<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d44876a100a24344b212a8a-2400/maya nuclear complex.jpg" alt="Maya Nuclear Complex" /><ul class="summary-list"><li>In 2017, a group of scientists known as the "Ring of Five" detected "an unprecedented release" of radiation in Europe.</li><li>Two years later, they figured out that the release likely came from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-accident-unreported-russia-2017-2019-8">an undeclared nuclear accident</a> at Russia's Mayak nuclear facility.</li><li>A new study shows that most of that radiation was emitted on September 26, 2017.</li><li>According to the scientists, the plume spread from the Mayak facility toward Central Europe, reaching Italy on October 2, 2017.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more.</a></li></ul><p>A group of scientists called the "Ring of Five" noticed something unusual in the atmosphere in late 2017: Air across Europe showed "unprecedented" levels of the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106.</p><p>The isotope is often made when reprocessing nuclear fuel.</p><p>"We were stunned," Georg Steinhauser, a professor at the University of Hanover in Germany who is part of the group, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-accident-unreported-russia-2017-2019-8">told Business Insider</a> in August. "We did not have any anticipation that there might be some radioactivity in the air. We were just measuring air filters as we do on a weekly basis, 52 times a year, and suddenly there was an unexpected result."</p><p>The Ring of Five, which had been monitoring Europe's atmosphere for elevated levels of radiation since the mid '80s, spent the next two years looking for the cause of the spike.</p><p>The culprit, according to a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/25/1907571116#ref-1">study released in July,</a> was an undisclosed nuclear accident at the Mayak nuclear facility in Russia, which was once the center of the Soviet nuclear-weapons program. Mayak was also the site of the 1957 Kyshtym explosion, the world's <a href="https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:25008504">third-worst nuclear accident</a>. More than 10,000 nearby residents <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16750#ref-24">were forced to evacuate</a> at the time.</p><p>Russia has never acknowledged that any nuclear accident happened at the Mayak facility in 2017, and has not responded to any findings from the Ring of Five.</p><p>But now, the scientists have unraveled the mystery even further. <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/50/24991">A second study published last month</a> offers even more evidence that an accident occurred at Mayak in 2017. It even pinpoints a timeline: Most of the ruthenium was emitted on September 26, 2017.</p><h2>Tracing a radioactive plume across Europe</h2><p>The Ring of Five is so named because the group was originally made up of scientists from five nations - Sweden, Germany, Finland, Norway, and Denmark - but it now includes researchers from 22 countries. Their monitoring work takes takes place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. </p><p>The new study suggests that the Mayak facility likely released 250 terabecquerels (a measurement of radioactivity) of ruthenium into the atmosphere. The Kyshtym explosion, by comparison, released around 2,700 terabecquerels of ruthenium. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chernobyl-fukushima-three-mile-island-nuclear-disasters-2019-6">world's worst nuclear accident</a>, Chernobyl, released around 5.3 million terabecquerels of radioactive material, according to a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971301173X?np=y#f0010">2013 analysis</a>.</p><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5dfb8ea4855cc23a823d1807-2400/ap203985136750.jpg" alt="Russia Mayak nuclear" /><p>To find out where the 2017 radioactive plume came from, scientists traced the path of the wind at the time using more than 1,100 measurements from the fall of that year. That required studying the wind's altitude and direction, as well as weather conditions that may have changed its course. </p><p>The scientists determined that the plume started out in the Southern Urals, where the Mayak facility is located, then was driven towards southwest Russia. It arrived in Romania on September 29, then split in two.</p><p>The main part of the plume spread toward Central Europe, where it encountered rain in Bulgaria. Plant and soil samples taken in the country showed elevated levels of ruthenium at the time. After that, the plume moved north to Scandinavia before arriving in Italy on October 2, 2017. That day, Italian scientists sent an alert to the Ring of Five about elevated levels of ruthenium in Milan. </p><p>Steinhauser called this the "single greatest release from nuclear-fuel reprocessing that has ever happened." </p><h2>Russia has not responded to the Ring of Five's findings</h2><p>At the time of the alleged accident in 2017, Russian officials said the Mayak facility wasn't the source of the release, even though the nation showed elevated levels of ruthenium. Instead, officials in Russia <a href="https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussian-commission-says-mayak-not-the-source-of-ru-106-6000301/">attributed the radiation</a> to a satellite that burned up in the atmosphere.</p><p>Russia still hasn't issued a response to either of the studies the Ring of Five published this year.</p><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d6ee1192e22af02e17482e2-2400/muslyumovo village.jpg" alt="Muslyumovo village" /><p>"We should not forget that Mayak is a military facility - and, of course, the Russian Federation is very reluctant when it comes to talking about military facilities," Steinhauser said. "I presume this would not be much different for other superpower nations."</p><p>The scientists don't consider the levels of radiation they detected to be an immediate threat to people's health. Last year, France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety determined that the levels of ruthenium-106 in the atmosphere <a href="https://www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Pages/20171109_Detection-of-Ruthenium-106-in-France-and-in-Europe-Results-of-IRSN-investigations.aspx">do not pose danger to human health</a> or the environment. But the long-term consequences are unknown.</p><p>Another unanswered question, Steinhauser said, is whether the population near the Mayak facility breathed any radiation into their lungs. He added that there could be reason to monitor food safety if radiation leaked into the soil and water.</p><p>"We would like to get some more in-depth information on what actually happened," he said. "There's a good chance that we'll catch every single accident - but, in the present case, surprise was on our side."</p>

Russia appears to have kept a major nuclear accident secret. But scientists called the 'Ring of 5' tracked the plume of radiation to its source.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The pandemic ushered in a new breed of attack on scientists and public-health officials.</li><li>Unlike previous anti-science movements, the war this time was more personal.</li><li>Lasting resentment towards scientists could hinder the US's ability to handle future public-health crises.</li></ul><p class="drop-cap">Renae Moch never expected that she'd feel scared to leave her house. As the public health director of Burleigh County, North Dakota, she was accustomed to warning residents about the dangers of vape pens or a bad flu season without much pushback. Then the pandemic hit.</p><p>Moch found herself being called a "Nazi" and "tyrant" on social media. People protested with signs and bullhorns outside her office. At city commission meetings, attendees would boo audibly or grumble under their breath when she spoke. </p><p>"I would get accused of fear-mongering and lying to people and making things out to be much worse than they are," Moch told Insider. The messages came in all forms, she said: letters, emails, phone calls.</p><p>Distrust of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> isn't new in the US. The anti-vaccination movement dates back to 19th century New Englanders who opposed the smallpox vaccine. Climate-change deniers have been vocal since the 1980s. But the pandemic intensified a new type of attack - one that focused not on the research itself, but on experts and health officials as people.</p><p>"A lot of the attacks were not necessarily based on the science," Moch said. "A lot of the backlash and attacks were personally against me."</p><div type="image" title="anti science protest" height="2663" width="3995" msid="83892638" hostid="261"></div><p>Norbert Schwarz, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, said opposition to scientists in the US is "a bit more virulent this time around because it's so closely tied up with political polarization."</p><p>One reason for this, Schwarz and other experts think, is that the pandemic arrived at a time when a broad segment of the US - primarily working-class conservatives - was already expressing increased distrust of big institutions, including the healthcare industry. Scientists, then, were an easy target.</p><p>"Populist movements are anti-elitist and there's nothing more elitist than the science thing," Schwarz told Insider. "These guys do things that are not quite clear to you. They have fancy titles, and they live in better houses, and they have better jobs and bizarre things like tenure, and they can't be fired, and they're usually liberal.'"</p><p>Moch said many of the responses to her public-health guidance seemed to question her authority.</p><p>"It was like, 'Who are you and what gives you the right to tell us that we have to do this?'" she said. "It was a difficult period."</p><p>Even with the pandemic now tapering off in the US, psychologists don't think the anti-scientist trend is over.</p><p>"We have this sort of zeitgeist phenomenon in the country where people are losing faith in these big institutions," Peter Ditto, a professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, told Insider. "Science is going through kind of a crisis."