Proteins form the basis of all processes in living cells. In order to understand these processes, it is important to identify the proteins involved and also to recognize when they deviate from the norm and thus possibly cause diseases. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have now developed a method with which large quantities of proteins can be analyzed with unprecedented reliability. So far, mass spectrometry (MS) has been the bioanalytical method of choice for identifying proteins.

From children's toys to crockery and shopping bags, many everyday products are already made of bioplastics, and the trend is on the rise. However, the use of biobased plastics is by no means without controversy. Bio-based plastics usually consist of renewable raw materials such as corn or starch and thus replace fossil raw materials. However, bioplastics are by no means automatically biodegradable and are often just as difficult to degrade as their petroleum-based counterparts.

Big news in stem cell research in farm animals: Together with colleagues from Great Britain and China, scientists from the Friedrich Löffler Institute (FLI) in Mariensee, Germany, have created a novel variant of pluripotent stem cells in pigs. Using a special nutrient medium, the researchers have obtained embryonic stem cell lines (ES) with "expanded potential" from pig embryos (Expanded Potential Stem Cells, EPSCs).

Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are two megatrends in the economy. The Institute for Innovation and Technology (IIT) in Berlin has now carried out a study on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency to analyze where these trends could possibly collide or mutually enrich each other. The result was six scenarios with the respective starting points for a modern environmental policy.

In 2011, a scandal shook the food industry: In Germany, around 4,000 cases of infection with EHEC, the enterohaemorrhagic bacterium Escherichia coli, occurred, and a quarter of these cases were particularly severe. 53 people died. Contaminated sprouts were identified as the cause of the EHEC outbreak. Scientists at the Max Rubner Institute (MRI), the Federal Research Institute for Nutrition and Food, have now investigated the extent to which vegetables and salads are currently microbially contaminated. The results vary greatly, but reveal a major problem.

Fast food restaurants are often criticized by environmentalists because of the resource consumption of food and the large amounts of packaging waste. The fast food chain McDonald's now wants to tackle the packaging problem. It is currently testing packaging concepts with sustainable solutions in a live experiment in the Mall of Berlin shopping center's "Better M Store" branch. From 17 to 26 June, guests will be served the burger in grass paper, ketchup in a wafer tray and drinks in a returnable cup. The salad can be eaten from a paper box with wooden cutlery.

Many regions of the world's oceans are overfished. For some fish species, studies predict population collapse within the next 30 years. At the same time, fish and seafood are the staple foods in many regions, and demand continues to be high across the globe. Aquafarms, in which fish or seafood is bred, are therefore becoming increasingly important. However, the efficiency of aquafarm rearing is poor. A German research cooperation now wants to change this.