Latest News Releases 31 March

MIT oceanographers discovered big fish like tuna and swordfish get a large fraction of their food from the ocean’s twilight zone — a cold, dark layer about half a mile below the surface.

CSHL Professor Rob Martienssen and colleague Evan Ernst have released new and more accurate genome sequences for five species of duckweed. Their research reveals the specific genes responsible for some of the plant’s most useful traits, allowing for new commercial agriculture applications.

Europe’s leading weather forecasting centre, ECMWF, takes a major leap forward in fire prediction using cutting-edge data driven technologies.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers present gum tragacanth as a plant-based alternative to gelatin for creating edible films. The team developed films containing different concentrations of gelatin and gum tragacanth and monitored their survivability in water and saline solutions. They found the optimal combination of gum tragacanth and gelatin for maintaining the gelatin’s gel-like behavior was a 3-to-1 ratio of the two, respectively. However, gum tragacanth’s inclusion leads to a more porous film, making it prone to penetration by water or saline solutions. Though gum tragacanth cannot replace gelatin completely just yet, even a partial replacement is a step forward.