</p><h2>More than 180 public-health leaders resigned in less than a year </h2><p>In the fall of 2020, North Dakota experienced a dramatic surge in <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> cases. Moch encouraged Bismarck's city commission to instate a mask mandate, but residents railed against it. At a contentious commission meeting in October, Moch listened to people denounce masks for four hours.</p><p>One woman said she refused to "blindly follow the herd and put a piece of cloth over my face," even after she'd lost two close family friends to COVID-19.</p><p>Moch considered resigning.</p><p>"I thought to myself, 'Why in the heck am I doing this? Do I want to continue? Why am I subjecting myself to this?'" she said.</p><p>Had Moch quit, she would have joined a long list of public-health officials who did just that during the pandemic. From April to December 2020, more than 180 state and local public-health leaders across 38 states resigned, retired, or were fired, according to <a href="https://khn.org/news/article/pandemic-backlash-jeopardizes-public-health-powers-leaders/">a joint investigation</a> from the Associated Press and Kaiser Health <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword>. In North Dakota, where Moch lives, three state health officers have resigned since May 2020.</p><blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper"><q class="pullquote-quotation">Even if there is consensus in science, there is dispute. That means for many people that scientists don't know what they're doing.</q></blockquote><p>In Orange County, California, Nichole Quick left her job as chief health officer in June 2020, after public backlash to her proposed mask mandate. Residents brought a banner depicting Quick as a Nazi to a Board of Supervisors meeting. At another meeting, one woman read Quick's home address aloud and threatened to bring a group to "do calisthenics in masks on her front doorstep" as a form of protest.</p><p>Tisha Coleman, a public health administrator in Linn County, Kansas, was sued last year for telling a resident to quarantine. At a November county commissioner's meeting, one resident <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcIGNl_Dtm4">equated Coleman's proposed mask mandate</a> to "peaceful slavery." The county never implemented the rule.</p><div type="image" title="Tisha Coleman" height="3659" width="5489" msid="83892639" hostid="261"></div><p>Like Moch, Coleman chose to stay in her post, even as she faced harassment - and even still after her mother died of COVID-19.</p><p>"I could give up and throw in the towel, but I'm not there yet," Coleman <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-public-health-michael-brown-kansas-coronavirus-pandemic-5aa548a2e5b46f38fb1b884554acf590">told the Associated Press</a> in December. </p><h2>Trump stoked a revolt against scientists </h2><p>During the Ebola crisis in 2014, conservatives in the US called for tighter travel restrictions than Democrats did. At the time, psychologists theorized that conservatives were more inclined to react strongly to a perceived danger.</p><p>"Conservatism is a strategy to protect a society from harm from both outsiders and diseases," journalist Brian Resnick <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/how-ebola-makes-conservatives-more-conservative/453399/">wrote in The Atlantic</a> in 2014. "Ebola hits this exact conservative nerve - it's a deadly disease from a foreign country."</p><p>But in the case of the coronavirus, the idea that scientists were trying to dupe the public swelled among conservatives, leading many to fear a loss of liberty more than the virus. President <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword>, of course, played a major role in shaping that narrative. He had already painted himself as the David that would put the Goliath industries of science and medicine in check, and also regularly suggested that Democrats were exaggerating the virus' severity as a political stunt.</p><p>"That's really what general populist politics is about: 'The elite are somehow screwing the folks out there and I'm here to defend you,'" Ditto said.</p><div type="image" title="Donald trump mask" height="2680" width="4015" msid="83892642" hostid="261"></div><p>A Cornell University <a href="https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Evanega-et-al-Coronavirus-misinformation-submitted_07_23_20-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">analysis</a> found that Trump was the largest driver of coronavirus <keyword id="535763" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Misinformation">misinformation</keyword> during the pandemic. He touted the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential COVID-19 treatment without much evidence, and used racist misnomers like "Chinese virus," or "kung flu" to push blame onto a foreign country - a time-tested move from the populist handbook. </p><p>"The president needed to use the pandemic in a way that would minimize it," Dan Romer, research director at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, told Insider. "His point of view was, 'let's get the economy rolling,' because his ace in the hole for the election was that the economy was doing quite well."</p><p>Thomas Jepsen, a 28-year-old who was born in Denmark then moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 2016, said he used to believe China had deliberately released the virus into the population. The pandemic, he thought, was China's way of teaching Trump a lesson. </p><p>"I just saw it as extremely well-timed to disrupt an election," he told Insider.</p><p>That was before Jepsen got COVID-19 himself. </p><h2>Many Americans saw scientists as in the pockets of 'big pharma'</h2><p>A <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2020/06/29/most-americans-have-heard-of-the-conspiracy-theory-that-the-covid-19-outbreak-was-planned-and-about-one-third-of-those-aware-of-it-say-it-might-be-true/">June 2020 survey from the Pew Research Center</a> found that one quarter of US adults believed at the time that there was some truth to the idea that powerful people intentionally planned the coronavirus outbreak. Conspiracy theories like these can make people feel like they have a valuable secret in circumstances they can't control, Schwarz said.</p><p>"It gives you a certain sense of superiority," he said. "You are 'in the know,' and these other guys are just sheep who get fooled."</p><p>Moch said she heard North Dakotans claim that hospitals wanted people to test positive for COVID-19 so they could admit them and make money. Another common refrain, she said, was that doctors had a financial incentive to falsely attribute deaths to COVID-19.</p><div type="image" title="bozeman montana covid protest" height="1668" width="2500" msid="83892645" hostid="261"></div><p>Schwarz said he'd encountered similar distrust of doctors years before the pandemic - in focus groups ahead of the 2016 presidential election. One response stood out, he said: "'Why am I with Trump?' some guy says, 'Because I'm sick and tired of my doctor speaking down to me.'"</p><p>Jepsen said the nature of the US healthcare system bred distrust on his part.</p><p>"You just feel like you're being thrown around from a system to a system, filling out papers," he said. "Then eventually you're seen by a doctor for about seven minutes and 15 seconds before they tell you exactly what you knew already."</p><p>That impression, he added, made it easy to believe that the coronavirus wasn't as deadly as scientists suggested - and that masks, by extension, were unnecessary. Pharmaceutical companies, he reasoned, were in on it too, in order to profit off vaccines and treatments.</p><p>"I saw a lot of big pharma companies potentially standing to gain from mass fear," Jepsen said.</p><h2>A lack of clear, consistent messaging didn't help</h2><p>In October, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator at the time, visited Moch's city of Bismark. In a rare public indictment, Birx said the city had the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-health-fargo-north-dakota-f1389b4e5e7725846bc50309c4d1b0bc">worst coronavirus protocols</a> she had ever seen and urged residents to utilize masks and social distancing.</p><div type="image" title="deborah birx" height="2680" width="4020" msid="83892646" hostid="261"></div><p>But Moch said that for the most part, people paid Birx little attention. That could be, in part, a result of the federal government's inconsistent messaging. Until April 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discouraged the public from wearing masks, partly to save them for healthcare workers. One <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304407620303468?via%3Dihub">study</a> estimated that requiring masks for public-facing workers in the US starting March 14 could have saved 34,000 lives.</p><p>"It's easy to criticize the public-health community in this particular case," Romer said. "I don't think they do as good a job of explaining to the public why they're making recommendations. And if you don't explain it well, then - big surprise - people don't necessarily buy it and that makes them susceptible to alternative explanations."</p><p>Changing CDC guidelines sparked confusion again just last month, when the agency announced that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-guidelines-no-masks-vaccinated-people-expert-opinion-2021-5">vaccinated people could ditch their masks</a> indoors and outdoors, after months of slow-moving recommendations that discouraged vaccinated people from traveling, going maskless, or seeing unvaccinated friends and family.</p><p>Of course, communicating the science of a new virus isn't easy. But Moch said many Bismark residents lost trust in the CDC, and by extension other public-health officials.</p><p>"Usually even if there is consensus in science, there is dispute," Schwarz said. "That means for many people that scientists don't know what they're doing."</p><h2>The Fauci backlash</h2><p>Few scientists have endured more rampant backlash than <keyword id="225564" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Anthony-Fauci">Anthony Fauci</keyword>, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci revealed in August that he and his family had received death threats and that his three daughters had been harassed. He got a security detail.</p><p>"'Fauci is like Hitler.' 