Salt can be replaced in food – using electric chopsticks in what is said to be a world first.

Japan’s Meiji University has developed an electrical stimulation waveform and chopstick device that enhances the taste of low-sodium foods.

In clinical trials with people who follow a low-sodium diet, the use of the chopstick device enhanced the salty taste perceived when eating low-sodium foods by about 1.5 times.

The result of salty taste enhancement via electrical stimulation is said to be a world first.

The Dr. Homei Miyashita Laboratory of the Department of Frontier Media Science, School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences (Miyashita Laboratory) and Kirin Holdings Company, Limited (Kirin Holdings), conducted the joint research.

Not just chopsticks but other utensils can be used to maintain low-sodium diets.

The research has discovered the possibility of using the effect of salty taste enhancement by electrical stimulation on everyday utensils such as chopsticks, spoons, and tea bowls, thereby increasing the level of taste satisfaction with low-sodium foods.

This technology may prove helpful for people trying to, or who need to maintain a low-sodium diet.

The research method saw thirty-six men and women aged 40-65 years who are currently reducing sodium intake or have done so in the past were tested using a chopstick-type device that delivers weak electrical stimulation to samples that imitate ordinary food (gel containing 0.80 percent salt) and samples that imitate reduced-salt food (gel containing 0.56 percent salt).

After tasting the sample (which contained 30 percent less salt than the sample that imitated ordinary food), a test was conducted to evaluate the intensity of the perceived saltiness. The same device was also used to evaluate changes in the salty intensity and flavor of reduced-sodium miso soup.

When tasting samples imitating low-sodium food, the perceived saltiness was enhanced by a factor of 1.5 when the developed electrical stimulation waveform was applied to the chopstick device, compared to without electrical stimulation.

In addition, the study confirmed that the intensity of the salty taste of the sample imitating low-sodium food was the same as that of the sample imitating ordinary food when electric stimulation was applied. This suggests that when food with 30 percent less salt is consumed, a device equipped with this technology can provide a salty taste equivalent to that of a regular meal.

In addition, in an experiment using reduced-sodium miso soup, the salty taste enhancement effect was confirmed, and the participants commented that they felt an improvement in richness, sweetness, and overall tastiness.

Kirin Holdings say they will continue to develop new services that support lifestyle disease prevention by increasing dietary satisfaction to make consumers’ diets tastier, more enjoyable, and healthier.

In the future, the Miyashita Laboratory and Kirin Holdings aim to use the results of this joint research to provide both mental satisfaction from a richer perceived taste along with health benefits derived from nutritional aspects for those who follow a low-sodium diet.

These stunning images show one of the biggest rhododendrons in Europe aged 170 years reaching full bloom.

The colorful spectacle at the Tregothnan Estate has been growing for around 170 years and is continuing to wow onlookers.

Internationally known as the home of English tea, Tregothnan near Truro, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, is an official ‘safe site’ for the keeping of rare or endangered trees from all over the world.

Managing director Jonathan Jones said: “Our rhododendrons are some of the oldest in the country – this bush is over 170 years old and is still growing.

“What we see here is not only potentially the tallest rhododendrons in the UK with the largest diameter but also one of the biggest demonstrations of mass species conservation in the wild.

“Tregothnan is home to the tallest of many flowering species in the UK, and our rhododendron bushes are going to be checked by the champion tree organization in the run-up to next Spring’s garden opening.”

Mr. Jones says the rhododendron plant originally comes from the Himalayas and added: “Our bushes really like the conditions that the microclimate offers here at Tregothnan.

“The conditions, like temperature, morning must, rainfall and soil, are almost identical to the plant’s origins”.

Mr. Jones said another reason for the bush’s excellent growth this year is due to this April’s “wet” conditions.

He added: “After four years of droughts, this has been a good April, just perfect for rhododendron flowers and tea growing.

“The amount of flowers on the rhododendron bushes is usually an indication if we’re going to get a good tea harvest – and we certainly have.

“We think we’re going to have a bumper spring harvest this year.”

Another factor that contributes to the successful growth is when various bushes of the same species are planted together.

He said: “Rhododendrons are very happy grown on mass together, they create their own environment.

“What we are seeing here is a fantastic example of what we call ex situ conservation.

“This means the plant is not in its natural habitat, but being grown in another country, yet are still thriving under their current conditions which then allows us to conserve lots of natural species.”

The diameters of the plant will be revealed next year at the world’s largest garden opening for charity.

