How to tell if your smartphone's battery is healthy or bad

A smartphone without a battery is like a time machine without a 1.21-gigawatt nuclear power source. In other words, it is useless – the battery is what provides that magic juice every smartphone needs to operate. 

Unfortunately, even if you take good care of your smartphone's battery, it will inevitably degrade over time and lose some of its charge capacity. At that point, it might be hard to tell if the cell is still in good health or in need of a replacement. That's why we thought we'd share a few tips on the matter.

Perform a visual inspection

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to tell a faulty battery from a healthy one. In fact, some common battery failures are easy to spot with a naked eye. If the battery of your phone is removable, simply take it obut with caution (after turning the phone off, of course) and look for symptoms like bulging, corrosion near the metal terminals, and green or white-ish stains. These are all signs that the cell is about to kick the bucket. If you don't see anything wrong with it, proceed to the next tip. If you find suspicious stains or if your cell has developed a hump, however, it is a good idea to ask your carrier or vendor for advice as your battery most likely needs to be replaced. Don't put the old cell back inside the phone as you don't want it leaking any nasty chemicals; these may damage the phone's circuitry. Instead, seal the battery in a plastic zip bag and make sure you recycle it once it is confirmed to be faulty by a professional.

Do a spin Test Of Your Battery

Your battery should not spin like this

Lithium-based batteries degrade with each discharge cycle. Not storing them properly makes matters even worse – extreme heat or cold may seriously shorten their lifespan. Another way to ruin a perfectly good battery is to drain it and leave it with no charge for a long time. Eventually, a battery might swell if not treated with care. This swelling happens slowly, usually over the course of weeks and even months, which is why a hump that has just started forming on the battery's side can be pretty hard to notice. To check if your battery cell is fine, try spinning it on a flat surface – if it spins, it might have gone bad. Obviously, this tip applies to user-removable batteries only.

Observe how fast your battery level drops

Not all phones have batteries that can be easily inspected by the user. If that's the case with your handset, you can diagnose the health of its cell by monitoring how fast its charge level drops. It is not supposed to drop by two or more percentage points at a time. (Most phones allow you to have their battery level displayed as a percentage in the status bar. If you can't find the option in its settings menu, try using a widget.) And if your battery goes from full to zero in a matter of hours even when you barely use your phone, its is probably a goner.

More battery diagnostics tips

iPhone users, here's something you might not know. Your iPhone keeps track of how many times its battery gets charged, and it also monitors the actual capacity of the cell inside it. However, this information is meant to be accessed only by Apple's support staff, hence you won't find it in your settings menu. Thankfully, there's a workaround. You just need to get iBackupBot – an all-in-one utility for managing iDevices, available on both Mac and PC (Download link). As soon as you connect your iPhone to a computer with iBackupBot running, the application will detect it and let you access detailed information about it. In iBackupBot, highlight your phone in the list of devices and choose "More Information". There you'll find your iPhone's charge cycle count, as well as the actual capacity of its battery. If the FullChargeCapacity figure is much lower than the one under DesignCapacity, then the battery may have to be replaced. (Keep in mind that a lithium-based battery usually loses about 20% of its capacity after 500 charge cycles.)

Android users, your phone also stores data about the health of its battery cell. To access it, try entering the code *#*#4636#*#* in your dialer –this should take you to a service menu where battery details are shown. If the code doesn't work, try Battery by MicroPinch (Download link). It is a simple battery monitoring tool where the health status of your battery is displayed, along with its voltage and temperature. 

Battery health tips

1. iBackupBot gives you detailed information about the health of your battery

How to tell if your smartphone's battery is healthy or bad

8:41 AM android, battery health, battery health check, battery issues, featured, how to, Iphone, iPhone battery check, spin test

Junk Diet Rewires Rat Brains

We know junk food can change the way bodies are shaped. Now, a study finds that those irresistible sweet and salty concoctions may also change the way brains are wired—at least in rats.

Researchers divided rats into two groups—one labeled Cafeteria, the other called Chow. Both groups got a typical rat food diet, but the Cafeteria rats also got a bonus: meat pies, cakes and cookies.

