News from the Media

Sonia Schloemann, fruit specialist, UMass Extension, recently gave an informative talk to the Garden Club of Amherst about growing berries.

As the demand for locally produced food continues to grow, a proposal gaining traction in the Legislature would provide $20 million to help rejuvenate the University of Massachusetts agriculture extension site in Waltham, which has lacked funding for decades. State legislators are in the beginning stages of considering a $1.7 billion environmental bond bill that includes earmarking funds to revitalize the UMass site, which spans 58 acres over two plots along Beaver Street. The project is dubbed the UMass Center for Urban Sustainability.

D. Julian McClements, UMass Amherst food scientist, comments in a story about why cutting the fat content in foods sometimes doesn’t work because consumers say it tastes different and doesn’t make them feel full.

A feature story seed libraries, including one at Hampshire College, includes a mention of Katie Campbell-Nelson, UMass Extension, who says she planted some kale too close to collard greens and the plants cross pollinated, creating a bitter tasting plant.

Eric Decker, UMass Amherst food scientist, says most foods contain some genetically modified organisms and the only way to completely avoid them is to purchase certified organic foods. He says much livestock food also contains the GMOs. Decker says the risk from eating foods with GMOs is very small and he believes they are going to continue to be part of the food system.

Flowers are common gathering places where pollinators such as bees and butterflies can pick up fungal, bacterial or viral infections that might be as benign as the sniffles or as debilitating as influenza. But “almost nothing is known regarding how pathogens of pollinators are transmitted at flowers,” postdoctoral researcher Scott McArt and Professor Lynn Adler at UMass Amherst microbiology, write. “As major hubs of plant-animal interactions throughout the world, flowers are ideal venues for the transmission of microbes among plants and animals.” In a recent review in Ecology Letters with colleagues at Yale and the University of Texas at Austin, McArt and Adler survey the literature and identify promising areas for future research on how floral traits influence pathogen transmission.

UMass Amherst food scientist Hang Xiao recently received a four-year, $491,220 grant to study the biochemical fate of nanoemulsion-based food delivery systems in the gastrointestinal tract, hoping to re-shape them and enhance the absorption of beneficial food components encapsulated in delivery systems. Food biochemists like Xiao believe that if taken up in appropriate amounts and forms, certain food components known as nutraceuticals might benefit human health by providing anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer effects. Nutraceuticals include flavonoids and carotenoids in fruits and vegetables, for example.

UMass Amherst officials are planning to build a solar panel array that would generate 2.4 megawatts of electricity in conjunction with ConEdison Development. The facility would be built on 10 acres the university owns in Hadley. Stephen Herbert, associate dean of agricultural research and outreach at the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, is leading the project. It must secure conservation permits in order to proceed.

A team of entomologists, including John M. Clark, UMass Amherst veterinary and animal sciences, has found out why the human head louse and the body louse, the same species, differ in their ability to transmit disease to their hosts. They say head lice are smaller and may contain more beneficial bacteria than body lice, which are larger. The larger lice apparently are more likely to get sick from the bacteria and pass it on to a host.