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Maintaining food safety and quality is critical for public health and food security. Conventional food preservation methods, such as pasteurization and dehydration, often change the overall organoleptic quality of the food products. Herein, we demonstrate a method that affects only a thin surface layer of the food, using beef as a model. In this method, Joule heating is generated by applying high electric power to a carbon substrate in ~2000 K. The beef surface in direct contact with the heating substrate is subjected to ultra-high temperature flash heating, leading to the formation of a microbe-inactivated, dehydrated layer of ~100 µm in thickness. Aerobic mesophilic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, yeast and mold on the treated samples are inactivated to a level below the detection limit and remained low during room temperature storage of 5 days. Meanwhile, the product quality, including visual appearance, texture, and nutrient level of the beef, remains mostly unchanged. In contrast, microorganisms grow rapidly on the untreated control samples, along with a rapid deterioration of the meat quality. This method might serve as a promising preservation technology for securing food safety and quality.

Neural network (i.e. deep learning, NN)-based data analysis techniques have been listed as a pivotal opportunity to protect the integrity and safety of the global food supply chain and forecast $11.2 billion in agriculture markets. As a general-purpose data analytic tool, NN has been applied in several areas of food science, such as food recognition, food supply chain security and omics analysis, and so on. Therefore, given the rapid emergence of NN applications in food safety, this review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the NN application in food analysis for the first time, focusing on domain-specific applications in food analysis by introducing fundamental methodology, reviewing recent and notable progress, and discussing challenges and potential pitfalls. NN demonstrated that it has a bright future through effective collaboration between food specialist and the broader community in the food field, for example, superiority in food recognition, sensory evaluation, pattern recognition of spectroscopy and chromatography. However, major challenges impeded NN extension including void in the food scientist-friendly interface software package, incomprehensible model behavior, multi-source heterogeneous data, and so on. The breakthrough from other fields proved NN has the potential to offer a revolution in the immediate future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powdery mildew fungi are obligate biotrophic pathogens that only invade plant epidermal cells. There are two epidermal surfaces in every plant leaf: the adaxial (upper) side and the abaxial (lower) side. While both leaf surfaces can be susceptible to adapted powdery mildew fungi in many plant species, there have been observations of leaf abaxial immunity in some plant species including Arabidopsis. The genetic basis of such leaf abaxial immunity remains unknown. In this study, we tested a series of Arabidopsis mutants defective in one or more known defense pathways with the adapted powdery mildew isolate Golovinomyces cichoracearum UCSC1. We found that leaf abaxial immunity was significantly compromised in mutants impaired for both the EDS1/PAD4- and PEN2/PEN3-dependent defenses. Consistently, expression of EDS1–yellow fluorescent protein and PEN2–green fluorescent protein fusions from their respective native promoters in the respective eds1-2 and pen2-1 mutant backgrounds was higher in the abaxial epidermal cells than in the adaxial epidermal cells. Altogether, our results indicate that leaf abaxial immunity against powdery mildew in Arabidopsis is at least partially due to enhanced EDS1/PAD4- and PEN2/PEN3-dependent defenses. Such transcriptionally pre-programmed defense mechanisms may underlie leaf abaxial immunity in other plant species such as hemp and may be exploited for engineering adaxial immunity against powdery mildew fungi in crop plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vibrio vulnificus is an invasive organism found in oyster meat. It causes life-threatening diseases in humans even at low levels of concentration. This necessitates the use of enrichment broths to facilitate cultivation for diagnostic purposes. A study was launched to determine the components of the enrichment broth that could enhance the selective growth of the organism. V. vulnificus was found to grow better in a broth mixture of peptone, sodium chloride and cellubiose. Colistin methanesulfonate further increased growth while suppressing non-target bacteria.

Research was conducted to examine the effects of chlorine dioxide treatment in brine on seafood nutrients. Experimental samples consisted of Atlantic salmon and red grouper. Results demonstrate that treatment of salmon and red grouper with ClO2 solutions in brine did not lead to any substantial change in the contents of of proteins, calcium, lipids, phosphorous, iron, sodium, thiamin, potassium, niacin and riboflavin as compared to nontreated control groups.

Aqueous chlorine dioxide and chlorine dioxide from oxine concentrate are more effective in destroying Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes Scott A and its streptomycin-resistant strain in fish cubes than Aqueous chlorine. Fish cubes treated with commercial aqueous chlorine dioxide contain chlorite, and combined and free chlorine. However, fish cubes treated with pure aqueous chlorine and chlorine dioxide contain very small amounts of chlorine residues.

An analysis of the protein profiles of the red snapper and eleven other fish species prepared by electrophoretic methods shows that these profiles are characteristic of the species and can be used to identify red snapper meat from other fishes meats. The methods used are isoelectric focussing, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. A comparison of the results obtained by these methods is given.