Both rat groups gained weight. But the Cafeteria rats gained significantly more than the Chows did—nearly half a pound more, which is a big body burden for a rat. But more important, over two weeks time the Cafeteria rats seemed to care less and less about even seeking out a balanced diet. This new behavior endured even after the rats were returned to their more healthy fare. The study is in the journalFrontiers in Psychology. [Amy C. Reichelt, Margaret J. Morris and R.F. Westbrook, Cafeteria diet impairs expression of sensory-specific satiety and stimulus-outcome learning]

The researchers think junk-food diets cause lasting changes in the rewards circuits part of the brain—which plays a big role in decision-making. So if you’re a regular cookie eater and the next time you mindlessly reach for a cookie you wonder why you can’t help yourself—well, it could be because you’re not in charge, your rewired brain is.

Junk Diet Rewires Rat Brains

9:59 PM brain, health, junk food, sweet

How big food brands are boosting profits by targeting the poor

Sometimes there's only the illusion of cheapness at dollar stores. (Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo)

Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's a good deal.

Several of America's largest food manufacturers have been shifting their retail strategy, selling less of their packaged foods in traditional grocery stores and more of those foods in dollar and discount stores, according to a recent Reuters story. Kraft, which sells Veveeta sauce, has turned its attention to the cheaper retailers. So too have General Mills and Campbell's Soup.

"We're in the business of feeding all American families, and that's where consumers are going," Tom Lopez, vice president of growth channels at Kraft, told Reuters on Thursday.

That's mostly true. Packaged food sales havebeen lagging at supermarkets—sales of packaged food were flat last year, largely because of a trend in which Americans are opting for fresher alternatives at the grocery store. Dollar stores have been the rare exception—food sales at discount stores have greatly outpaced their higher priced counterparts, prompting chains like Dollar Tree to add more room for food products. General Mills' sales at discount stores rose by nearly 10 percent last year.

But there's a reason why large food companies are selling more of their packaged foods to America's poor: they have figured out a way to do it at a much higher profit margin.

In order to offer the facade of affordability, manufacturers like Kraft are selling food in smaller packages. These granola bars, sauces, cereals, and prepared mealslook like they cost less, but actually are far more expensive on a per ounce basis, according to Reuters.

Shrinking package sizes allows Kraft to reach higher profit margins on products, though it won't sell as many as it would in a larger store. For instance, a 12-ounce package of Velveeta Shells & Cheese cost $2.50 at the a Dollar Tree store in New York City. Meanwhile, a 2.4 ounce cup cost $1.25. That's 21 cents an ounce versus 52 cents an ounce.

There are caveats, of course. Charging less per ounce for bulkier packages is nothing new: entire business models—say, Costco's—are predicated on that strategy. Packaging is often a significant contributor to price, making it difficult if not impossible to change size and price on a similar scale. Bulk sellers make up for smaller profit margins by selling more product.

So long as the people you're selling to are actively deciding whether or not to stock up at a discount or buy only for the week at a sight mark-up, it's just a value proposition. But it's unclear whether most of the people who shop at dollar stores have that luxury. In fact, it's doubtful. As Dollar General's chief executive Rick Dreiling said on a recent earnings call, "the low to middle income consumer who is our core customer continues to look for ways to manage her budget."

In other words, people go to Dollar General to save, because they have to. And according to this Reuters story, they're buying food that looks cheaper but is ultimately costing them more.

How big food brands are boosting profits by targeting the poor

9:59 PM food business, food profit, targeting poor

Junk Diet Rewires Rat Brains

We know junk food can change the way bodies are shaped. Now, a study finds that those irresistible sweet and salty concoctions may also change the way brains are wired—at least in rats.

Researchers divided rats into two groups—one labeled Cafeteria, the other called Chow. Both groups got a typical rat food diet, but the Cafeteria rats also got a bonus: meat pies, cakes and cookies.

Both rat groups gained weight. But the Cafeteria rats gained significantly more than the Chows did—nearly half a pound more, which is a big body burden for a rat. But more important, over two weeks time the Cafeteria rats seemed to care less and less about even seeking out a balanced diet. This new behavior endured even after the rats were returned to their more healthy fare. The study is in the journalFrontiers in Psychology. [Amy C. Reichelt, Margaret J. Morris and R.F. Westbrook, Cafeteria diet impairs expression of sensory-specific satiety and stimulus-outcome learning]

The researchers think junk-food diets cause lasting changes in the rewards circuits part of the brain—which plays a big role in decision-making. So if you’re a regular cookie eater and the next time you mindlessly reach for a cookie you wonder why you can’t help yourself—well, it could be because you’re not in charge, your rewired brain is.

Junk Diet Rewires Rat Brains

9:53 PM brain, health, junk food, sweet

Poll shows giant gap between what public, scientists think

The GAP Between Scientist views And Public Views

we are not talking about underdeveloped or developing countries. This about very developed countries. The views of common public is totally different from that of the scientist of the country.

