Lettuce, one of the indispensable vegetables in the Mediterranean diet, is a food that greatly benefits health, mainly because it is rich in antioxidants. But not all lettuce varieties have the same antioxidant effect. According to a study led by the researcher Usue Pérez-López of the Department of Plant Biology and Ecology of the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Science and Technology, the colour of the leaves of these vegetables determines the speed at which their compounds act. So lettuces with green leaves have antioxidants that react more slowly while red-leaf ones have a faster effect. The results of this study have been set out in a paper "Phenolic Composition and Related Antioxidant Properties in Differently Coloured Lettuces: A Study by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Kinetics" recently published by the ‘Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry'.
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Shifting temperatures will affect flavors, quality of food
Love scrumptious vegan pizza? You’d better enjoy it while you can, because climate change is moving in to hog a slice. According to an Australian report, Appetite for Change, climate change isn’t just going to decimate existing crops — it’s also going to change the way the survivors taste. And not in a good way. The researchers say that we’re going to be eating increasingly bland, tasteless, mushy food because of the way shifting temperatures are affecting farming, and in fact, it’s already started happening.
Which diet has the smallest carbon footprint?
The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are well-known. As well as being healthier, a recent article concludes that the menu traditionally eaten in Spain leaves less of a carbon footprint than that of the US or the United Kingdom. The consequences of climate change range from species extinction to sea-level increases and the spread of diseases. For this reason, researchers have been struggling for years to alleviate its effects, even limiting the pollution caused by food consumption.
Antarctic ice loss is accelerating
New research published this week in the journal Science Express describes how the ice shelves around Antarctica are thinning and therefore allowing more of the ice sheet behind them to flow into the sea.
Using nearly two decades of satellite data, the team of international researchers observed an acceleration of ice loss from the continent’s ice shelves, with an increase in loss of 70% in West Antarctica over the last decade. In the Amundsen and Bellingshausen regions, some ice shelves have lost up to 18% of their thickness in less than two decades.
Los peces enfrentan la contaminación, ¡a una milla de profundidad!
Los peces marinos de aguas profundas que viven en los taludes continentales a profundidades de 2.000 ft a una milla (De 610 a 1609 m) tienen patologías hepáticas, tumores y otros problemas de salud que pueden estar vinculados a la contaminación causada por los seres humanos, de acuerdo con uno de los primeros estudios de este tipo.
La investigación, llevada a cabo en el Golfo de Vizcaya al oeste de Francia, también descubrió el primer caso de una especie de peces de aguas profundas con una condición "intersex", una mezcla de órganos sexuales...
Consejos de Sostenibilidad para las pequeñas empresas
Hablando en general la gente está cada vez mejor en la gestión de sus propias huellas ambientales y en cuanto al efecto que tienen sobre el planeta. Pero mientras el mundo se hace cada vez más consciente del medio ambiente y la sostenibilidad se convierte más en un hábito de la vida cotidiana, es el momento de que las empresas y los consumidores individuales suban a escena también.
Las corporaciones más grandes del mundo pueden tener más dinero y recursos para invertir en sostenibilidad y minimizar el impacto de sus empresas, pero los dueños de negocios pequeños no deben ser desalentados. Todavía hay una serie de cambios que, aún la más pequeña de las empresas, se pueden implementar en un esfuerzo para apoyar la sostenibilidad, incluso si su negocio no es "verde" por la naturaleza.