'Fauci has blood on his hands.' Are you kidding me?" Fauci told Kara Swisher, host of the New York Times' <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/sway-kara-swisher-anthony-fauci.html?action=click&amp;module=Opinion&amp;pgtype=HomepageHomepage">"Sway"</a> podcast, this week. "I mean, anybody who is just thinking about this in a dispassionate way has got to say, what the heck are those people talking about? Here's a guy whose entire life has been devoted to saving lives, and now you're telling me he's like Hitler? Come on, folks. Get real."</p><p>But in many ways, Fauci is the embodiment of the scientific establishment: Erudite, measured, and careful with his words.</p><blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper"><q class="pullquote-quotation">It was very easy to fall into the camp of believing that Fauci's just a big fat liar.</q></blockquote><p>"When I listen to Fauci, I can see how he talks to the public, while also having in the back of his mind his scientific colleagues who may frown at him if he overstates the confidence that he has in anything," Schwarz said. "You can see Fauci being tripped up by the scientists in his head."</p><div type="image" title="Fauci Biden" height="1333" width="2000" msid="83892647" hostid="261"></div><p>Trump, by contrast, relied on a simple message that never changed: that the virus wasn't a major threat.</p><p>"Every time something is easier to process, you're more likely to believe it," Schwarz said, adding, "The more often you repeat things and the more others agree in your network, the more true it becomes."</p><p>Jepsen, who identifies as a libertarian, said he at one point considered Fauci a puppet for pharmaceutical companies.</p><p>"It was very easy to fall into the camp of believing that Fauci's just a big fat liar," he said, adding, "if the big pharma companies manage to get a guy like Fauci to tell everyone to take a vaccine, then that's beneficial for them."</p><p>Just before Christmas, however, Jepsen developed a fairly severe case of COVID-19. He had a fever, struggled to breathe, and would get exhausted from walking up a flight of stairs. He had to cancel his plans to visit his girlfriend's family for the holidays.</p><p>"The wake-up call came from me having the disease myself," he said. "I felt untouchable previously. I'll be happy to admit that. Realizing that's not the case definitely was eye-opening."</p><h2>Distrust of scientists probably isn't going away</h2><p>Psychologists don't expect anger toward scientists to disappear anytime soon. Schwarz said that even the threat of physical violence against scientists remains a disturbing possibility.</p><p>"It doesn't take large amounts of people - it only takes a few to have a real risk to scientists," he said. "And I don't think that is going to go away. I think that will stay."</p><p>Even after Trump left office, he continued to frame public-health officials as corrupt and conspiratorial - though the US's vaccines are the products of his administration's Operation Warp Speed. When <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-johnson-johnson-blood-clot-case-count-rises-to-15-2021-4">reports of rare blood clots</a> linked to the Johnson &amp; Johnson shot surfaced, Trump suggested that the Food and Drug Administration had temporarily paused the J&amp;J rollout "maybe because their friends at Pfizer have suggested it."</p><div type="image" title="johnson &amp; johnson vaccine" height="1000" width="1500" msid="83892649" hostid="261"></div><p>Moch, however, is hopeful that the anti-scientist sentiment she experienced will abate. Many Bismarck residents ultimately acknowledged the threat of the pandemic, she said - albeit after they or their family members got sick.</p><p>"The ones that were taking care of patients with COVID, the ones that lost people to COVID, the ones that were severely ill and hospitalized, understand the severity," Moch said.</p><p>Jepsen is among those who've had a change of heart. He wears a mask where it's still required. He's been vaccinated. He's even started to warm to Fauci.</p><p>"I very much respect Dr. Fauci for the work that he's doing," Jepsen said. "But I would not want to be in his shoes because I imagine about half the country probably would want to ship him off to someplace not very pleasant."</p>

How Americans waged war on the scientists trying to save them

<ul class="summary-list"><li><strong><keyword id="23050" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sweden">Sweden</keyword>'s daily <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> death rate is approaching zero.</strong></li><li><strong>Newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases have fallen to one-sixth of their number at the peak, just two weeks ago.</strong></li><li><strong>Suddenly, Sweden's "no-lockdown" approach to the crisis looks like a late-running success.</strong></li><li><strong>But </strong><strong>experts are warning that the path Sweden took came at a high price: </strong><strong>Sweden's death toll was 11 times that of neighboring Norway, and the current drop in fatalities is on a par with Haiti or Pakistan, countries that are struggling to control outbreaks</strong><strong>.</strong></li></ul><p>By all accounts, Sweden's high rate of coronavirus deaths was evidence that the country had made a horrendous error. Sweden — which did not impose a strict <keyword id="91743" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="lockdown">lockdown</keyword> — suffered <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/">543 deaths per million of its population, compared to just 105 in neighboring Denmark</a>. The Swedish death toll has been roughly 11 times worse than Norway's, on a per capita basis.</p><p>Yet coronavirus deaths in Sweden have fallen dramatically in recent days, and are now approaching zero. Between June 30 and July 6, Sweden recorded fewer than five deaths per day on all days but one.</p><p>The decline in newly diagnosed cases has been even more dramatic. In late June, Sweden diagnosed more than 1,800 people per day as COVID-19 positive. Today, just two weeks later, only one-sixth of that number are testing positive on a daily basis.</p><p>On paper, Sweden suddenly looks like a stunning — albeit late-running — success. But experts are warning that their recent spell of good <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> does not mean the country's no-lockdown plan was successful, or that other countries should follow its path.</p><p><div type="image" title="coronavirus sweden daily new cases july 7" height="1076" width="1692" msid="76876679" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Jon Tallinger, a doctor who left his job in Sweden to campaign for better treatment of the elderly during the pandemic, said people shouldn't be amazed by charts showing Sweden's progress because they look remarkably similar to those of countries that have been hard-hit by the with coronavirus, including <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/peru/">Peru</a>, <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/pakistan/">Pakistan</a>, and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/haiti/">Haiti</a>. </p><p>He said any decline in deaths now is not a win for Sweden's strategy: "They said that Sweden's response was effective when its deaths were rising, now they are saying it is effective as deaths are going down."</p><p>"The deaths rates have fallen but it doesn't change the fact that our strategy has failed. And we don't know when the rates will rise again." </p><p>In fact, Sweden's death count is similar to that of countries that failed to take swift measures against the novel coronavirus.</p><p>The toll has declined slowly over the months. It follows the familiar pattern seen in Italy, Spain, and the UK, where the coronavirus was only brought under control after a catastrophic wave of fatalities that took more than 100,000 lives.</p><h2>Cases have started dropping in Sweden</h2><p>Sweden did not implement a full-scale lockdown. Instead, it allowed people to live relatively normal lives. It banned gatherings with more than 50 people, imposed limits on customers in restaurants, urged people to social distance, and banned elderly care home visitors. The hope, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said, was that people might develop a widespread "herd immunity" as this happened.</p><p>Experts pointed to a host of reasons for the shifting numbers. They credited myriad factors, including the arrival of summer, with fewer people in offices creating more distance, and Sweden quietly taking steps to protect people in care homes. Johan Carlson, the director-general of Sweden's public health agency, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-07/swedish-covid-infections-drop-after-steady-distancing-patterns?srnd=premium-europe">credited</a> the "effect of us keeping up the <keyword id="8897280" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="social-distancing">social distancing</keyword>" for the decline.</p><p><div type="image" title="coronavirus sweden daily new deaths july 7" height="1074" width="1726" msid="76876681" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Swedish authorities said the reason the case rate shot up in June is due to increased testing.</p><p>Professor Juan-Jesus Carrero, an epidemiologist at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, backed this idea up. "The number of cases is increasing because the Swedish government has recently relaxed the requirements for testing, and more citizens are being tested mainly in primary care," Carrero told Business Insider.</p><p>As for why there's been a recent drop: "The short answer is, that there is no short answer," Pekka Nuorti, an epidemiologist in Finland's Tampere University, told Business Insider, pointing to changes in testing, changes in behaviors, and more time spent outside.</p><p>But Nuorti warned against taking much comfort from this chart alone.</p><p>"In general, looking only at total reported case counts can be misleading and they have a tendency to fluctuate," he said.</p><p>Sweden is now preparing for a second wave, like other countries — a situation it had hoped to avoid. Health Minister Lena Hallengren <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20200706/sweden-told-to-prepare-for-second-wave-of-coronavirus">warned this week</a> "the danger is not over," and announced Sweden is planning in case the virus starts to peak again.