Why there is a huge gap in their views ? Is the knowledge is not properly reached the public ? Or public is not ready to change from what they beliefs ?

What ever may be the case, it directing towards some new level of discussion. The science s for public life, it suppose not to end with publishing discoveries, rather the public should be educated and must give confident to them to change their mind set. This is very much required for the fearsome world of this generation. If this is the case of highly developed nations, I am not dare enough to think about the situations in developing and under developed countries. So think of it ... and read further to find the real statistics-- and realize the ocianic gap between public and scientist. 

.


WASHINGTON (AP) — The American public and U.S. scientists are light-years apart on science issues. And 98 percent of surveyed scientists say it's a problem that we don't know what they're talking about.


Scientists are far less worried about genetically modified food, pesticide use and nuclear power than is the general public, according to matching polls of both the general public and the country's largest general science organization. Scientists were more certain that global warming is caused by man, evolution is real, overpopulation is a danger and mandatory vaccination against childhood diseases is needed.

In eight of 13 science-oriented issues, there was a 20-percentage-point or higher gap separating the opinions of the public and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to survey work by the Pew Research Center. The gaps didn't correlate to any liberal-conservative split; the scientists at times take more traditionally conservative views and at times more liberal.

"These are big and notable gaps," said Lee Rainie, director of Pew's internet, science and technology research. He said they are "pretty powerful indicators of the public and the scientific community seeing the world differently."

In the most dramatic split, 88 percent of the scientists surveyed said it is safe to eat genetically modified foods, while only 37 percent of the public say it is safe and 57 percent say it is unsafe. And 68 percent of scientists said it is safe to eat foods grown with pesticides, compared with only 28 percent of the general public.

Ninety-eight percent of scientists say humans evolved over time, compared with 65 percent of the public. The gap wasn't quite as large for vaccines, with 86 percent of the scientists favoring mandatory childhood shots while 68 percent of the public did.

Eighty-seven percent of scientists said global warming is mostly due to human activity, while only half of the public did. The figures for scientists are slightly different than past academic studies because of wording of the question and the fact that AAAS members include many specialties, but they tell the same essential story, said Pew associate director Cary Funk.


In this Monday, Oct. 31, 2005, picture, a harvester works through a field of genetically modified co …

What to do about climate change is another issue. Nearly two-thirds of scientists favored building more nuclear power plants, but only 45 percent of the public did. But more of the public favored offshore drilling for oil and fracking than scientists did.

More than four out of five scientists thought the growing world population will be a major problem, but just less than three out of five members of the public did.

Pew polled 2,002 adults in August and did an online survey of 3,748 AAAS members in the fall. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the public and 1.7 percentage points for the scientists.

In 2009, Pew asked only a handful of questions like these to both scientists and the public and the gap hasn't changed much since, Funk said.

"On the whole, as compared to most members of the public, scientists are likely drawing from a larger scientific knowledge base — and thinking more scientifically — about each of these issues," George Mason University communications professor Edward Maibach said in an email. "Therefore, their views appear to be more in line with a completely dispassionate reading of the risks versus the benefits."

Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS, said the gap between the way the public and scientists look at issues is a cause for concern.


A sign from an environmental group pushing a bill proposing man …

"Science is about facts; science is not about values," Leshner said. "Policies are made on facts and values and we want to make sure that the accurate, non-distorted facts are brought in to any kind of discussion."

The trouble is that scientists don't think the public knows the facts. The survey said 84 percent of the scientists said it is a major problem that "the public does not know very much about science" and another 14 percent said it is a minor problem.

And 97 percent of the scientists criticized the educational system. Three-quarters of the scientists said not enough science and math education is a major problem and another 22 percent said it was a minor one.

"It's not about being smart or dumb," Leshner said. "It's about whether, in fact, you understand the source of the fact and what the facts are."


Online:

Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/

American Association for the Advancement of Science: http://www.aaas.org/

Journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org


Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Poll shows giant gap between what public, scientists think

2:03 PM energy, GM crops, Nuclear plants, public view, scientist

Win US $ 20,000 :Submit A proposal for Low cost WiFi connectivity for field Application

Wireless Internet Connectivity for Field Applications

AWARD: $20,000 USD | DEADLINE: 4/05/15 | ACTIVE SOLVERS: 44 | POSTED: 2/03/15

Data collection in outdoor field studies is problematic and inefficient without a reliable wireless internet connection. The Seeker is looking for a low cost solution to bring wireless internet up to 80 km for field applications without direct line of sight. Many other requirements are given in the Detailed description of the Challenge.

