorizing capacity of yogurt and its individual components of water, fat and protein to see how each stood up to the stink. Both fat and protein were effective at trapping garlic odors, leading the scientists to suggest high-protein foods may one day be formulated specifically to fight garlic breath.
“High protein is a very hot thing right now – generally, people want to eat more protein,...
Two weeks of eating a diet heavy in tomatoes increased the diversity of gut microbes and altered gut bacteria toward a more favorable profile in young pigs, researchers found.
After observing these results with a short-term intervention, the research team plans to progress to similar studies in people, looking for health-related links between tomatoes in the diet and changes to the human gut microbiome – the community of microorganisms living in the gastrointestinal tract.
“It’s possible that tomatoes impart benefits through their modulation of the gut microbiome,” said senior author Jessica Cooperstone, assistant professor of horticulture and crop science and food science and technology at The Ohio State University.
“...
COLUMBUS, OHIO–Scientists have proposed that using a cheap and simple product – hard candy – to screen for the loss of taste and smell in populations at risk for COVID-19 exposure may help detect probable positive cases in otherwise asymptomatic people.
The Ohio State University research team received $305,000 in National Institutes of Health funding in a competitive bid to develop easy-to-deploy strategies that can identify people who are potentially infected with SARS-CoV-2.
While symptoms like fever, chills, a cough and body aches vary widely among COVID-19 patients, an estimated 86% of people who test positive report a loss of smell, “which makes it a much better predictor, especially if it’s sudden loss,” said project co-leader ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio—Two faculty members in The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have been elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2020 class of Fellows.
Monica Giusti, professor of food science and technology, and Judit Puskas, professor of food, agricultural and biological engineering, join a class of 175 academic innovators representing universities and governmental or nonprofit research institutes named to the Fellows program this year. They are the 11th and 12th Ohio State inventors to be chosen as NAI Fellows.
“The work done by our newest NAI Fellows demonstrates the breadth of research expertise that can be found at Ohio State – and, in this instance, within a single college,...
Research in animals shows spikes, drops in insulin affect liver
Editor: This story was released earlier today by University Communications and is also online at news.osu.edu/news/2015/05/19/skipping-meals/.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study in animals suggests that skipping meals sets off a series of metabolic miscues that can result in abdominal weight gain.
In the study, mice that ate all of their food as a single meal and fasted the rest of the day developed insulin resistance in their livers – which scientists consider a telltale sign of prediabetes. When the liver doesn’t respond to insulin signals telling it to stop producing glucose, that extra sugar in the blood is stored as fat.
These mice initially were put on a restricted diet and lost...
Editor: This story was previously released by Ohio State University’s Office of Research and Innovation Communications, http://ow.ly/s9GYY.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The federal government’s proposal to discontinue protection for the gray wolf across the U.S. could have the unintended consequence of endangering other species, researchers say.
As written, scientists assert, the proposed rule would set a precedent allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to declare habitat unsuitable for an endangered animal because a threat exists on the land -- the exact opposite of the service’s mandate to impose regulations that reduce threats against imperiled species.
The FWS has “conflated threats with habitat suitability” by stating that U.S. land currently...
WOOSTER, Ohio -- James Kinder, interim director of the Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute (Ohio State ATI), has been elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), honored by his peers as a significant contributor to the scientific community.
Kinder was recognized for his distinguished contributions in reproductive endocrinology research and as an administrator in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Ohio State ATI, located in Wooster, is the college’s associate degree-granting unit.
In all, six Ohio State faculty and 388 AAAS members have been elected Fellows this year in recognition of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows...
Cervical cancer, rabies, food safety among first issues to address
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In a country where cervical cancer kills thousands of women each year and rabid dogs endanger the human population, there is plenty of will, and even money, to fix these problems, but not enough trained people to do it. Those facts concerning Ethiopia are about to change.
The African nation has partnered with The Ohio State University to chart a course for a new and healthier future for Ethiopians, and potentially for citizens in neighboring African countries.
The first comprehensive One Health Summer Institute, representing a long-term partnership between Ohio State and a number of Ethiopian government agencies, service organizations and academic institutions, is officially under way. Spanning...
Editor: This story was released earlier today from Ohio State University's Office of Research and Innovation Communications.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Research has suggested that compounds that give colorful fruits their rich hues, especially berries, promote health and might even prevent cancer. But for the first time, scientists have exposed extracts from numerous berries high in those pigments to human saliva to see just what kinds of health-promoting substances are likely to survive and be produced in the mouth.
It’s too early to name the best berry for health promotion based on this initial work. But the researchers have discovered that two families of pigments that provide berries with their colors, called anthocyanins, are more susceptible to degradation in the mouth than...
