Eddy's Good News: Electricity from E-coli and the importance of healthy guts for babies

Virgin Radio

10 Sep 2023, 10:00

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!

Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Tuesday 12th September 2023

We’ve seen electricity generated from the most unlikely places and this week we can add to that list as scientists have, for the first time, generated electricity from the potentially deadly e-coli bacteria.

You might recall a story from last year about beautiful bioluminescent lights powered by bacteria in a pioneering European town, we’re in a similar place now as we say bonjour to the electro-experts at Lausanne Polytechnic in Switzerland who’ve been looking at a whole new way to treat wastewater. Normally we use electricity to process and treat wastewater, but thanks to their breakthrough we are now able to generate electricity from the bacteria in the water while it’s being treated. Amazingly, they can generate more electricity than it takes to treat the water, so it’s hitting two birds with one stone, as they say.

This opens up another door in the very exciting field of bio-batteries, that is to say totally green and sustainable batteries powered by bacteria instead of chemicals dragged out of mines. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Fascinating news from down under and new research that shows a healthy gut in babies means less asthma and less food allergies when they grow up.

Say g’day to researchers at Deakin University in Australia who’ve been studying the guts of babies and toddlers and how the microbiota within them affects their health, specifically wheezing, asthma and reactions to food allergies.

We start off with some inherited microbiota in our guts and the more diverse our diets, the more are added to what become trillions of organisms which look after our immune system and which scientists are discovering on an almost weekly basis, play a key role in so many aspects of our health. The latest research tracked over a thousand babies for thirteen years and examined their gut health. The results showed, clearly, that kids with more mature microbiota communities in their guts had less risk of wheezing and of allergies. This adds to research done in the UK which showed kids that grew up in the countryside, rolled around in the dirt with other kids and had more exposure to animals grew up to be healthier.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org