</p><h2>Sweden did not achieve immunity, far from it</h2><p><div type="image" title="State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency of Sweden speaks during a coronavirus news conference in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday May 27, 2020.  The Swedish government and agencies give a daily update on the coronavirus COVID-19 situation. (Pontus Lundahl / TT via AP)" height="3425" width="5404" msid="76876685" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Many in Sweden argued that its plan would allow its population to achieve "herd immunity."</p><p>But that's not even close to being achieved: Tegnell <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/swedens-herd-immunity-hopes-are-fading-as-only-a-small-fraction-of-the-population-has-coronavirus-antibodies/ar-BB15MVEo">said in June</a> that "the trends in immunity have been surprisingly slow." <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/swedens-herd-immunity-hopes-are-fading-as-only-a-small-fraction-of-the-population-has-coronavirus-antibodies/ar-BB15MVEo">One study then</a> showed 6.1% of Sweden's population had developed antibodies by late May.</p><p>It's the same for <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/spain-coronavirus-antibody-study-lancet-intl/index.html">other</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-immunity/only-44-of-french-population-infected-by-coronavirus-pasteur-institute-idUSKBN22Q0RS">countries,</a> where only a small proportion of the population appear to have achieved the immunity, and experts say immunity <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/immunity-to-coronavirus-is-fragile-and-short-lived-expert-warns.html">may not even last that long.</a></p><p>Experts say the small build-up of immunity may be a minor factor in the fall in deaths, but not enough to dramatically drive numbers down.</p><h2><strong style="background-color: #ffffff;">Summer may have slowed the spread because people are spending less time indoors</strong></h2><p>Since the pandemic began, research has suggested warmer weather could slow the virus' spread. Heat degrades particles faster, and other coronaviruses have seasonal cycles, hitting hardest in the winter.</p><p>It was a small silver lining experts hoped would offset the summer rush of activity which Tegnell <a href="https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/6-1-har-antikroppar-enligt-undersokning-fran-fhm">warned against in June</a>: "It is very important in summer and midsummer that you keep a distance to each other. If you travel, you must travel responsibly."</p><p>But it's <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/summer-weather-wont-save-us-from-coronavirus/">unlikely heat alone has been a powerful antidote</a>, as we don't see similar trends in hotter parts of the world, like Brazil, or the southern US — two regions with the highest rates of COVID-19 in the world.</p><p><div type="image" title="Sweden coronavirus" height="1200" width="1800" msid="76876689" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Jan Albert, a professor of infectious diseases at the Karolinska Institutet, pointed to the summer season potentially creating social distancing, with people out of work and school, and spreading to the country's remote areas with their family units.</p><p>"It is difficult to tell what the reasons are, but probably a combination of season, partial herd immunity, and social distancing," Albert said.</p><h2>New rules for care homes, and better hygiene everywhere</h2><p>Carrero said that now, in Sweden, "there are genuinely more hygiene measures everywhere."</p><p>That applies to care homes, too, which have been hit hard: 90% of the country's deaths have been among those over 70. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52704836">Care home workers previously said</a> they were initially told to not bring residents to hospitals, or to give patients oxygen without a doctor's approval.</p><p>The government made some effort to work with care homes after Tegnell <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52903717">admitted in early June that the elderly death rate was too high</a>.</p><p>Sweden has started <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/covid-infection-rate-drops-in-denmark-after-lockdown-relaxed">providing funding for more staff in care homes</a>, and giving more money to the local authorities that oversee healthcare provision. After some pressure, the government also made it easier for staff to tip-off the authorities to problems at care homes, including infrequent visits from doctors, <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20200707/swedish-healthcare-watchdog-report-care-homes-coronavirus">The Local reported</a>. </p><p>According to <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20200630/some-swedish-care-homes-have-had-no-cases-of-covid-19-what-did-they-do-right">one report</a> on the handful of Swedish care homes with no cases of COVID-19 at all, it was internal measures — better equipment, less hourly staff, better access to doctors — that made the difference.</p><h2>Ultimately, 'the more aggressive approach turned out to be the more appropriate one'</h2><p><div type="image" title="Sweden coronavirus" height="1198" width="1800" msid="76876691" hostid="261"></div></p><p>But Carrero said it is too soon to know how to judge Sweden's strategy: "Whether these have been the best measures to implement, that is another issue that we can discuss, but an issue that probably we will not be able to judge fully until everything is over. "</p><p>Professor Luke O'Neill, an immunologist at Ireland's Trinity College Dublin, said the general consensus among European scientists is that, because of the high toll of deaths, "Sweden's strategy failed."</p><p>"In some ways, the decisions they made were based on how they assessed the evidence at the time. And other countries decided to be more aggressive and sadly the more aggressive approach turned out to be the more appropriate one."</p>

Sweden's coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/576be503dd0895ce108b4a83-2400/gettyimages-542137708.jpg" alt="EU referendum - flags" data-mce-source="Sean Gallup/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="A pay-per-view binocular with the British and European Union flags stands at the southern tip of the peninsula the day before the EU Referendum on June 22, 2016 in Gibraltar." /><p class="source"><span>Sean Gallup/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A pay-per-view binocular with the British and European Union flags stands at the southern tip of the peninsula the day before the EU Referendum on June 22, 2016 in Gibraltar.</p></div><p></p></div></div><keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Politics">Politics</keyword> used to be a lot more boring. </p><p>But <span>elections and referendums, with their binary outcomes, have increasingly come to dominate international markets and make them more volatile. </span></p><p>The rise of <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/eu-referendum-live-brexit-voting-polls-analysis-reasons-remain-leave-2016-6">populism in the European Union</a> and US has gone from a niche area of interest to a source of real anxiety for investors and voters alike.</p><p>Goldman Sachs set out to investigate the phenomenon with its Top of Mind newsletter for clients.</p><p>Editor Alison Nathan interviewed David Brady, a political science professor at Stanford University, who put into clear English the reasons behind this surge in political uncertainty.</p><p>In short, it's down to technology, globalisation and their effects on the market for labour. Here's Brady (emphasis ours):</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The simple answer is globalization and technology. Specifically, our research has shown that political instability has corresponded with a decline in the share of industrial or manufacturing employment. The sharp loss in manufacturing jobs over the last several decades due to technological advances and offshoring substantially cut the number of industrial workers, <strong>who had dominated the political landscape for most of the 20th century."</strong></p><p>The economic concerns of the blue-collar bloc has handed an opportunity to populist, anti-establishment parties.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"And in multi-party systems, <strong>opposition to globalization and the free flow of immigrants shifted votes to movements like FN or the People's Party in Denmark</strong>, while parties like Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain have drawn support on anti-austerity platforms."</p><p>This is causing a widespread cooling effect on corporate investment.</p><p>Here's the chart:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/576be1bddd08958e638b495e-1049/gs1.png" alt="GS1" data-mce-source="Goldman Sachs" /><p class="source"><span>Goldman Sachs</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Something similar happened between 1850 and 1900, Brady said, where a huge increase in global trade transformed farmers and servants into factory workers, who went on to win more rights from the ruling classes.</p><p>This time around, however, change is more far reaching and workers' sense of identity is coming under more pressure.</p><p>Here's Brady again:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The key difference is that the current, second great wave of globalization is more powerful because it includes economies like China and India. <strong>Three quarters of the world is now involved in the global capital-based economy. Technological change is also much faster."</strong></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"And whereas agrarian jobs were largely replaced with industrial jobs during the last transformation, <strong>many jobs lost today are disappearing altogether, which has impinged on people's sense of identity. For all of these reasons, political uncertainty is greater today."</strong></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/financial-adviser-first-question-fiduciary-2016-6">The most important question you should ask before hiring a financial adviser</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BtNWZ2MzE648d75KJjZuMeDMI-faHYUo" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'BtNWZ2MzE648d75KJjZuMeDMI-faHYUo',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