This Challenge requires only a written proposal.

Source: InnoCentive Challenge ID: 9933677

Challenge Overview

The Seeker collects data in outdoor fields all over the world. In rural areas, wireless internet connectivity for field data collection is not always possible. The Seeker needs innovative solutions to provide wireless internet connectivity for field applications. The desired solution should provide wireless internet connectivity to mobile handheld devices operating at a distance of up to 80km from a particular base station without a direct line of sight.

This is a Theoretical Challenge that requires only a written proposal to be submitted. The Challenge award will be contingent upon theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Seeker.

To receive an award, the Solvers will not have to transfer their exclusive IP rights to the Seeker. Instead, they will grant to the Seeker a non-exclusive license to practice their solutions.

At the Seekers sole discretion, the winning Solver(s) may be invited to a Seeker-Solver event after the Challenge for continued discussions.

Goto Challenge page >>

Win US $ 20,000 :Submit A proposal for Low cost WiFi connectivity for field Application

4:35 PM Computer Science/Information Technology, Engineering/Design, Nature, Physical Sciences, Theoretical-licensing, Win $ 20000

A new recipe for low-density steel that has a combination of strength and malleability beyond that of the lightest, strongest known metals is reported in Nature

Brittle intermetallic compound makes ultrastrong low-density steel with large ductility

Although steel has been the workhorse of the automotive industry since the 1920s, the share by weight of steel and iron in an average light vehicle is now gradually decreasing, from 68.1 per cent in 1995 to 60.1 per cent in 2011 . This has been driven by the low strength-to-weight ratio (specific strength) of iron and steel, and the desire to improve such mechanical properties with other materials. Recently, high-aluminium low-density steels have been actively studied as a means of increasing the specific strength of an alloy by reducing its density. But with increasing aluminium content a problem is encountered: brittle intermetallic compounds can form in the resulting alloys, leading to poor ductility. Here we show that an FeAl-type brittle but hard intermetallic compound (B2) can be effectively used as a strengthening second phase in high-aluminium low-density steel, while alleviating its harmful effect on ductility by controlling its morphology and dispersion. The specific tensile strength and ductility of the developed steel improve on those of the lightest and strongest metallic materials known, titanium alloys. We found that alloying of nickel catalyses the precipitation of nanometre-sized B2 particles in the face-centred cubic matrix of high-aluminium low-density steel during heat treatment of cold-rolled sheet steel. Our results demonstrate how intermetallic compounds can be harnessed in the alloy design of lightweight steels for structural applications and others

a, As-cold-rolled microstructure consisting of austenite matrix (γ) and B2 stringer bands. RD, rolling direction; ND, normal direction. b, Annealed microstructure having fine B2 precipitates in between the retained B2 bands in austenite matrix. c, Scanning TEM image of the annealed high-specific-strength steel (HSSS) showing morphologies of B2 particles. The inset shows the selected area diffraction pattern of a B2 precipitate. d, Partitioning of alloying elements between B2 precipitate and austenite matrix. e, Sketches illustrating the formation mechanism of B2 precipitates of types 2 and 3 in b.

Read original article at A lighter, stronger, flexible steel

A new recipe for low-density steel that has a combination of strength and malleability beyond that of the lightest, strongest known metals is reported in Nature

4:10 PM automotive industry, flexible metal, metal, strognger metal, ultrastrong

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

Tools to analyze DNA in meals, including fish, may soon help eliminate fraudulent claims as to what type of food is being sold or served.
Credit: Michael Saechang

An apple can kill, a sprinkle of sprouts can send you to the hospital and your succulent, pan-seared red snapper may actually be tilefish. Despite rising concerns about food safety and authenticity, contamination rates by salmonella, campylobacter,Escherichia coli and other common pathogens have not fallen or are actually on the increase, depending on the microbe, according to a 2013 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year foodborne illnesses caused by these microorganisms sicken 48 million Americans, hospitalize 128,000 and kill 3,000, according to the agency.

Food fraud is also increasing. In 2014 Oceana, an international conservation organization, published a two-year study of 1,215 seafood samples and 46 fish types from 674 retailers in 21 states. They found that a third of samples were mislabeled.

