A team of scientists has forecast the direction of nutrition research. The panel identified the following ten areas of research which they believe will be the focus of nutritional scientists in the next six years:

(1) Global Food Security: The scientists predict that global food security, food safety, and sustainability will occupy the spotlight by 2020 as all are influenced by global climate change and access to clean water. Additional issues to be looked at will include the increasing development of genetically modified (GM) food crops.

(2) Microbiome/Microflora: By the end of the decade, scientists will determine how regulating the microorganisms in the body can advance disease prevention, with a focus on the effects of nutrition, dietary supplements, and physical activity on specific microflora populations and/or the interrelationships among populations.

(3) Gene Expression: Research will examine how nutritional programming of gene expression, both in the human genome and in our associated microflora microbiome impacts disease expression and progression. By 2020, the panel predicts that scientists will better understand how many diseases have their roots during the gestation of the fetus (in utero) and in early childhood development, and how nutrition might change the manifestation of these diseases.

(4) Energy Metabolism: Viewing energy balance as a multidimensional system, rather than as isolated parts that somehow work together, will lead to new insights and solutions to address the obesity problem, in both developed and developing countries. One strategic use of nutrition to enhance bioenergetics will be a focus on cellular energy and mitochondrial function. Dietary manipulations and use of certain food components or supplements may be a means to enhance mitochondrial function and thus affect energy metabolism and energy fluxes in the body.

(5) Cancer: By 2020, genomic and metabolomic profiles and large dataset analysis will offer new opportunities to identify relevant indices and biomarkers and conduct timely, cost-efficient clinical interventions on nutrition and cancer. Medical professionals will expand their thinking about the role of natural products to consider how they might complement conventional care, such as increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy or radiation.

(6) Inflammation: Future nutrition research will likely focus on the role of diet and nutraceuticals to help moderate inflammation and possibly reduce the risk of cancer and other inflammatory mediated diseases and conditions. Nutrition scientists must identify foods, beverages, and dietary patterns that are both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory.

(7) Aging: The increasing number of aging persons will beg the question of “Who wants to live a long and unhealthy life, where quality of life deteriorates slowly and for a long time?” Nutrition research will address that issue along with cancer and vascular disorders, obesity, metabolic syndrome, locomotive syndrome, cognitive impairment, and problems related to taste, mastication, and swallowing.

(8) Bioengineering: Advances in bioengineering will continue to bring new approaches to clinical nutrition and to nutrition education. This will lead to research espousing the development and use of new monitoring technologies and tools that individuals might use to better follow their nutritional and health status.

(9) Nutrition Education: Food choices are very personal, and modification of food intake is a complex issue that requires much new research. Although educators can provide people with multiple types of useful information, food choices usually are based on four factors: flavor, economics, availability, and convenience. Research is needed to identify which messages and vehicles will effectively reach which audiences to effect behavior change and improve overall health.

(10) Interdisciplinary and Cross-discipline Collaborations: Emphasis on translational research will be more common, requiring collaborations among those in basic and clinical research, nutritional epidemiology and biostatistics, food science, exercise science, nutrition communications, public policy, and scientific ethics. Teams of researchers rather than individual scientists will produce answers to the most critical health issues, working across disciplines to bring a holistic and more representative approach to successful and sustainable solutions.

Taken together, these 10 elements will usher in the next decade where the emphasis will be on personalized nutrition based, in part, on a better understanding of the role that one’s genetic background has, along with a better appreciation of the interplay between diet and the microbiome.

Consider the Source

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Parque de la Papa farmers began to stir in their seats, waiting for an opportunity to share their stories. Others came from as far as Bhutan and China. They discovered that their cultures were more similar than they had expected, and that one concern had been troubling all of them: Climate change was making it harder to grow food on the mountains that had sustained them for centuries. They were meeting to do something about it.

