Preparation and characterization of bioplastic film from the green seaweed Halimeda opuntia.

Protein-rich seaweeds are regarded as having commercial significance due to their numerous industrial applications. The green seaweed Halimeda opuntia was used during this study for the preparation of bioplastic film. A thin bioplastic film with better physical and mechanical properties was produced by optimizing the ratio of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to seaweed biomass.

Prevalence of Bacillus cereus in dairy powders focusing on its toxigenic genes and antimicrobial resistance.

Bacillus cereus is a common environmental foodborne microorganism that is mainly found to harbor toxigenic genes with multiple antibiotic resistances and is linked to threatening the safety of dried milk in concern to powdered infant milk formula. In the current investigation, the mean value of B. cereus in 140 samples of powdered milk was 0.

Safety and quality aspects of whole and skimmed milk powders.

Background: Nowadays, dried milk products are highly traded and consumed all over the world, so we aimed in this study to evaluate to what extent whole and skim milk powders are safe and comply with Egyptian standards.

Methods: Eighty samples of dried milk (50 whole milk powder and 30 skim milk powder) were gathered from several retailers and supermarkets for evaluation of their differing quality and safety parameters.

Results: The most frequent off-flavors recovered from whole milk powder samples were cooked ones and, in the case of skim milk powder samples, flat ones.

Detrimental effect of UV-B radiation on growth, photosynthetic pigments, metabolites and ultrastructure of some cyanobacteria and freshwater chlorophyta.

Background: Global warming directly influencing ozone layer depletion, which eventually is increasing ultraviolet radiation penetration having far-reaching impacts on living biota. This particularly influences the primary producer microalgae which are the basic unit of food webs in the aquatic habitats. Therefore, it is necessary to concentrate the research at this micro-level to understand the harmful impact of increased UV-B radiation ever before.