GOLDMAN SACHS: Here's what's driving all the political uncertainty

Sundance 2022 returns to Park City with an expanded lineup that includes Netflix's Kanye West documentary

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55883ddb6bb3f7c04ee023a0-1200-924/japan-japanese-flags-1.jpg" alt="japan japanese flags" border="0"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Issei Kato</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>A new paper "reaches the conclusion that less linguistically diverse countries tend to prosper," <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/06/johnson-multilingualism-and-social-attitudes">according to The Economist</a>.</p><p>The magazine cites the work of Bodo Steiner and Cong Wang, economists at the University of Southern Denmark, who explored the relationship between linguistic fragmentation and social capital in countries.</p><p>Social capital is kind of a sticky term, but the <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/programs/saguaro/about-social-capital">Harvard Kennedy School</a> defines it as such:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The central premise of social capital is that social networks have value. Social capital refers to the collective value of all 'social networks' [who people know] and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other ['norms of reciprocity'].</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The term social capital emphasizes not just warm and cuddly feelings, but a wide variety of quite specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks.</p><p>This includes things such as corruption, rule of law, prevalence of tax evasion, people joining religious or sports groups, "feelings of societal fairness," confidence in the government and press, etc. But the important thing to keep in mind is that countries will high levels of social capital tend to be richer.</p><p>So what Wang and Steiner found is that the number of languages spoken in a country is "significantly negatively correlated with social capital" - <strong>i.e., countries with high levels of social capital tend to be linguistically homogeneous.</strong></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">A new paper concludes that less linguistically diverse countries tend to prosper <a href="http://t.co/tO0gHznn8X">http://t.co/tO0gHznn8X</a> <a href="http://t.co/VtpArP1teE">pic.twitter.com/VtpArP1teE</a></p>- The Economist (@TheEconomist) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/612983581565186048">June 22, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><p>For real-life examples, you find that Japan, South Korea, and Italy are linguistically homogeneous and have high levels of social capital. Meanwhile, Uganda and India are the opposite.</p><p>The US is a bit of a strange case. True, you can find hundreds of languages spoken in the country (experts believe as many as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html">800 languages are spoken</a> in New York City alone). But English is still the dominant language for now.</p><p>"What practical conclusions can be drawn? In the case of immigration, linguistic assimilation is important: Whether or not immigrants and their children keep their old languages, they must master the languages of their new countries," The Economist said. "The host countries must create the kind of inclusive society that says that anyone putting the effort in will be welcome."</p><p>Of course, there are always exceptions. North Korea and Bangladesh are poor and linguistically homogeneous, while Switzerland has four languages but is rich. And then there is South Africa, which "does better than its multilingualism would predict."</p><p><a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/06/johnson-multilingualism-and-social-attitudes">Check out the full article at The Economist here</a>.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-displays-spread-european-language-europe-russia-asia-history-2015-3">This animated map shows how European languages evolved </a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="wwMjI2cjq9yWkT5MO7-968mt2D9V_wxN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'wwMjI2cjq9yWkT5MO7-968mt2D9V_wxN',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Countries that speak fewer languages are more prosperous

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/514718f5eab8ea8c5d000010-2304-3072/mariana-lander.jpeg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="mariana lander" width="400" /></div><p class="source"><a href="http://www.sams.ac.uk/news-room/news-items/highly-active-bacteria-communities-florish-in-deepest-oceanic-trench-on-earth/?searchterm=mariana%20trench">SAMS</a></p><p class="caption">An unmanned robot used onboard senors to measure oxygen consumption from the bottom of Mariana Trench in 2010</p></div>Researchers have found thriving microbial life at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest site on Earth. </p>
<p>The Mariana trench sits seven miles below sea level in the Pacific <keyword id="53745" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ocean">ocean</keyword>. It's a cold, dark, desolate <keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="environment">environment</keyword> long thought too harsh for life to exist.</p>
<p>But it turns out organisms can thrive at this incredible depth, according to a new study published Sunday, March 17, in the <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1773.html">journal Nature Geoscience</a>.</p>
<p>Sediment tested in the deep ocean trench revealed that it contains almost 10 times more bacteria than the sediments at a shallower, nearby site that's about 4 miles deep.</p>
<p>This is unexpected since the farther down you go, the less food you expect to find.</p>
<p>The microbes are able to survive on the remains of dead animals, algae and other microbes that float down the trench slopes, making it a surprisingly rich place for organic matter, scientists learned.</p>
<p>Scientists used an unmanned robot to measure the distribution of oxygen in trench sediment in 2010. S<span>ensors onboard the robot were inserted directly into the seabed</span> since samples can't be brought back to the surface because the microorganisms might die due to extreme changes in temperature and pressure. </p>
<p>In 2012, director James Cameron became the first person to visit the bottom of the trench in more than 50 years. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/video-from-james-camerons-deep-sea-dive-finds-new-species-2013-2">Footage from the deep-sea dive showed a few new species</a>, but it's still a rather barren environment.</p>
<p>Videos from the bottom of the Mariana Trench confirm that "there are very few large animals at these depths," <a href="http://www.sams.ac.uk/news-room/news-items/highly-active-bacteria-communities-florish-in-deepest-oceanic-trench-on-earth/?searchterm=mariana%20trench">lead researcher</a> <a href="http://www.sams.ac.uk/news-room/news-items/highly-active-bacteria-communities-florish-in-deepest-oceanic-trench-on-earth/?searchterm=mariana%20trench">Ronnie Glud from the University of Southern Denmark said in a statement</a><span>.</span> "Rather, we find a world dominated by microbes that are adapted to function effectively under conditions too inhospitable for most higher organisms.”</p>

Thriving Life Found At The Bottom Of Mariana Trench 

<p><div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/52374f72eab8ea3f308ca720-910-683/hangover-8.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="hangover" width="480" /><p class="source on-image">Flickr/KBoneva</p></div></div>No one enjoys the headaches, nausea, and sluggishness of a <keyword id="30705" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="hangover">hangover</keyword>. There seems to be a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/why-do-hangovers-seem-so-much-worse-we-get-older-1C9386920">general perception</a> that as people get older, their drinking stamina decreases.</p>
<p>However, a new study shows that older binge drinkers report less-frequent and less-severe hangovers.</p>
<p>Research on hangovers is usually centered around young people - college-aged partiers likely to consume more <keyword id="6359858" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="alcohol">alcohol</keyword> more often than older people.</p>
<p>The new study, published in the journal <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1530-0277">Alcoholism: Clinical &amp; Experimental Research</a><em>, </em>analyzed the hangovers of close to 52,000 participants of legal drinking age. The oldest participant was 94.</p>
<p>Participants in the survey were asked their typical alcohol consumption per week, of beer, wine, fortified wine, and spirits, and how often they took part in <keyword id="14741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="binge-drinking">binge drinking</keyword>, ranging from never to more than once a week.</p>
<p>In regards to hangovers, participants were asked how often they experienced thirst, exhaustion, headaches, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting after an episode of binge drinking. They found that older people drank less, but when they did binge drink they experienced fewer hangover symptoms.</p>
<p>You'd think the reason would be obvious: Older people drink less, so of course they experience fewer and less-severe hangovers. But the results were the same, even after accounting for the frequency of binge drinking, drinking with or without a meal, and drinking while smoking.</p>
<p>"While it is true that older individuals on average binge-drink less often than younger individuals, we did not find in our data that results were due to differences in drinking patterns," study researcher Janne Tolstrup, of the University of Southern Denmark, said in a <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-109539.html">press release</a>.</p>
<h3>So, why then?</h3>
<p>The scientists discussed four possible explanations for their results.</p>
<p>1. Binge drinking<strong> intensity decreases</strong> with age.</p>
<p>In a survey, 18- to 24-year-olds defined binge drinking as nine drinks. Those who are 65 years old and up defined binge drinking as only six drinks. This suggests that binge drinking intensity decreases with age. The study only examined the frequency of binge drinking, not the intensity.</p>