Mr. Jones added: “A date is yet to be set but it will be around mid-April 2023 – and we are very excited.”

A new study by psychologists has suggested that the “biggest a**holes” are white, “typically middle-aged,” and “predominantly male”.

It has also claimed that they closely resemble psychopaths and narcissists.

Led by University of Georgia grad student and co-author Brinkley M. Sharpe, the study looked at what insults say about how people view others’ objectionable views and behaviors.

Earlier research had already found that insults, such as “b*tch,” “d*ck,” and “a**hole,” are used to characterize people noted for “low agreeableness.”

The 397 participants in the study used the Five-Factor Model of personality to describe the “biggest a**holes” in their lives, which according to the study, are “typically middle-aged, predominantly male, and included romantic partners, coworkers, bosses, family members, and friends.”

According to the study, the characteristics of the so-called a**holes resembled profiles of “psychopathic, antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders.”

Among the bothersome behaviors, the participants reported were “manipulation, aggression, irresponsibility, and entitlement.”

Some of the participants complained that a**holes include people who voted for President Donald Trump or did not wear face masks as required by the authorities during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Researchers also found that approximately half of the “a**holes” were participants’ former romantic partners, former bosses, or estranged family members.

But the researchers said that this finding does not necessarily mean that, for example, respondents’ former romantic partners have a personality disorder.

Sharpe said: “People didn’t really have very much trouble figuring out who the ‘biggest a**hole’ in their life was.”

She added: “On average, participants didn’t think that they were very close to these individuals, which makes sense because these people are being described as having pretty aversive behaviors.”

In response to an email request, Sharpe affirmed that, for 79 percent of the participants, the biggest a**hole in their lives was a man, averaging 43 years in age.

Participants in the study were asked what their relationship was with the “a**holes” and to list the top three objectionable behaviours.

Sharpe noted that about 85 percent of participants were white, while 9 percent were black, and 12 percent were Native American or Alaskan Native. The Latino category was about 7.5 percent.

The study found that participants believed that the a**holes in their lives were aware of their behavior, but did not care to change.

Noting that objectionable behavior can “run the gamut,” Sharpe said that respondents described an a**hole as anyone “who is not agreeable and is angry.”

She added that a**holes are “not necessarily being antagonistic toward people, but they just didn’t really care about what others were thinking or how they were perceived by others.”

According to the authors, a**holes struggle with anger and are “irresponsible and held bigoted views.”

When asked whether women are more likely to refer to men as a**holes, Sharpe responded that the study was intended to examine “personality traits and behaviors individuals associate” with others, but does not “speak to whether any demographic group is more or less likely to call members of another demographic group ‘a**holes.’”

While saying that the study does not conclude that “more a**holes are middle-aged men,” Sharpe said that “it appears that the ‘biggest a**shole’ in someone’s life is likely to be a man.

This is based, she said, on differences between men and women regarding ‘agreeableness’ and shows that “women are, on average, more agreeable than men.”

In a breakdown of the data, Sharpe showed that about 67 percent of women and 89 percent of men “identified a man as the ‘biggest a**hole’ in their life, respectively.”

She said this means that even “men were actually more likely to see a man as the biggest a**hole. “

Professor Stephanie Preston of the University of Michigan, a psychologist who focuses on empathy and decision-making, said that the study has “major limitations.”

Among the problems she saw is that “a**hole” in itself is biased commonly toward males, which she noted the study also recognized.

She also said that the participants in the sample are about the same age as typical a**holes identified by the study.

Another limitation in the study, she said, is that the relationships people have with others are most frequently with those of a similar age.

Because of this, Preston found the paper a “little tautological” as it tests a word that describes men in a sample of middle-aged people who say that the a**holes they know are middle-aged men.

While recognizing that the overlap with psychopaths or sociopaths is not surprising, Preston found that the study has real data but its methods “do not allow us to discern the truth about the prototype of an a**hole…”

What Preston found interesting about the study, however, was that the characteristics of a**holes “can be equated with poor empathy.”

While the study co-authors focus on the negative, Preston sees that it also shows that “people value and weigh the empathy of others in interpersonal settings very strongly.”

She added: “Empathy is thought to have evolved as a form of glue in human social group life.”

She said finally that few people are terrible or amazing at empathy, while “most of us are somewhere in the middle.”

However, she warned that a “population cannot sustain more than a minority of a**holes or psychopaths and still survive.”