Diet Dash game uses brain training to help you lose weight.

The app turns dieting into a game to make it easier to make healthy food choices.Losing weight can often be a struggle, and is rarely fun, but that could be about to change. Researchers from Drexel University are developing a gaming app they think could help people "control unhealthy eating habits and ultimately lose weight". The app, which would be in the form of a computer game, is designed to improve inhibitory control - the part of the brain that "stops you from giving into unhealthy cravings". The game, DietDash, requires participants to tell researchers which types of unhealthy foods they are most likely to binge on. The game will then be customized to their diet; if someone lists cookies as their favourite treat, for example, cookies will appear in the game. Players are then asked to press certain keys to respond to different types of foods, including healthy and unhealthy foods. "As the player's inhibitory control improves, the game speed increases". People are expected to play the game for eight minutes a day for six weeks. Another app will attempt to intelligently detect patterns in a person's eating habits. "When users are likely to slip from their dietary plans, the app provides tailored strategies to put them back on track," researchers said. "Millions of people are trying to lose weight, and they are going about it in a reasonable way - by trying to reduce calories," said Evan Forman, who will be leading the study. "But you're going to slip from your diet plan. That pretty much happens to everyone. You could say the secret of helping people actually lose weight is preventing these lapses, so we concentrated on how to best do that." "The study is really the first to attempt to train people for weeks in a row," Forman said. "We think this can translate to real-world behaviours, because just like any task, it improves with practice." The university is now seeking participants to trial the app. Contributed by Wired.

FAO passes salmonella rule to create global meat standards

FAO passes salmonella rule to create global meat standards: New guidelines have been adopted for the control of non-typhoidal salmonella in beef and pork at the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

Lab-grown meat to ‘revolutionise’ food sector

Lab-grown meat to ‘revolutionise’ food sector: Tel-Aviv business SuperMeat has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise investment in developing technology that makes lab-grown poultry a viable replacement in the meat industry.

China's pork industry grapples with pollution crisis

China's pork industry grapples with pollution crisis: Genetics and nutrition companies look set to benefit from a Chinese crackdown on pollution from the livestock sector, after critics claim slurry is contaminating water supplies.

German blood sausage wins protected status

German blood sausage wins protected status: A German blood sausage, popular for over 200 years, has been awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status by the European Commission.

Ibuprofen can help 'disable' Ebola and prevent infection.

In what is being hailed as a significant breakthrough in the battle against the deadly Ebola virus, researchers have found an unlikely treatment source - an everyday ibuprofen painkiller. Using Diamond Light Source, a light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun, the team was able to analyse the structure of the Ebola virus at a far higher resolution than had previously been possible. The researchers found ibuprofen, as well as cancer drug Toremifene, were able to bind to a protein on the surface of Ebola, preventing infection. The team described this as being able to "disable" the virus. Further work will be needed to analyse the structures of both the virus and the drugs, as well as how they interact, but the team is hopeful the research could be built upon to develop anti-Ebola treatments. "These complex structures reveal the mechanism of inhibition and may guide the development of more powerful anti-EBOV drugs," the team wrote in Nature. No drug has yet been developed that can stop Ebola. Nearly 11,000 people died of the disease in West Africa alone, with 30,000 infected. Many victims have since been infected with post-Ebola syndrome, which has lead to loss of sight and sickness. Contributed by wired.co.uk

Super bugs,games and antibiotic resistance.

A new game aims to raise awareness of the growing threat of superbugs - antibiotic-resistant bacteria that could cause serious health problems for humanity in the near future. Developed by Preloaded, Superbugs puts players in charge of battling rapidly mutating bacteria in a Petri dish. As cells replicate, you administer doses of antibiotics to wipe them out, leaving only the resistant red cells. Gameplay consists of keeping the dish clear, while a timer counts down on new drug research to wipe out the stronger strains. Chillingly, given the game is meant to mirror the real-world battle against superbugs, defeat is inevitable, as bacteria multiplies and mutates faster than research - or you, as the player - can keep up with. The mobile game launches in partnership with the Longitude Prize, a five-year challenge with a £10 million prize fund which aims to solve the problem of global antibiotic resistance. Make no mistake, this is a major challenge facing the world's healthcare authorities. At the end of 2015, bacteria resistant to colistin were discovered. As colistin is considered a "last resort" for treatment of strains that have grown immune to other antibiotics, this is a significant problem. Without constant research and development of new drugs, some projections forecast up to 10m deaths per year by 2050. "We know our daily behaviours - like sharing and overusing antibiotics - can lead to bacteria becoming drug-resistant, so it's really important we increase awareness around this huge issue," said Longitude Prize spokesperson Tamar Ghosh. "It's especially important to reach young people and games like this are a fantastic way of doing that." Superbugs, available now for Android and iOS devices, is aimed at improving basic scientific understanding of how bacteria mutate and become drug-resistant, while reinforcing how small changes in human behaviour - such as proper consumption of prescribed antibiotics - can slow their spread. Superbugs takes the complex science behind the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and models it as a casual mobile game that's not only great fun to play but scientifically sound," said Phil Stuart, Creative Director of Preloaded. "Games are the perfect medium to reach millions of people and make complex ideas understandable." The Longitude Prize launched in 2014, seeking ideas on how to tackle the rise of drug-resistant bacteria - ideally, "a diagnostic tool that can rule out antibiotic use or help identify an effective antibiotic to treat a patient." While Superbugs alone won't do that, the hope is it gets more people thinking about the problem - and a solution. Contributed by wired.co.uk