【推荐1】For most people, a minor wound will be relatively harmless. After some time the wound will heal (治愈) and disappear without leaving any visible evidence on the skin. But it is not so simple for everybody. Diabetics (糖尿病人) and elderly people with reduced blood circulation may have far greater issues when it comes to wound healing. However, scientists have introduced a new weapon against such extreme wound reactions.

Swedish scientists from Chalmers University of Technology have developed a technology which can stimulate wound healing so that it can happen more rapidly. The technique involves electrifying the skin. “Long-standing wounds make up a severe problem that we do not hear very much about,” says Associate Professor Maria Asplund from Chalmers University of Technology, who headed the project. “We have now found a method that can make wounds heal up to three times faster, which could be a game changer for elderly people and diabetics, who often have wounds that cannot heal.”

To test this, the Chalmers researchers made a kind of biochip (生物芯片) on which they grew skin cells. They then made small wounds in the artificial skin and tested how fast the wound healing happened when they either passed electricity through the chip or did not. The results showed the healing process happening three times faster in the presence of electricity.

The scientists will now receive funds to continue their research beyond the lab. “At the moment we are investigating how different skin cells react to electrical stimulation to find out what would correspond to realistic wounds,” says Asplund. “We aim to develop a concept that allows us to examine wounds and personalize the electrical stimulation to individual wound types. We are convinced that this is the way to help people with slow-healing wounds.”

【推荐3】A blood test that accurately predicts a patient’s likelihood of dying from heart disease or a stroke (中风) has been developed.

Researchers took samples of blood from 22,949 people and analyzed the levels of about 5,000 proteins within it. They then used machine learning to detect whether there was a link between the proteins that circulate in a person’s bloodstream and their risk of heart disease. The study identified a particular “protein signature” that accurately predicts the chance of suffering a heart attack, stroke or heart failure over a four-year period.

Currently, doctors assess the likelihood of patients suffering heart problems by looking at factors including weight, blood pressure, age and cholesterol (胆固醇) levels. However, blood protein analysis can provide more accurate clues to the state of a person’s health. The technology was found to be twice as accurate as existing tools at measuring a patient’s heart risk. The blood test could also provide a faster way of detecting whether patients’ existing medication (药物治疗) is working and helping to reduce their risk. Existing risk assessments struggle to do this.

The blood test was developed by SomaLogic, based in Boulder, Colorado. The company is also working with scientists at Imperial College London to help develop a blood test to detect cancer. Professor Elio Riboli said this could lead to widespread screening for many different types of cancers, which is not possible using existing techniques. His team will work with SomaLogic to analyze 15,000 blood samples from people who had developed cancer, comparing them with 10,000 samples from people who did not. The results will be used to establish whether there are protein markers that could indicate if someone is at risk from the disease.

In 2019, a trial began in Leeds to use SomaLogic’s technology to assess people’s risk of diabetes, and also the effectiveness of lifestyle changes in preventing the condition. Dr Michael Messenger, head of the Leeds Centre for Personalized Medicine and Health, said that it could help tailor treatments to individual patients. “Personalized medicine lets us take a deeper look at each person’s individual biology, so we can better understand what the right advice or treatment, at the right time, might be.”

【推荐1】The Canadian group Quebec Maple Syrup (枫糖浆) Producers recently announced it was releasing about 50 million pounds from its strategic maple syrup reserves (储备). That’s almost half of the storage.

The government-supported organization, which is often called the OPEC of maple syrup, uses its reserves to control syrup prices and supply. Quebec produces nearly 70% of the world’s maple syrup, with the US being its biggest customer. The strategic reserve was created to store maple syrup during bad harvest seasons or when demand spikes. “This system prevents practically maple syrup shortages and ensures the market supply is reliable,” spokesperson Helene Normandin said. “This year producers weren’t able to keep up with worldwide demand, which jumped 21%. That’s why the reserve is made. We won’t lack maple syrup.”

Maple syrup is made from maple trees. Maple trees need warm daytime and freezing nighttime temperatures to produce syrup. A warmer and shorter spring this year led to a poorer harvest than usual. Another factor is worldwide demand for maple syrup. This has increased by more than 20% this year. One major reason for this rise is the COVID-19 outbreak. More people are at home, cooking pancakes. “It is possible that more of us have developed a sweet tooth,” said Helene. “The COVID-19 outbreak helped our case because we’re seeing people cook more at home and use more local products. It’s not just in Quebec where the demand is increasing.”

While it’s hard to predict what next year’s crop will look like, Normandin said they were already planning for the future. “We will plan 7 million more maple trees in the near future to make sure here will be no maple syrup shortage,” she said.

This is not the first time Quebec’s maple syrup reserve has made headlines. In 2012, more than 3,000 tons of maple syrup were stole from the reserve over the course of months. The value was estimated at nearly $19 million Canadian dollars.

【推荐3】When she was a child, Wu Yunchen often ate fish balls at her home in Yunlin County in Taiwan Province, not because fish balls were her favorite dish, but because her parents ran a family business making them.

The family moved from Taiwan to Quanzhou in 1998 when Wu was 14. They started a company, Fu Bang Foodstuff, in Quanzhou and settled in the city. By that point, they had been producing delicious food for over a decade.

The efforts of the first generation made Fu Bang a leading business in Quanzhou. Because the business environment has changed, Wu has to become more active. Now that Wu has taken over, she is taking the company into new markets by using the digital world.

For her, the key to her parents’ success was the quality of the fish balls they made, but she is taking a slightly different approach. First, to reduce costs and increase efficiency, she has focused on improvements to the production line, from the purchase of raw materials to production and packaging. Besides, she has opened the factory to visitors, building confidence among potential future customers. At the same time, she has focused on the balls themselves.

Last year, Wu found the young generation seldom cooks, so she capitalized on the trend and began working on new products. One product she developed was the instant fish ball Normally, fish balls are frozen and have to be cooked, but the instant balls are ready to eat. Wu enlisted the help of product designers to make them as appealing as possible and then reached out to customers and taught people how to make dishes with the fish balls through livestreaming. Under her leadership, sales volumes climbed by 34.2 percent last year.

Haring much confidence in this traditional food dating back to the Qing Dynasty, Wu said, “In the future, we want to build an industrial food park to attract more businesses from Taiwan and bring fish food to the world.”