Fresh fruits and vegetables (FVs) can cause foodborne diseases as they are able to harbor a variety of human pathogens and parasites. The short shelf life of fresh produce, due in large part to microbial induced spoilage, is a serious problem that costs the food industry billions a year. Further, nutrients, polyphenols and other bioactive compounds...

Background Many current sensors, including gas concentration analyzers based on laser absorption spectroscopy, provide simultaneous, precise, and accurate measurement of gases (e.g., CO2 and N2O) for agriculture, soil science, ecological, and emissions quantification applications. However, they are often expensive to produce and operate. Recent research...

Background Current methods for estimating high-resolution hyperspectral images focus on using spectrometer data to estimate the spectral response of each pixel in the high-resolution image, and then fusing this information with the multispectral data. This results in a high-resolution hyperspectral image that has proven to be effective for high-resolution...

Background Robotic technology has a wide range of applications, particularly when it is backed by a comprehensive network of sensors and data, as is the case with unmanned aerial systems (UAS). For agricultural applications, UAS-based aerial imagery can provide information about crop stress and yield and is a common tool for in-field data collection....

Black-footed ferrets have become one of the most endangered animals in North America due to the emergence of the sylvatic plague, a flea-borne bacterial disease of wild rodents. To mitigate the loss of this species, a sylvatic plague vaccine (SPV) has been developed in combination with a peanut butter bait for oral administration to wildlife. Current...

Vaccines are an essential tool in preventing and controlling many diseases. Most approved vaccines are inactivated or live attenuated type, however, alternative platforms like mRNA and virus-like particles (VLPs) are being increasingly explored and approved because they generate potent immune responses with great safety profiles. VLPs are particularly...

The entire human food system is photosynthesis-based, i.e. it originates as plant matter/biomass. Contrary to popular perception, domestic animals are not the most inefficient link in the human food chain, photosynthesis in plants is. While the theoretical energy efficiency of photosynthesis is about 26%, when you take into account nonabsorbable incident...

The streamflow regime is a critical determinant of many ecological and hydrological processes and plays an important role for regulatory purposes. Three regime categories are often used to describe a river reach: perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral. This distinction has important consequences for water resource management, e.g., since the Clean...

The short shelf life of fresh produce, due in large part to microbial induced spoilage, is a serious problem that is costing the food industry billions a year. Many plants have natural phytochemicals which help confer resistance to microbial infections. Phytochemicals also have health benefits for humans, making them attractive candidates for coating...

Limited fossil fuel resources and a global climate crisis have led to greater exploration into replacing conventional fuel sources with renewable energy. This in turn has resulted in a push for production of more sustainable and inexpensive biofuels. Agricultural waste, such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, is a promising renewable feedstock...