<p>2. Increased<strong> alcohol tolerance.</strong></p>
<p>Research shows that people can build up a tolerance for alcohol, so older drinkers can handle more drinks before they start feeling a hangover the next day.</p>
<p>3.<strong> Trial and error.</strong></p>
<p>Some people swear a bloody mary cures their hangover, for others it may be as simple as drinking a big glass of water before bed or popping an aspirin. As people age, many develop their own personal hangover prevention or morning-after cure, and this could be a possible explanation for why older people have an easier time after binge drinking - they know what works to feel better the morning after.</p>
<p>4.<strong> Natural selection.</strong></p>
<p>The scientists acknowledge that it may be possible that people who experience more severe hangovers simply give up and quit binge drinking as they grow older - essentially pruning the drinking tree.</p>
<p>There's still a lot of work to do to understand hangovers.</p>
<p>"While there have been tens of thousands of studies on the more direct effects of alcohol, there have only been fewer than 200 published papers on the hangover," Tolstrup <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/ace-odm090513.php" target="_blank">said in a press release</a>.</p>
<p>Cheers, to <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>!</p>

Hangovers Actually Get Better Later In Life

<p>The standard Western diet needs to be revamped.</p><p>Aside from eating more fruits and vegetables and less sugar, there are many less mainstream, misunderstood foods that we should be eating but are not.</p><p>Here's a short list of foods to considering putting on your plate, either for health, environmental, or economic reasons.</p><p><strong>1. Lionfish</strong></p><p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480a-1422/lionfish-2.jpg" alt="Lionfish" data-mce-source="Michael Bentley/Flickr" data-link="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35456872@N00/8350963742/in/photolist-dHWSzu-bkG8sp-dqzRtD-dqzRLT-dqzRcZ-fGvajc-aaCFKi-98JoJi-agjwPb-bbbJHx-cwf4tw-948Rzd-dTQCfn-abWDov-ad7x38-acxXMJ-acfPMJ-fHiDK6-9UcXyU-9TAx3v-8DJqUS-7zLadE-a5ZE5S-87jJyw-9ADnbQ-8Ch7J1-aB1qHd-azh2bS-azdoJZ-b5m1H8-aL6Nbi-asykfp-9AAskZ-abTGBQ-abTGDd-9UEkzt-cCt4oY-cCt4jq-cByZNQ-dKWuTL-fGMJM7" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35456872@N00/8350963742/in/photolist-dHWSzu-bkG8sp-dqzRtD-dqzRLT-dqzRcZ-fGvajc-aaCFKi-98JoJi-agjwPb-bbbJHx-cwf4tw-948Rzd-dTQCfn-abWDov-ad7x38-acxXMJ-acfPMJ-fHiDK6-9UcXyU-9TAx3v-8DJqUS-7zLadE-a5ZE5S-87jJyw-9ADnbQ-8Ch7J1-aB1qHd-azh2bS-azdoJZ-b5m1H8-aL6Nbi-asykfp-9AAskZ-abTGBQ-abTGDd-9UEkzt-cCt4oY-cCt4jq-cByZNQ-dKWuTL-fGMJM7">Michael Bentley/Flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Lionfish are native to the western Pacific Ocean but have found their way into the Caribbean, Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/lionfish-have-invaded-the-mediterranean-2016-6">and most recently, the Mediterranean</a>. Lionfish create chaos in those waters by devouring anything and everything in their path.</p><p>Experts blame the ocean invasion on a two-decade-old practice of dumping unwanted lionfish, previously kept in home aquariums, into the water.</p><p>The best way to control the lionfish population - which scientists say will continue to grow uncontrollably - is to eat them.</p><p>Although lionfish have venomous dorsal fins that can be painful to humans if stung, the meat is edible. It's tasty, too.</p><p>National Geographic <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/10/lionfish-gotta-eat-em-to-beat-em/" target="_blank">describes lionfish</a> as having "moist, buttery meat that is often compared to hogfish, one of the most popular reef fish served in restaurants."</p><p>Fishermen in Florida are <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/26/3709262/florida-starts-planning-to-attack.html" target="_blank">trying to build a commercial market for lionfish</a>, which are mostly caught in lobster traps. Divers can also spear the fish.</p><p>Following an aggressive "<a href="http://www.ccfhr.noaa.gov/docs/EatLionfishPullCard.pdf" target="_blank">Eat Lionfish</a>" campaign launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2010, many restaurants have started <a href="http://lionfish.co/eat-lionfish-here/" target="_blank">putting lionfish on their menus</a>. For home chefs, there's also a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lionfish-Cookbook-Tricia-Ferguson-Akins/dp/0615428924" target="_blank">Lionfish Cookbook</a>.</p><p><strong>2. Goat</strong></p><p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480b-892/shutterstock_94247731.jpg" alt="Goat meat" data-mce-source="tonfon/Shutterstock" data-link="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-899116p1.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-899116p1.html">tonfon/Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">Goat meat stew.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Goat is a staple of Middle Eastern and Asian countries where large herds can graze on mountainous pastures. Ounce-for-ounce, goat meat has less fat and calories than poultry, beef, or pork. But within the Western world, goat meat is still a rare sight in mainstream grocery stores.</p><p>"It's delicious, and it's inexpensive, but goat is like soccer in America. It's growing. We like it, but we don't get it," Andrew Zimmern, the host of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods," once explained to <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-01/entertainment/bs-fo-table-talk-zimmern-preview-20120501_1_foodie-experience-max-s-empanadas-portalli" target="_blank">The Baltimore Sun</a>.</p><p>Goats have long been perceived as the low-class animal of the agricultural world, according to J.J. Jones, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University.</p><p>"Up until the '90s, when you pictured a goat, you pictured one of the billy goats, with the horns standing on top your car hood, eating a tin can," he said.</p><p>Although the demand for goat meat has risen with a growth in US ethnic populations, it is still an underexploited meat. The United States Department of Agriculture <a href="http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/livestock/goats/meat-goats-profile/" target="_blank">doesn't even track US goat consumption</a>. One problem is that goats are not ideal for factory farming. A 70-pound goat will yield around 35 pounds of meat (50% of the animal) whereas a 1,100-pound beef cow will yield 700 pounds of meat (around 60% of the animal), said Jones, a farm owner.</p><p>There is also a perception that has to be changed. "People think of [goat] as an exotic meat," David Martin, the owner of a goat-meat distributor in Georgia <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21581748-why-dont-more-americans-eat-goat-kids-are-all-right" target="_blank">told The Economist</a>.</p><p>In taste, goat is similar to wild game such as deer. Goat meat is "neither buttery nor beef-tenderloin tender, but it offers a wider palette for culinary foreplay in the kitchen," <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-05/lifestyle/35416024_1_goat-meat-red-meat-pork-and-lamb">according to Washington Post writers Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein</a>.</p><p>You can grind it or eat the chops or loin.</p><p><strong>3. Bugs</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480c-2400/rtr3pg2m.jpg" alt="Mealworms and locusts food" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Michael Kooren" data-mce-caption="Wander Alblas ,18, student cook at the Rijn IJssel Vakschool holds a bowl as he prepares a Tjap Choi dish made of mealworms and locusts at the Cooking school at the University of Wageningen April 4, 2014." /><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Michael Kooren</span></p><p class="caption">A Tjap Choi dish made of mealworms and locusts.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Roughly 2 billion people around the world, mostly in tropical regions, consume insects as a viable protein source. But edible insects - like beetles, wasps, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and worms - have yet to shed their "yuck" factor in other parts of the globe.</p><p>In 2013, the <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e00.htm">United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported</a> that eating bugs could reduce world hunger (insects are easy to raise and there are lots of them), help the environment (insects use less water than pigs or cows and feed on waste materials), and provide a good source of nutrition (insects are packed with protein).</p><p>At home, there is growing interest in specialty items like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cricket-protein-bars-made-by-exo-2013-7" target="_blank">granola bars made with cricket flour</a>&amp; and scientists are working on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-edible-insects-2013-5#">creative recipes</a> to make insects more appetizing. Insect farming, however, is not a big business and "consumer disgust" is still a barrier to getting people to regularly eat insects.</p><p><strong>4. Beans</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480d-889/shutterstock_226518142.jpg" alt="Bean salad" data-mce-source="Goode Imaging/Shutterstock" data-link="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-892639p1.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-892639p1.html">Goode Imaging/Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">Five-bean salad.</p></div><p></p></div></div><br />Beans are cheap, easy to prepare, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/foods-with-a-long-shelf-life-2012-12#canned-or-dried-beans-7">have a long shelf-life</a>. Yet most Americans don't get enough of these nutrient-dense legumes in their diet, a panel of experts said in 2012 at the <a href="http://www.ift.org/Newsroom/News-Releases/2012/March/30/Beans-Pulses-Legumes.aspx?view=print&amp;page=viewall" target="_blank">Institute of Food Technologists' Wellness 12</a> meeting. British people are also losing their taste for baked beans. The volume consumed in the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> fell by around 8.3 million kilos (18.3 million pounds) in 2013, <a href="http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/categories/top-products-survey-2013/canned-food-has-beanz-heinz-hit-by-16m-sales-slump/352797.article">according to The Grocer</a>.