Tools to analyze DNA in food items may soon help eliminate these problems. Techniques ranging from whole genome sequencing to the ability to create artificial DNA labels that indicate points of origin are surprisingly affordable now, and have led to novel global collaborations and inventions. Scientists worldwide are working to create databases of foodborne microbial strains, sequence the most common pathogens and tag foods for immediate traceability. The new initiatives promise to speed investigations and reduce foodborne illnesses and deaths; the techniques could also spot food fakery by marketers.

Genome Trakr, a five-year collaboration between the University of California, Davis; Agilent Technologies; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, promises to perform whole genome sequencing on a total of 100,000 types of common foodborne pathogens. The technology maps the entire DNA sequence of a microbe, and allows scientists to distinguish one strain from another, allowing fast track-back and earlier elimination of outbreaks around the world. The project began in March 2012 and the database, hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, will be available online and at no cost to researchers and public health officials. The zoom-in detail of a sequenced genome will make it possible to distinguish different strains of a microbe that are otherwise indistinguishable, and trace back a small cluster outbreak before it becomes widespread.

Right now that kind of trace-back is difficult without detailed epidemiologic exposure data. A recent study from Cornell University suggests the new technology is an effective and faster replacement. Using whole genome sequencing, researchers were able to double the number of cases associated with a known 2010 outbreak of a strain of salmonella called salmonella Heidelberg at a long-term care facility in New York City. They even found cases outside the metro region.

Whole genome sequencing has already proved successful in halting serious food outbreaks. In 2012 researchers isolated the specific strain in a salmonella outbreak in tuna sushi that sickened 258 individuals, and tracked it back to a processing plant in India. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigated the plant and found 10 sanitation slipups, including four outright violations of safety protocols. In 2014 the FDA was able to halt a U.S.Listeria outbreak that had killed one and sickened seven others. They genotyped and linked the strain to soft Hispanic-style cheeses manufactured by a company called Roos Foods, which ceased all manufacturing after being shut down by the FDA

The gigantic open-access Genome Trakr database should speed up this kind of detective work by providing an enormous volume of data that has already been analyzed. The project’s director, U.C. Davis microbiologist Bart Weimer, says that “We’ve just extended the project to China, and they will map another 10,000 genomes and deposit them. We have other global collaborations pending.”

Sequencing a whole genome is only one of the new approaches to food safety, however. Food fraud prevention is also benefitting from a large international project called The International Barcode of Life (iBOL), which is building a genetic library of all life on Earth. Initiated in 2003 by geneticist Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, it offers a global online database of DNA labels, akin to the bar codes on food packaging, for different species. These DNA bar codes are sequences from a small and stable region of the genome, which can reliably be used to identify a species.

The project has already created over 2.6 million bar-code records for almost 200,000 species of plants and animals, and Hebert hopes to reach 500,000 by the end of 2015. The BOL can distinguish farmed from wild salmon because they are two different species. A 2015 report from the CDC used bar coding to identify imported poisonous puffer fish that were being sold in the U.S. as nonpoisonous varieties. “DNA testing is often the only way to correctly identify food and medicinal products,” says Mark Stoeckle, a researcher at The Rockefeller University who used DNA bar codes to finger fake fish sold in New York City in a 2009 experiment that became known as “sushigate.”

Finally, inspired by the bar-coding idea, one new company, DNATrek, is creating synthetic bar codes for food items. The technology consists of DNA sequences extracted from plants; it is an odorless, colorless and tasteless material which can be mixed with already-in-use food coatings (such as natural waxes and oils) and sprayed on foods. The DNA sequences act like invisible bar codes and can be applied at each point of risk in the food chain: the farm, the sorting facility, the distributor, the packer and even the retailer. These bar codes can be read by polymerase chain reaction testing, a process that generates millions of copies of a small piece of DNA, so that it can be easily identified. “When an outbreak occurs,” says company founder Anthony Zografos, “polymerase chain reaction technology can read the DNA code in about 20 minutes in the laboratory, allowing immediate trace-back rather than weeks or months.”

The codes can also help verify the authenticity of a product like Italian olive oil: The tags should trace back to an olive farm and to packing facilities in Italy. DNATrek’s technology has been approved by the FDA, and this year will be tested in the U.S. supply chain. A similar DNA bar code has been designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. There, researcher Robert Grass and colleagues created DNA labels encapsulated in small, food-safe silica particles that are already used as additives in certain foodstuffs. They then added the particles to milk. Later polymerase chain reaction testing was able to detect the labels in cheese and yogurt made from the milk. Regulatory hoops still need to be overcome, before widespread adoption of the second method, however.

