Stinging Nettles as Potential Food Additive: Effect of Drying Processes on Quality Characteristics of Leaf Powders

Abstract: Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.) is a ubiquitous, multi-utility, and under-utilized crop with potential health benefits owing to its nutritional and bioactive components. The objective of the work is to produce powders by drying wild stinging nettle leaves as a storable, low-cost functional additive to be used in bakery and ready-to-cook products. Convective drying (CD) and freeze-drying (FD) were applied on unblanched (U) or blanched (B) leaves, which were then milled to nettle powders (NPs). The obtained NPs were evaluated for selected physicochemical (moisture, color), techno- functional (flow indices, hygroscopicity), and phytochemical (pigments, phenols) characteristics as well as mineral contents. Blanching improved mass transfer and reduced the oxidative degradation of pigments during drying, but it caused a loss of total phenols content, antioxidant activity, and potassium content. As for the drying method, CD resulted in better flow properties (i.e., Carr Index and Hausner Ratio), while FD retained better the color, pigments, magnesium content, phenolic, and antioxidant parameters. Overall, the evaluated processing methods resulted in different technological properties that can allow for better evaluation of NPs as a food additive or ingredient. Among the NPs, blanched and freeze-dried powders despite showing inferior technological properties can be recommended as more suitable ingredients targeted f or food enrichment owing to better retention of bio-active components

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Towards a Muon Collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work.Comment: 118 pages, 103 figure

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Erratum: Towards a muon collider

The original online version of this article was revised: The additional reference [139] has been added. Tao Han’s ORICD ID has been incorrectly assigned to Chengcheng Han and Chengcheng Han’s ORCID ID to Tao Han. Yang Ma’s ORCID ID has been incorrectly assigned to Lianliang Ma, and Lianliang Ma’s ORCID ID to Yang Ma. The original article has been corrected

Dynamics of fertility-related traits in tomato landraces under mild and severe heat stress

Studies on the reproductive dynamics under heat stress are crucial to breed more tolerant cultivars. In tomato, cultivars, breeding lines, and wild species have been evaluated for their response to heat stress. Here, we addressed the study to a panel of selected landraces representing traditional genotypes that usually show high adaptation to local environments. In two experiments, spaced by 12 years, we set-up an identical experimental design with plants transplanted at two different dates to expose the second field to thermic stress with natural fluctuations. Such a strategy resulted in both a mild and severe stress in the two years. The landraces showed wide variation for both vegetative and reproductive traits; all traits were affected by heat, mostly with a significant Genotype*Environment interaction. A high broad-sense heritability was estimated for plant height, stigma position, pollen viability, and fruit weight. Low heritability estimates were found for the number of flowers, fruit set, and yield. Despite the interaction, traits recorded under control and heat conditions were positively correlated. Multivariate analysis located the genotypes in a topography that was stable under all conditions, except under the harshest temperatures. The study revealed that landraces present a wide variability for the response of reproductive traits to thermic challenges and that such a variation could be useful to dissect the traits with higher heritability and identify quantitative trait loci for breeding more resilient varieties.3n

The Seed of Industrial Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.): Nutritional Quality and Potential Functionality for Human Health and Nutrition

Hempseeds, the edible fruits of the Cannabis sativa L. plant, were initially considered a by-product of the hemp technical fibre industry. Nowadays, following the restorationing of the cultivation of C. sativa L. plants containing an amount of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) <0.3% or 0.2% (industrial hemp) there is a growing interest for the hempseeds production due to their high nutritional value and functional features. The goal of this review is to examine the scientific literature concerning the nutritional and functional properties of hempseeds. Furthermore, we revised the scientific literature regarding the potential use of hempseeds and their derivatives as a dietary supplement for the prevention and treatment of inflammatory and chronic-degenerative diseases on animal models and humans too. In the first part of the work, we provide information regarding the genetic, biochemical, and legislative aspects of this plant that are, in our opinion essential to understand the difference between “industrial” and “drug-type” hemp. In the final part of the review, the employment of hempseeds by the food industry as livestock feed supplement and as ingredient to enrich or fortify daily foods has also revised. Overall, this review intends to encourage further and comprehensive investigations about the adoption of hempseeds in the functional foods field