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Today, miracle berries are making an underground comeback thanks to a few small startups, with slogans such as mBerry’s “Make life sweeter.” In the last few years, their popularity has grown exponentially, and it’s all thanks to a single protein named miraculin. | Today, miracle berries are making an underground comeback thanks to a few small startups, with slogans such as mBerry’s “Make life sweeter.” In the last few years, their popularity has grown exponentially, and it’s all thanks to a single protein named miraculin. | ||
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Revision as of 17:07, 13 July 2010
| Home | Team | Official Team Profile | Project | Parts Submitted to the Registry | Modeling | Notebook | Safety |
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Contents |
Project 1 - TAT-PTD
Project Description
Progress
Project 2 - Quad-state light-activation
Project Description
Progress
Project 3 - Miracle Yogurt
Background
In the early eighteenth century, French cartographer and navigator Chevalier des Marchais travelled all along the west coast of Africa. His maps and manuscripts were published after his death by Père J. B. Labat in Amsterdam in 1730-31. One of these, from 1725, documented a peculiar food culture among local tribes, who consumed tiny red berries before most meals.
These berries are known as Synsepalum dulcificum, Richadella dulcifica, or colloquially ‘miracle fruit’. They have a peculiar quality: for 30 minutes to two hours after consumption, sour foods are perceived as sweet. This fascinating property was not rediscovered until the mid-19th century, when Prof. Kenzo Kurihara, a Japanese scientist, published an article in Science about the isolation of the active compound, which he coined miraculin.
Soon afterward, Robert Harvey and Don Emery became co-founders of a miracle berry start-up called Miralin. In 1974, the FDA cut support for the company and halted the approval of miracle berries as a harmless food additive only weeks after the Miralin offices were raided by an unknown party. Although the identity of the thieves was never determined, claims have been made that the raid and subsequent FDA disapproval were supported by high-ups in the sugar and sweetener industry.
Today, miracle berries are making an underground comeback thanks to a few small startups, with slogans such as mBerry’s “Make life sweeter.” In the last few years, their popularity has grown exponentially, and it’s all thanks to a single protein named miraculin.