DNA Trek’s Zografos thinks that smartphones may one day have apps that can actually detect bacterial contamination or synthetic bar codes. “My colleagues and I were thinking how wonderful that invention could be, but how many years away it was. And then we saw that a professor at U.C.L.A. had developed a smartphone app that could read a single virus or bacteria.” That researcher, bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan, recently published a study with his colleagues showing that a cellphone-based imaging system could detect viruses and nanoparticles. The phone is essentially converted into an advanced fluorescent microscope. The mobile microscopy unit uses the phone's camera to visualize and measure the length of single-molecule DNA strands.

So the day may not be far off when we can hold our phones over a fish fillet to make sure we know what we are eating.

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

9:02 AM analyse food, dna scan, fish analysis, food, safe food

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

Tools to analyze DNA in meals, including fish, may soon help eliminate fraudulent claims as to what type of food is being sold or served.
Credit: Michael Saechang

An apple can kill, a sprinkle of sprouts can send you to the hospital and your succulent, pan-seared red snapper may actually be tilefish. Despite rising concerns about food safety and authenticity, contamination rates by salmonella, campylobacter,Escherichia coli and other common pathogens have not fallen or are actually on the increase, depending on the microbe, according to a 2013 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year foodborne illnesses caused by these microorganisms sicken 48 million Americans, hospitalize 128,000 and kill 3,000, according to the agency.

Food fraud is also increasing. In 2014 Oceana, an international conservation organization, published a two-year study of 1,215 seafood samples and 46 fish types from 674 retailers in 21 states. They found that a third of samples were mislabeled.

Tools to analyze DNA in food items may soon help eliminate these problems. Techniques ranging from whole genome sequencing to the ability to create artificial DNA labels that indicate points of origin are surprisingly affordable now, and have led to novel global collaborations and inventions. Scientists worldwide are working to create databases of foodborne microbial strains, sequence the most common pathogens and tag foods for immediate traceability. The new initiatives promise to speed investigations and reduce foodborne illnesses and deaths; the techniques could also spot food fakery by marketers.

Genome Trakr, a five-year collaboration between the University of California, Davis; Agilent Technologies; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, promises to perform whole genome sequencing on a total of 100,000 types of common foodborne pathogens. The technology maps the entire DNA sequence of a microbe, and allows scientists to distinguish one strain from another, allowing fast track-back and earlier elimination of outbreaks around the world. The project began in March 2012 and the database, hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, will be available online and at no cost to researchers and public health officials. The zoom-in detail of a sequenced genome will make it possible to distinguish different strains of a microbe that are otherwise indistinguishable, and trace back a small cluster outbreak before it becomes widespread.

Right now that kind of trace-back is difficult without detailed epidemiologic exposure data. A recent study from Cornell University suggests the new technology is an effective and faster replacement. Using whole genome sequencing, researchers were able to double the number of cases associated with a known 2010 outbreak of a strain of salmonella called salmonella Heidelberg at a long-term care facility in New York City. They even found cases outside the metro region.

Whole genome sequencing has already proved successful in halting serious food outbreaks. In 2012 researchers isolated the specific strain in a salmonella outbreak in tuna sushi that sickened 258 individuals, and tracked it back to a processing plant in India. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigated the plant and found 10 sanitation slipups, including four outright violations of safety protocols. In 2014 the FDA was able to halt a U.S.Listeria outbreak that had killed one and sickened seven others. They genotyped and linked the strain to soft Hispanic-style cheeses manufactured by a company called Roos Foods, which ceased all manufacturing after being shut down by the FDA

The gigantic open-access Genome Trakr database should speed up this kind of detective work by providing an enormous volume of data that has already been analyzed. The project’s director, U.C. Davis microbiologist Bart Weimer, says that “We’ve just extended the project to China, and they will map another 10,000 genomes and deposit them. We have other global collaborations pending.”

Sequencing a whole genome is only one of the new approaches to food safety, however. Food fraud prevention is also benefitting from a large international project called The International Barcode of Life (iBOL), which is building a genetic library of all life on Earth. Initiated in 2003 by geneticist Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, it offers a global online database of DNA labels, akin to the bar codes on food packaging, for different species. These DNA bar codes are sequences from a small and stable region of the genome, which can reliably be used to identify a species.

