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The U.S. agriculture industry contributes $1.053 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Without the agriculture industry, your favorite restaurant or sports bar would not be able to function, which is why it falls under “Ag and Food Sectors” in the U.S. economy. The farming sector alone contributes $132.8 billion, and the combined agriculture […]

Oxidative stress is a process that naturally occurs in the body, playing a significant role in the human aging process, but we’re seeing higher levels of chronic oxidative stress in young people in the world today. Poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyles, and exposure to damaging UV rays (sunburns) can speed up oxidation and contribute to development […]

Cinco de Mayo is not (as some might believe) Mexican Independence Day, but a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican army’s May 5, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. In the United States, this day has evolved into a day of memorializing Mexican culture and heritage. […]

While roaming the aisles of your neighborhood market, you will pass one of the world’s most common household items: eggs. However, the variety of eggs available to consumers has significantly increased over the years. It’s easy to see how consumers are overwhelmed by all of the choices, wondering how each egg is different and if […]

In 2017, the United States generated 267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste. This means 1,646 pounds of waste was generated per person, which is equivalent to the weight of a full grown rhinoceros. In a few words, we produce a lot of trash. Fortunately, with the success of environmental awareness campaigns, we recycled 67 […]

Hippocrates is credited with saying “all disease begins in the gut,” over 2500 years ago, and the more we learn about human physiology, the more he seems to have been right.  Researchers around the world have been putting together pieces of the puzzle of human physiology for decades, making great strides recently with revealing the […]

Flu season for humans normally hits its peak in December, January, and February. Anyone unfortunate enough to catch the flu will have between several days and a few weeks of coughing, sneezing, and fevers. Especially around this time of year, we’re reminded to wash our hands, cover our coughs, and stay at home when we’re […]

Aquaculture is the controlled process of cultivating aquatic organisms like fish and shrimp for human consumption. It is a rapidly growing food market that has the potential to provide food security and protein-rich nutrition for more than 1 billion people by 2050.  With the expansion of aquaculture practices world-wide, cultured fish and shrimp experience physical, […]

Imagine a paleontologist digging up a fossil of a 250-million-year-old organism, perfectly preserved, that wakes up as fresh as it did millions of years ago when it went dormant. It sounds like a prologue to a dinosaur science fiction movie about bad ideas, but it is a completely real discovery of Bacillus spores in a salt crystal. Bacillus bacteria now […]

The bacteria in the human gut, the microbiome, have been the focus of intense study over the past decade. We inherit our microbiome when we are born and it further develops in early childhood. Our gut community remains relatively stable over time; however, it can shift depending on age, location, diet, and stress levels. There […]