</p><p>Edible dry beans include pinto beans, black beans, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), kidney beans, and many other varieties. A serving of dry beans is rich in B-vitamins, iron, calcium, fiber, protein, and is low in sodium and calories.</p><p>Beans are a unique food. Under the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, beans are listed as either a vegetable or a protein (with the exception of green beans which are grouped with other vegetables). Many consumers still don't realize that beans are a vegetable.</p><p>Consumption of white beans, like navy beans, Great Northern beans and lima, is now less than half of what it was in the 1960s, <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/vegetables-pulses/dry-beans.aspx#.UozN5JTwJgI" target="_blank">according to the USDA</a>. Nonwhite beans have followed a similar pattern.</p><p><strong>5. The Buffaloberry</strong></p><p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480e-889/shutterstock_262815749.jpg" alt="Buffaloberries" data-mce-source="BestPhotoStudio/Shutterstock" data-link="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-186589p1.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-186589p1.html">BestPhotoStudio/Shutterstock</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The buffaloberry - a slightly sour fruit that is roughly the size of a currant - could be the next "superfruit," according to researchers who published their findings in the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.12265/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Food Science</a>.</p><p>The little-known berry has historically been eaten by Native Americans and flourishes on the marginal lands of Indian reservations in North and South Dakota.</p><p>Research shows that the buffaloberry contains high amounts of lycopene, an antioxidant that appears to <a href="http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietandnutrition/lycopene" target="_blank">lower the risk of certain types of cancers</a>. Lycopene is one of the pigments that also gives tomatoes and bell peppers their deep red colors. According to the study, the lycopene content of buffaloberries tends to be "high in comparison to tomatoes and other commercially available fruit."</p><p>On top of the health benefits, buffaloberries can thrive pretty much anywhere (even in dry environments with poor soil quality), making it a potentially valuable food crop, according to the study.</p><p><strong>6. Seaweed</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b480f-889/shutterstock_307338299.jpg" alt="Seaweed salad" data-mce-source="successo images/Shutterstock" data-link="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-944431p1.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-944431p1.html">successo images/Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">Seaweed salad.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Sushi may be making steady strides on the Western dining scene, but seaweed consumption is still "minimal" compared to Asian countries, a study in the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224412000544" target="_blank">journal Trends in Food Science &amp; Technology</a> reported in 2012.</p><p>Our oceans are full of seaweed, the name for countless species of marine plants and algae. Although molecules from seaweed have traditionally been used as a thickening agent in food, the edible red, brown, and green varieties are gaining attention as a good source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, calcium, and protein. A popular red seaweed, better known as nori, can contain as much as 47% protein, according to a study published in the <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf201114d" target="_blank">Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry</a>. If prepared with just a light amount of olive oil, seaweed is also low in calories and fat.</p><p>Raw seaweed still isn't easy to find in the regular supermarket in the US or Britain, though the nutrient-dense food is increasingly being sold as a <a href="http://www.seasnax.com/" target="_blank">convenient dried or roasted snack</a>.</p><p>"There's a whole world of algae out there that can be developed," Ole Mouritsen, a professor from the University of Southern Denmark <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17870743" target="_blank">told BBC News</a>. In 2011, Mouritsen authored a <a href="http://www.flavourjournal.com/content/1/1/4">study describing new ways to enhance the flavor of seaweed</a> as the product finds its way into Western cuisine.</p><p>There are some concerns about arsenic in seaweed, namely hijiki, a type of seaweed that is distinguished by its <a href="https://www.fsai.ie/faq/hijiki_seaweed.html" target="_blank">black and shredded appearance</a> and is not used in rolling sushi.</p><p><strong>7. Fruit and vegetable skins</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5774f42add0895bb3e8b4810-1000/shutterstock_407645902.jpg" alt="Kiwi" data-mce-source="romantitov/Shutterstock" data-link="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3561107p1.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3561107p1.html">romantitov/Shutterstock</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The skin, cores, or stalks of fruits and vegetables - parts that we normally throw away - can be full of nutrients. Take the hairy skin of a kiwifruit, which is completely edible and "contains three times the anti­oxidants of the pulp," according to Marilyn Glenville, former president of the Food and Health Forum at the Royal Society of ­Medicine.</p><p>Glenville <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1325741/Eating-skin-fruit-vegetables-combat-cancer.html" target="_blank">told The Daily Mail</a> that the brown fuzz "also fights off bugs such as Staphylococcus and E-coli, which are responsible for food poisoning."</p><p>To make the skin easier to eat (it is slightly tart and some people might not like the texture), the <a href="http://www.kiwifruit.org/about/faqs.aspx" target="_blank">California Kiwifruit Commission</a> suggests leaving the skin on and slicing the fruit into thin pieces, so you only get a small amount of skin with each bite.</p><p>Potato skins, orange peels (an unpeeled orange can be thrown into a juicer), and broccoli stalks are also good sources of nutrition.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stegosaurus-bite-sheep-cow-dinosaur-natural-history-2016-6">Scientists just found out the Stegosaurus had a bite like a sheep</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RsM2k0NDE6Ya49Rx-zNwJPVWLC9V9K2W" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'RsM2k0NDE6Ya49Rx-zNwJPVWLC9V9K2W',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

7 foods we should be eating but are not

<p>The standard American <keyword id="6358230" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="diet">diet</keyword> needs to be revamped. Aside from <keyword id="6370402" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="eating">eating</keyword> more fruits and vegetables and less sugar, there are many less mainstream (and often misunderstood) foods that we should be eating - either for <keyword id="6354750" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">health</keyword>, environmental, or economic reasons - but are not.</p>
<p>Here's a short list.</p>
<p><strong>1. Lionfish</strong></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/527ab05ceab8eaad6a5cceb8-1200-924/lionfish-3.jpg?maxX=800" border="0" alt="Lionfish" width="800" /><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35456872@N00/8350963742/in/photolist-dHWSzu-bkG8sp-dqzRtD-dqzRLT-dqzRcZ-fGvajc-aaCFKi-98JoJi-agjwPb-bbbJHx-cwf4tw-948Rzd-dTQCfn-abWDov-ad7x38-acxXMJ-acfPMJ-fHiDK6-9UcXyU-9TAx3v-8DJqUS-7zLadE-a5ZE5S-87jJyw-9ADnbQ-8Ch7J1-aB1qHd-azh2bS-azdoJZ-b5m1H8-aL6Nbi-asykfp-9AAskZ-abTGBQ-abTGDd-9UEkzt-cCt4oY-cCt4jq-cByZNQ-dKWuTL-fGMJM7">Michael Bentley/Flickr</a></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Lionfish are native to the western Pacific Ocean, but have found their way into the Caribbean, Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico, creating chaos in those waters by devouring anything and everything in its path.</p>
<p>The best way to control the lionfish population - which scientists say will continue to grow uncontrollably - is to eat them.</p>
<p>The red-and-white-striped fish are prized in the aquarium trade. Experts blame the ocean invasion on a two-decade-old practice of dumping unwanted aquarium fish into the water. Although lionfish have venomous dorsal fins that can be painful to humans if stung, the meat is edible. It's tasty, too.</p>
<p>National Geographic <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/10/lionfish-gotta-eat-em-to-beat-em/" target="_blank">describes lionfish</a> as having "moist, buttery meat that is often compared to hogfish, one of the most popular reef fish served in restaurants."</p>
<p>Fishermen in Florida are <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/26/3709262/florida-starts-planning-to-attack.html" target="_blank">trying to build a commercial market for lionfish</a>, which are mostly caught in lobster traps. Divers can also spear the fish.</p>
<p>Following an aggressive "<a href="http://www.ccfhr.noaa.gov/docs/EatLionfishPullCard.pdf" target="_blank">Eat Lionfish</a>" campaign launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2010, many restaurants have started <a href="http://lionfish.co/eat-lionfish-here/" target="_blank">putting lionfish on their menus</a>. For home chefs, there's also a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lionfish-Cookbook-Tricia-Ferguson-Akins/dp/0615428924" target="_blank">Lionfish Cookbook</a>.</p>