During a series of talks held between April 26 and May 2, 2014, the farmers forged a unique partnership that now includes the exchange of indigenous crop varieties and farming methods. They hope these initiatives will help protect agricultural biodiversity in the face of climate change. The exchange will begin with potatoes—a sturdy crop that thrives in the mountains of China, Bhutan, and Peru. Such collaboration will give the farmers an opportunity to experiment together from a distance, as they search for the hardiest, most resilient varieties.

Andean farmer Lino Mamani curates the traditional seeds collection at Parque de la Papa, where six Quechua communities live and grow about 600 varieties of potato. “We can learn more from others with similar problems about technology that might be useful.”

Working with scientists has been an emotional, challenging process, Mamani said. “Scientists would just take seeds from us, not recognizing our knowledge.” But the tides are turning as climate change edges on, pushing science and tradition closer together to resolve common goals and slow the process of agricultural degradation. He went on to say “It’s time traditional knowledge and science work together.”

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

“The way solar is progressing it will just be a matter of time before it becomes competitive with fossil fuels and eventually replace them.”

So says Dr Jon Major who led a team at Liverpool University that has found a way of replacing one toxic element, used in the process of manufacturing solar cells, with a material found in bath salts.

Around 7% of the solar cells manufactured today are made from a material called cadmium telluride. The cadmium telluride cells are thinner than silicon and they are popular because they are also lighter and cheaper.

They have more than one drawback. Tellurium is rare. And a toxic chemical, cadmium chloride, is needed to manufacture the the cells. Cadmium chloride is also expensive. In addition, a significant proportion of the manufacturing cost of cadmium telluride cells is to protect the workforce from toxins and to dispose of contaminated waste products safely, according to the research team.

Dr Major discovered that a cheaper, non-toxic alternative, magnesium chloride, could be used instead of the toxic compound and work just as well. Magnesium chloride is completely safe. It is used to make tofu and is found in bath salts. It also extracted from sea water and so is a small fraction of the price of cadmium chloride.

Dr. Major believes that solar energy could eventually meet the world’s energy needs.

“There is enough sunlight that falls on the Earth every hour to generate enough electricity for the planet for a year,” he said.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Lignocellulose, a raw material in biomass, can be converted to biofuels and is often considered a long-term alternative to the diminishing supply of fossil fuels. The conversion process involves biomass pretreatment, hydrolysis of constituent carbohydrates and catalytic conversion of platform chemicals. Proposed strategies to convert lignocellulose to aviation fuels have underused components, preventing their commercialization.

A collaboration between several research groups has taken a hydrolysis-based approach to produce aviation fuel from red maple biomass. The proposed method focuses on synthesizing levulinic acid and furfural from lignocellulosic 5- and 6-carbon sugars and catalytically upgrading these to jet fuel range alkanes. This combined techno-economic analysis considers several possible processing options at points throughout the procedure and combines the most viable to create a comprehensive conversion process, which can produce jet fuel priced at $4.75 (£2.88) per gallon.
Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Material scientists are now using the technology to create new super strong materials that may be used one day in building lightweight, yet powerful, structures. MarkForged announced that it had created a carbon fiber 3D printer.

Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology revealed that is has invented a new material that’s lighter than water, yet stronger than steel. It achieved this by using a 3D printer to create a material similar to bone. The researchers used 3D laser lithography – a kind of 3D printing that creates objects out of light sensitive resin. This technology allowed the team to create a porous material like that seen in bone where the space in between the solids is small enough to make a difference in weight, but not enough to affect its strength.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

What are the food security implications of the ever worsening drought?

“Increasingly intense droughts in California, all of the Southwest, and even into the Midwest have everything to do with human-made climate change.” So says climatologist James Hansen, who co-authored one of the earliest studies on this subject back in 1990.

The food security implications of this are staggering in light of the way we currently farm on a land area roughly equal to the size of South America. Experts say we would have to add another Brazil to that land mass to feed the people expected to arrive by 2050.

