Food scare make authorities uneasy. In previous cases, national food safety agencies have not always known how to react , making the public wary. For example, in 2011, the German health authorities incorrectly linked the deadly E.

Sepsis, commonly known as blood poisoning, is a bacterial infection of the blood. It is dangerous for adults. And it is often mortal for young children, if left untreated.

After personalised medicine, we are entering the era of personalised nutrition. But this approach requires testing before being applicable. This is what a new EU-funded research project, called food4me , is attempting to do.

Food’s microstructure can explain many of its characteristics—be it cake’s sponginess, bread’s crispness, cracker’s crunchiness or fruits’ inner gas and water transport system and even colour.

Grass could be used to produce biofuels. The advantage of using grass crops is that they can be grown in marginal lands that would otherwise not be used .

What happens to research findings once the researchers have gone away? A web site run from the University of Stuttgart in Germany offers scientists an opportunity to bring their own data from completed research project on environmental and health risks and contribute to an Integrated Environmental Health Impact Assessment System, dubbed IEHIAS .

The barely explored marine environment has already thrown-up a vast treasure-trove of high-value biomolecules .

Might it be possible to make better plants more quickly than we do today? And without the public objection that accompanies genetic manipulation? Climate change means that this is now an urgent question.

Seaweeds are not only tasty, but they are a source of nutrients that could be beneficial for health and wellbeing. And like terrestrial plants, seaweeds also contain significant portions of fibre that reach the colon undigested.

If you can't kill them, trap them. Such is the fate that scientists are reserving to pathogenic bacteria, such as the infamous E. coli .

It all started when the  Irish Food Standard Authority  realised, mid-January, that some of the burgers sold in the country (and in the UK) contained about 29% of equine DNA, upon testing.

It may look incredibly innocent, but the harlequin ladybird, a stowaway onboard fruit and flower consignments from Asia, is on a ‘most unwanted’ list.

Pork factories now rely on a new kit to examine suspect meat . The technique was developed in an EU funded project called Biotracer . It relies on maths algorithms to pinpoint the most likely origin of harmful bacteria on meat , such as salmonella.

Kieran Jordan is a keen amateur historian living in Cork, a county in the south of Ireland.  But his meat and drink is food safety.  Having moved into the area of food science in the 1980s, he has worked through a menu of baddies, studying listeria, E.

Using state-of-the art genomics to predict whether a piece of beef will be tender enough may sound excessive.

EU legislation distinguishes between plant food supplements and traditional herbal medicinal products , but this categorisation can vary between countries. This can lead to consumer confusion and regulatory inconsistency across Europe.

All their life, people with coeliac disease relinquish eating food containing wheat, rye or barley. These cereals contain a protein called gluten that is not well tolerated by their body.

Since the amalgam used in dental work is now the second-highest source of mercury within the EU, reducing dentists’ use is crucial, according to a new EU environmental report including extensive data on mercury use and pollution dental and button battery sources.

How is it possible to improve memory chips? Improvements in memory chips are now only possible by bringing in new materials that can be laid down with the high quality needed.

Researchers are investigating different ways to increase the storage capacity of the computer storage chips called flash memories.