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IMAGE: Researchers measure experimental plots and collect data from a field trial to learn about nitrogen loss from different food products. view more
Credit: Shu Kee Lam
January 13, 2021 - The element nitrogen is a double-edged sword. It is essential for growing plants and feeding people, but it is also a leading cause of pollution across the world. Only by using nitrogen more sustainably can the positive and harmful effects of nitrogen be balanced.
Xia (Emma) Liang, a member of the American Society of Agronomy, studies nitrogen loss during food production.
Liang and her team created a framework that accurately measures nitrogen loss across a wide variety of crops and food products. She recently presented their research at the virtual 2020 ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting.
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LAWRENCE Parents around the world have long told us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Soon, basketball coaches may join them.
Researchers at the University of Kansas have published a study showing that eating breakfast can improve a basketball player s shooting performance, sometimes by significant margins. The study, along with one showing that lower body strength and power can predict professional basketball potential, is part of a larger body of work to better understand the science of what makes an elite athlete.
Breakfast and better basketball shooting
Dimitrije Cabarkapa left his native Novi Sad, Serbia, to play basketball at James Madison University. Never a fan of 6 a.m. workouts, he was discussing whether the provided breakfast helped performance with his teammates. While he felt it was important, others argued it either didn t make a difference or made their games worse. When he came to KU to seek his doctorate in exercise physiology, he d
A new study from UBC researchers suggests a strong correlation between following the MIND and Mediterranean diets and later onset of Parkinson s disease (PD). While researchers have long known of neuroprotective effects of the MIND diet for diseases like Alzheimer s and dementia, this study is the first to suggest a link between this diet and brain health for Parkinson s disease (PD).
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People worldwide want their coffee to be both satisfying and reasonably priced. To meet these standards, roasters typically use a blend of two types of beans, arabica and robusta. But, some use more of the cheaper robusta than they acknowledge, as the bean composition is difficult to determine after roasting. Now, researchers reporting in ACS
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have developed a new way to assess exactly what s in that cup of joe.
Coffee blends can have good quality and flavor. However, arabica beans are more desirable than other types, resulting in a higher market value for blends containing a higher proportion of this variety. In some cases, producers dilute their blends with the less expensive robusta beans, yet that is hard for consumers to discern. Recently, methods involving chromatography or spectroscopy were developed for coffee authentication, but most of these are labor- and time-intensive, or use chloroform for the extraction, which lim
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You are likely familiar with the serious consequences of anorexia for those who experience it, but you might not be aware that the disorder may not be purely psychological. A recent review from researchers at the University of Oxford in the open-access journal
Frontiers in Psychiatry examines the evidence that gut microbes could play a significant role in anorexia by affecting appetite, weight, and psychiatric issues such as anxiety and compulsive behavior, among others. Intriguingly, the study also examines the potential for microbial treatments for anorexia, but highlights that we are just beginning to understand the complex relationship between gut microbes and disease.