Figuring out how to feed nine billion people by mid-century in a Dust-Bowl-ifying world is the task at hand. Working to slash carbon pollution and avoid the worst climate impact scenarios is a big enough challenge.

A 2009 NOAA-led paper warned that, for the Southwestern United States and many semi-arid regions around the world, “the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.” Impacts that should be expected if we don’t aggressively slash carbon pollution “are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the ‘dust bowl’ era.”

So what’s a body of six or nine billion to do? It’s clear a great humanity can’t turn on a dime. But we can begin to future-proof our food supply. And, we can discuss just how that may be accomplished right here.

To learn more about the ideas for transitioning that are already out there, visit our Modular Agriculture page.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A new means of generating electricity, one that utilizes bacteria to harness the energy of evaporating water, has been created by researchers from the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

The method could potentially be used to capture the energy released by ponds, harbors, and other bodies of water when the Sun warms them (causing evaporation), according to the researchers.

The newly created prototype generators work by harnessing the movement of a sheet of rubber that’s coated on one side with bacterial spores. As the sheet dries out, it bends, and as the humidity rises, it straightens out — the energy of these movements is then captured and used to drive a generator.

A soil bacterium called Bacillus subtilis wrinkles as it dries out like a grape becoming a raisin, forming a tough, dormant spore. Unlike raisins, which cannot re-form into grapes, spores can take on water and almost immediately restore themselves to their original shape.

Simply increasing the humidity from that of a dry, sunny day to a humid, misty one enabled the flexible, spore-coated plank to generate 1000 times as much force as human muscle, and at least 10 times as much as other materials engineers currently use to build actuators.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

Nickel titanium, also known as nitinol, is a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, where the two elements are present in roughly equal atomic percentages.

Nitinol alloys exhibit two closely related and unique properties: shape memory and superelasticity (also called pseudoelasticity). Shape memory is the ability of nitinol to undergo deformation at one temperature, then recover its original, undeformed shape upon heating above its “transformation temperature”. Superelasticity occurs at a narrow temperature range just above its transformation temperature; in this case, no heating is necessary to cause the undeformed shape to recover, and the material exhibits enormous elasticity, some 10-30 times that of ordinary metal.

Commercialized nitinol in the form of Flexinol® Actuator Wire can flex and contract when a specific amount of heat or current is applied to it and is made specifically for linear actuators to replace small motors or solenoids thanks to shape memory and a change between the wires weaker, low temperature form (martensitic) and its stronger, high temperature form (austenite).

When the Flexinol® is in its martensitic form, it can be formed and bent into different shapes. However, when an electrical current of ~200mA is applied to the wire, or is heated to ~100C it reverts to austenite form and recovers its previous shape with great force. Additionally, you can anneal it at ~500C (use an industrial furnace or simply a lighter) to whatever shape you would want, next once that current or heat is applied it will return to that new shape.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

“All true art must help the-soul to realize it’s inner self. True art must be evidence of the happiness contentment and purity of its authors.” — Ghandi (1869-1948)
“Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it.” — The Urantia Book (a leading edge compendium and epochal revelation (195:7.18))

The Center for the Public Interest in Science downgraded Splenda from “safe” to “caution,” citing their need to evaluate a forthcoming Italian study linking the artificial sweetener to leukemia in mice as a basis for their decision.

Another recent human study linked Splenda to diabetes-associated changes, calling into question its value as a non-calorie sweetener for those suffering with, or wishing to prevent, blood sugar disorders.

The new study, however, may be the most concerning yet to surface in the peer-reviewed literature. Titled, “Sucralose, a synthetic organochlorine sweetener: overview of biological issues,” it reveals an extensive array of hitherto underreported safety concerns, not the least of which is the formation of highly toxic chlorinated compounds, including dioxins, when Splenda is used in baking, an application which its manufacturer, McNeil Nutritionals (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), actively encourages.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!