The project has already created over 2.6 million bar-code records for almost 200,000 species of plants and animals, and Hebert hopes to reach 500,000 by the end of 2015. The BOL can distinguish farmed from wild salmon because they are two different species. A 2015 report from the CDC used bar coding to identify imported poisonous puffer fish that were being sold in the U.S. as nonpoisonous varieties. “DNA testing is often the only way to correctly identify food and medicinal products,” says Mark Stoeckle, a researcher at The Rockefeller University who used DNA bar codes to finger fake fish sold in New York City in a 2009 experiment that became known as “sushigate.”

Finally, inspired by the bar-coding idea, one new company, DNATrek, is creating synthetic bar codes for food items. The technology consists of DNA sequences extracted from plants; it is an odorless, colorless and tasteless material which can be mixed with already-in-use food coatings (such as natural waxes and oils) and sprayed on foods. The DNA sequences act like invisible bar codes and can be applied at each point of risk in the food chain: the farm, the sorting facility, the distributor, the packer and even the retailer. These bar codes can be read by polymerase chain reaction testing, a process that generates millions of copies of a small piece of DNA, so that it can be easily identified. “When an outbreak occurs,” says company founder Anthony Zografos, “polymerase chain reaction technology can read the DNA code in about 20 minutes in the laboratory, allowing immediate trace-back rather than weeks or months.”

The codes can also help verify the authenticity of a product like Italian olive oil: The tags should trace back to an olive farm and to packing facilities in Italy. DNATrek’s technology has been approved by the FDA, and this year will be tested in the U.S. supply chain. A similar DNA bar code has been designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. There, researcher Robert Grass and colleagues created DNA labels encapsulated in small, food-safe silica particles that are already used as additives in certain foodstuffs. They then added the particles to milk. Later polymerase chain reaction testing was able to detect the labels in cheese and yogurt made from the milk. Regulatory hoops still need to be overcome, before widespread adoption of the second method, however.

DNA Trek’s Zografos thinks that smartphones may one day have apps that can actually detect bacterial contamination or synthetic bar codes. “My colleagues and I were thinking how wonderful that invention could be, but how many years away it was. And then we saw that a professor at U.C.L.A. had developed a smartphone app that could read a single virus or bacteria.” That researcher, bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan, recently published a study with his colleagues showing that a cellphone-based imaging system could detect viruses and nanoparticles. The phone is essentially converted into an advanced fluorescent microscope. The mobile microscopy unit uses the phone's camera to visualize and measure the length of single-molecule DNA strands.

So the day may not be far off when we can hold our phones over a fish fillet to make sure we know what we are eating.

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

9:01 AM analyse food, dna scan, fish analysis, food, safe food

Ebola Drug Trial Has Encouraging Early Results, and Questions Follow

An Ebola treatment center run by the Alliance for International Medical Action has tested the drug favipiravir. Credit Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA

For the first time, a drug is showing promising signs of effectiveness in Ebola patients participating in a study. The medicine, which interferes with the virus’s ability to copy itself, seems to have halved mortality — to 15 percent, from 30 percent — in patients with low to moderate levels of Ebola in their blood, researchers have found. It had no effect in patients with more virus in their blood, who are more likely to die.

The drug, approved as an influenza treatment in Japan last year, was generally well tolerated.

“The results are encouraging in a certain phase of the disease,” Dr. Sakoba Keita, director of disease control for the Guinean Ministry of Health, said in a telephone interview. The drug is being tested in Guinea, one of the three West African countries most affected by the Ebola crisis.

The early findings have not yet been announced, but they raise questions about which patients, if any, outside the study should be offered treatment with the drug, favipiravir. “These are very difficult, agonizing decisions,” said Susan Ellenberg, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. She cautioned that early results were sometimes not borne out.

Avigan, a drug approved as an anti-influenza drug in Japan, is showing promise in treating ebola. Credit Issei Kato/Reuters Issei Kato/Reuters

The drug has been provided on an emergency basis to Ebola patients in European countries, but not in Africa. The Japanese maker of the drug announced in October that it had 20,000 courses of treatment in stock. The epidemic is now ebbing but is not over. The World Health Organization on Wednesdayreported 124 new cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the week that ended on Sunday, warning of an increased geographical spread in Guinea and a rise in new cases in all three countries for the first time this year.

Early reports of the interim results of the drug trial have created unanticipated complications, delaying the testing of at least one other therapy as researchers reconsidered plans and some doctors pressed to make favipiravir more widely available.

Researchers and health authorities have been quietly debating whether and when to release the preliminary results of the study. The dilemmas they face echo those from the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Because mortality was so high in a disease with no proven treatment, there was demand to provide experimental therapies to everyone.

