Insights from traditional fermented legumes towards the innovation of modern plant-based meat analogues.

There has been a major growth in the development of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) in recent years. However, current PBMA often contain ultra processed ingredients and numerous additives to be able to mimic animal-based meat (ABM) including the meaty (umami) flavour, characteristic firm/chewy structure and juicy mouthfeel. In this review, the potential of ancient fermentation techniques as a minimally processed alternative to ABM and current PBMA are explored.

Thiosquaramide-Based Supramolecular Polymers: Aromaticity Gain in a Switched Mode of Self-Assembly.

Despite a growing understanding of factors that drive monomer self-assembly to form supramolecular polymers, the effects of aromaticity gain have been largely ignored. Herein, we document the aromaticity gain in two different self-assembly modes of squaramide-based bolaamphiphiles. Importantly, O → S substitution in squaramide synthons resulted in supramolecular polymers with increased fiber flexibility and lower degrees of polymerization.

Uncovering friction dynamics using hydrogel particles as soft ball bearings.

Rolling ball bearings are widely known and applied to decrease friction between two surfaces. More recently, hydrogel-hydrogel tribopairs have also revealed good but rather complex lubrication properties. Here, we use hydrogels as ball bearings to elucidate that soft spherical particles have nontrivial rate-dependent lubrication behavior.