Prof. Sebastian Lourido speaks with Salon reporter Elizabeth Hlavinka about the risks associated with parasite cleanses. “When you cause significant changes in the intestine, you are at times obliterating many of the beneficial organisms that are helping us digest food, but in some cases, producing vitamins that are actually occupying that niche and preventing bad organisms from taking over,” says Lourido.
Meli Beer, founded by Samara Oster MBA '22, has created the first beer in America made from quinoa, reports Doug Meehan for WCVB. "I think the point is, a beer drink experience that tastes great but also feels great in your body and doesn't feel like you’ve had a loaf of bread, or you have that heaviness or bloat, is for everyone,” explains Oster. “And so, what I really aspire to do is create a drink that everyone can enjoy.”
Samara Oster MBA '22, founder of Meli, has created the “first beer brewed entirely from quinoa,” reports Eli Chavez for Boston Business Journal. “Part of the journey as of late is, how do we explain this super unique, unexpected thing to people, some of whom are skeptical and really like beers,” says Oster “For me, it's about building this better for you, beer world that kind of doesn't exist in that much of a way, just yet.”
Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, writes for The New York Times about the history and future of food safety programs in the U.S. “The United States clearly still needs the safety systems that were so painstakingly built over the last 120 years, and to make them better and stronger,” writes Blum. “The labs and scientists and inspection teams that have been recently lost should not only be restored but expanded. And the mistakes of the 19th century should stay firmly in the history books.”
MIT engineers have developed a new system that helps pesticides adhere more effectively to plant leaves, allowing farmers to use fewer chemicals without sacrificing crop protection, reports Michigan Farm News. The new technology “adds a thin coating around droplets as they are being sprayed onto a field, increasing the stickiness of pesticides by as much as a hundredfold.”
Scientific American reporter Nic Flemming spotlights research by Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and his team, which explores the impact of fasting on intestinal stem cells. “Both caloric restriction and fasting improved intestinal stem-cell activity and health, but the mechanisms involved are very different,” says Yilmaz.
“A breakthrough from MIT researchers and AgZen, a spinoff company, is making agricultural spraying more efficient—cutting pesticide waste, lowering costs, and reducing environmental impact,” reports Rural Radio Network. “The technology works with existing sprayers, eliminating the need for costly equipment changes. In field tests, it doubled product retention on crops like soybeans and kale. AgZen’s spray-monitoring system, RealCoverage, has already helped farmers reduce pesticide use by 30 to 50 percent, and the new coating could improve efficiency even further.”
Prof. Jeffrey Grossman speaks with NBC Boston’s Carla Rojo about his new class, “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” which explores the science behind the perfect cup of joe. The course combines chemistry and coffee science to provide students “a hands-on experience to fuel their curiosity.”
Boston Globe reporter Adelaide Parker spotlights “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” a new course Prof. Jeffrey Grossman brewed up to provide students a hands-on experience with materials science in action. “The role of understanding materials … is broader than just our department,” explains Grossman. “You need physics and biology and chemistry to understand materials and how to make them, and then all these other engineering disciplines to do the engineering.” He envisions the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s new Breakerspace lab as somewhere students from all majors can “get excited about understanding materials.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that the long-term consumption of “processed red meat, such as hot dogs, sausage, and bacon, is linked to an elevated risk of dementia,” reports Kay Lazar for The Boston Globe. The researchers “found that eating about two servings per week of processed red meat, which includes some cold cuts, correlated with a 13 percent higher risk of dementia compared to those who ate less than roughly three servings a month,” reports Lazar.
Prof. Giovanni Traverso speaks with GBH’s “All Things Considered” host Arun Rath about his work developing new approaches to weight loss treatments that don’t involve surgery or pharmaceuticals. “Our team does a lot of work on ingestible systems, ingestible capsules that can do many things,” says Traverso. “You know, we recognize that we live now in a world where we have really incredible therapies that are very effective for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. But we also recognize that they’re not for everybody. There are people who have side effects, people who can’t take them, so these are certainly alternatives, or potentially synergistic interventions, that could work together either with those drugs or, as I was mentioning, for folks that have side effects from the drugs.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new type of dynamic gastric balloon that inflates on demand and could be used to help patients feel more full before meals, reports Margherita Bassi for Gizmodo. The engineers have “designed a potential future alternative for patients who, for any number of reasons, cannot treat obesity through medications or invasive surgeries such as gastric bypass surgery or stapling,” writes Bassi.
MIT researchers have developed a gastric balloon that can inflate before eating and contract afterwards in an effort to ensure the body does not grow accustomed to the balloon, reports Nicola Davis for The Guardian. “What we try to do here is, in essence, simulate the mechanical effects of having a meal,” explains Prof. Giovanni Traverso. “What we want to avoid is getting used to that balloon."
Samara Oster MBA '22 has founded Meli, a company that has crafted a gluten-free beer made with organic quinoa, reports Ann Trieger Kurland for The Boston Globe. “With 4.4 percent alcohol, typical of light beers, it’s produced merely with water, high-quality organic quinoa, hops, and yeast,” explains Kurland.
A new study led by researchers at MIT suggests that fasting and then refeeding stimulates cell regeneration in the intestines, reports Katharine Lang for Medical News Today. However, notes Lang, researchers also found that fasting “carries the risk of stimulating the formation of intestinal tumors.”