The results for the drug favipiravir are based on an analysis of 69 patients older than 14 who have received it at two sites in Guinea since December. The survival rates of those with low to moderate levels of virus in their blood were significantly better than those of patients previously treated at a center run by Doctors Without Borders in Guéckédou, Guinea.

Caroline Guele, 31, a rice farmer who lost two children and her husband to Ebola, received the drug in January at the site run by the Alliance for International Medical Action soon after she developed symptoms. She said she believed it contributed to her survival. “When I heard I could take the medicine, I actually prayed to God it would help me,” she said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

In a typical drug study, participants would be randomly assigned to take the drug or not, and the outcomes would be compared to see if the drug made a difference. However, because Ebola is so deadly and there is no known treatment aside from supportive care, all patients in the study were provided with the treatment. Fluctuating death rates during the current epidemic have complicated researchers’ efforts to assess whether the new drug should be credited with the reduced mortality.

The drug was expected to be most effective in patients receiving it within two to three days of showing symptoms, similar to antiviral treatments for influenza. However, most study participants arrived at the Ebola treatment units later in their illnesses, a median of five days after their symptoms began, so results were analyzed instead in terms of the approximate levels of virus in the blood.

Independent boards charged with monitoring the drug trial detected the encouraging findings and recommended that they be made public. Results were submitted for review to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection, which will take place in Seattle at the end of the month. A draft of an abstract of the findings was reviewed by The New York Times.

“With Ebola, there’s precious little good news,” said Dr. Susan Shepherd, who served as medical coordinator at a treatment unit run by the Alliance for International Medical Action, one of two sites where the drug was tested. (The other was a facility run by Doctors Without Borders.)

Dr. Shepherd added, “There will, I think, be an enormous pressure and desire to offer the treatment more broadly.”

A patient is treated at the ALIMA ebola treatment center in Nzerekore, Guinea. Credit Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA

The trial is sponsored by the French public research institute Inserm, with support from the European Union, and is run by a consortium of organizations and the Guinean government. The drug, also known by the trade name Avigan, was developed by the Japanese company Toyama Chemical, part of Fujifilm Group, and approved for influenza treatment in that country last March after safety testing.

The company has said it would produce more doses of the drug in anticipation of the trial. It has also provided the tablets on an emergency basis to several Ebola patients in Europe, according to a company spokeswoman, Kana Matsumoto. She said that the drug had never been provided on that basis to patients in any African country, and that the company had no comment as to whether it would do so in the future given the new findings.

“With a medication that seems to be safe, you really don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of this person gets it and this person doesn’t,” Dr. Shepherd said. “The problem we seem to have is it doesn’t help at all for people who have high viral loads.”

Researchers hope that some patients’ lives might be saved by bolstering the immune system, including through transfusions of serum extracted from the blood of Ebola survivors, which contains virus-fighting antibodies.

However, expectations around favipiravir have contributed to a delay in a trial of serum transfusions, also known as convalescent plasma therapy, in Guinea’s capital, according to Roeland Scholtalbers, the head of communications for the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, the study’s sponsor.

Some doctors are urging that if favipirivir has a positive effect and seems safe, it should be given to everyone with the virus.

If patients getting the serum transfusions also get favipiravir, it would probably be more difficult to discern whether the serum had an effect. Mr. Scholtalbers said that just because early results for favipiravir came first did not mean that researchers or the public should “put more hope on that solution than any other solution.”

“There are pretty good arguments to think that plasma can give good impact,” she continued. “It will be a shame if we don’t manage as a scientific community to test it.”

Dr. Xavier Anglaret, the lead investigator of the favipiravir trial in Guinea, said that he and his colleagues agreed that the other study was important. “The plasma trial should start as early as possible,” he said.

Both trials are all the more important because of the abrupt cancellation last Friday of a study testing a third therapy, the anti-viral drug brincidofovir, after the manufacturer found an insufficient number of Ebola patients in Liberia, where the trial had been planned, to determine the effectiveness of the drug.

Dr. Anglaret said researchers had expected to have results from all three studies around the same time. Instead, one study advanced ahead of the others, with early results that are encouraging but not definitive. As of Tuesday, Dr. Anglaret said, the favipiravir trial had enrolled 101 patients in the continuing study.

The complications of managing the Ebola trials are a sign that more needs to be done to prioritize research in future outbreaks, said Dr. Bernard Lo, a bioethicist and president of the Greenwall Foundation in New York City.

Ebola Drug Trial Has Encouraging Early Results, and Questions Follow

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