<p><strong>2. Goat</strong></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/527ab241eab8eac76d5cceb0-1200-924/goat-meat.jpg" border="0" alt="goat meat" width="800" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;" /><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/39718079@N00/267037504/sizes/l/in/photolist-pACWU-pAD6h-pADdn-sertV-uGnEj-EJkBE-27vkgG-2PE12T-34M3Wm-34RYgb-3fwsi4-3fwsia-3gzdvU-3U878g-4eLYrR-4eLYLp-4eLZE2-4eM2bp-4eM3Nt-4eM5hV-4eM8et-4eM8Zv-4eM9YP-4eQXxY-4eR1HS-4eR2WQ-4eR4e1-4eR5Gy-4jq4hH-4u6ZKN-4xwQWX-4xB34J-57Caw4-57Cbr2-57CbFR-57CcH2-57GkLw-57Gmbo-57Gnmd-57GnZ5-5cMcAC-5zV1GP-5E5KdK-5E5L98-5GNA3j-5P6qGx-5YN8tP-61j5LQ-61Us3V-666QQc-6oFQ8d/">David Blaine/Flickr</a></p><p class="caption">Apricot-glazed goat chops</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Goat is the most widely-consumed red meat in the world, a staple of Middle Eastern and Asian counties where large herds can graze on mountainous pastures. Ounce-for-ounce, goat meat has less fat and calories than poultry, beef, or pork. But within the United States, goat meat is still a rare sight in mainstream grocery stores.</p>
<p>As Andrew Zimmern, the host of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods," explained to <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-01/entertainment/bs-fo-table-talk-zimmern-preview-20120501_1_foodie-experience-max-s-empanadas-portalli" target="_blank">The Baltimore Sun</a> last May: "It's delicious, and it's inexpensive, but goat is like soccer in <keyword id="20819" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="America">America</keyword>. It's growing. We like it, but we don't get it."</p>
<p>Goats have long been perceived as the low-class animal of agricultural world, according to J.J. Jones, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University."Up until the '90s, when you pictured a goat, you pictured one of the billy goats, with the horns standing on top your car hood, eating a tin can," he said.</p>
<p>Although the demand for goat meat has risen with a growth in U.S. ethnic populations, it's still an underexploited meat. (The United States Department of Agriculture <a href="http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/livestock/goats/meat-goats-profile/" target="_blank">doesn't even track U.S. goat consumption</a>). One problem is that goats are not ideal for factory farming. A 70-pound goat will yield around 35 pounds of meat (50% of the animal), whereas a 1,100-pound beef cow will yield 700 pounds of meat (around 60% of the animal), says Jones, who has his own farm.</p>
<p>There's also a perception that has to be changed. "People think of [goat] as an exotic meat," David Martin, the owner of a goat-meat distributor in Georgia <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21581748-why-dont-more-americans-eat-goat-kids-are-all-right" target="_blank">told The Economist</a>.</p>
<p>In taste, goat is similar to wild game such as deer. <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-05/lifestyle/35416024_1_goat-meat-red-meat-pork-and-lamb">According to Washington Post writers</a> Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein, goat meat is "neither buttery nor beef-tenderloin tender, but it offers a wider palette for culinary foreplay in the kitchen."</p>
<p>You can grind it, or eat the chops or loin.</p>
<p><strong>3. Bugs</strong></p>
<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/528bad38ecad04230a1544b2-1200-924/eating-insects-locusts-in-olive-oil.jpg" border="0" alt="Eating Insects locusts in olive oil" width="800" /><p class="source">REUTERS/Francois Lenoir</p></div><p></p></div></strong> Roughly two billion people around the world, mostly in tropical regions, consume insects as a viable protein source. But in the United States, edible insects like beetles, wasps, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and worms, have yet to shed their "yuck" factor.</p>
<p>In May of this year, the United Nations <keyword id="6181" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Food">Food</keyword> and Agriculture Organization <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e00.htm" target="_blank">reported</a> that eating bugs could reduce world hunger (insects are easy to raise and there are lots of them), help the environment (insects use less water than pigs or cows and feed on waste materials), and provide a good source of nutrition (insects are packed with protein).</p>
<p>At home, there is growing interest in specialty items like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cricket-protein-bars-made-by-exo-2013-7" target="_blank">granola bars made with cricket flour</a> and scientists are working on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-edible-insects-2013-5#">creative recipes</a> to make insects more appetizing. Insect farming, however, is not a big business and "consumer disgust" is still a barrier to getting Americans to regularly eat insects.</p>
<p><strong>4. Beans</strong></p>
<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/528baca669bedde65b64fadb-800-536/bean-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Beans" width="800" /><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58545726@N02/5684475596/in/photolist-9EjqxW-9EgvEt-a6vqf7-a6vpL3-cpkvJq-e1X6X4-9NoDvZ-cYAios-f6Gue8-8mrLZU-8moFQx-cFPKKo-f3yyGA-8vHu2t-9kZuw2-9m3yzb-cq3Fwj-9QSdAY-9XD791-9XJXrA-bAhcPQ-cF42tN-8moBdT-7Ctux3-cAfCth-8nsTbb-dQzwM1-8dT4Lg-91uT8G-9dU7Xx-cxKVQd">cookbookman17/Flickr</a></p></div><p></p></div></strong>Beans are cheap, easy to prepare, and <a href="%20http://www.businessinsider.com/foods-with-a-long-shelf-life-2012-12#canned-or-dried-beans-7">have a long shelf-life</a>. Yet most Americans don't get enough of these nutrient-dense legumes in their diet, a panel of experts said last year at the <a href="http://www.ift.org/Newsroom/News-Releases/2012/March/30/Beans-Pulses-Legumes.aspx?view=print&amp;page=viewall" target="_blank">Institute of Food Technologists' Wellness 12</a> meeting.</p>
<p>Edible dry beans include pinto beans, black beans, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), kidney beans, and many other varieties. A serving of dry beans is rich in B-vitamins, iron, calcium, fiber, protein, and is low in sodium and calories.</p>
<p>Beans are a unique food. Under the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, beans are listed as either a vegetable or a protein (with the exception of green beans which are grouped with other vegetables). Many consumers still don't realize that beans are a vegetable.</p>
<p>Consumption of white beans, like navy beans, Great Northern beans and lima, is now less than half of what it was in the 1960s, <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/vegetables-pulses/dry-beans.aspx#.UozN5JTwJgI" target="_blank">according to the USDA</a>. Nonwhite beans have followed a similar pattern.</p>
<p><strong>5. The Buffaloberry</strong></p>
<p class="full"><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/528ba472eab8ea9a181544b9-1200-924/buffaloberryjpg-2.jpg" border="0" alt="buffaloberry.JPG" width="800" /><p class="source">Neil Reese, South Dakota State University</p></div><p></p></div></strong></p>
<p>The buffaloberry - a slightly sour fruit that is roughly the size of a currant - could be the next "superfruit," according to researchers who recently published their findings in the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.12265/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Food Science</a>.</p>
<p>The little-known berry has historically been eaten by Native Americans and flourishes on the marginal lands of Indian reservations in North and South Dakota.</p>
<p>New research shows that the buffaloberry contains high amounts of lycopene, an antioxidant that appears to <a href="http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietandnutrition/lycopene" target="_blank">lower the risk of certain types of cancers</a>. Lycopene is one of the pigments that also gives tomatoes and bell peppers their deep red colors. According to the study, the lycopene content of buffaloberries tends to be "high in comparison to tomatoes and other commercially available fruit."</p>
<p>On top of the health benefits, buffaloberries can thrive pretty much anywhere (even in dry environments with poor soil quality), making it a potentially valuable food crop, according to the study.</p>
<p><strong>6. Seaweed</strong></p>
<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/528bab916da811926862580f-1200-800/seaweed-6.jpg" border="0" alt="seaweed" width="800" /><p class="source">Ken Hawkins/Flickr</p></div><p></p></div></strong></p>
<p>Sushi may be making steady strides on the American <keyword id="99696" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dining">dining</keyword> scene, but seaweed consumption is still "minimal" compared to Asian countries, a study in the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224412000544" target="_blank">journal Trends in Food Science &amp; Technology</a> reported in 2012.</p>
<p>Our oceans are full of seaweed, the name for countless species of marine plants and algae. Although molecules from seaweed have traditionally been used as a thickening agent in food, the edible red, brown, and green varieties are gaining attention as a good source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, calcium, and protein. A popular red seaweed, better known as nori, can contain as much as 47% protein, according to a study published in the <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf201114d" target="_blank">Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry</a>. If prepared with just a light amount of olive oil, seaweed is also low in calories and fat.</p>
<p>Raw seaweed still isn't easy to find in the regular supermarket here in the U.S., though the nutrient-dense food is increasingly being sold as a <a href="http://www.seasnax.com/" target="_blank">convenient dried or roasted snack</a>.</p>
<p>"There's a whole world of algae out there that can be developed," Ole Mouritsen, a professor from the University of Southern Denmark <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17870743" target="_blank">told BBC News</a>. In 2011, Mouritsen authored a <a href="http://www.flavourjournal.com/content/1/1/4" target="_blank">study</a> describing new ways to enhance the flavor of seaweed as the product finds its way into Western cuisine.</p>
<p>There are some concerns about <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CCsQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.food.gov.uk%2Fscience%2Fresearch%2Fsurveillance%2Ffsis2004branch%2Ffsis6104&amp;ei=9M-LUprEHKLA4AOSuYHoCA&amp;usg=AFQjCNEWxFEW5rDyedF6wQzObzmBILtZ2w&amp;bvm=bv.56643336,d.dmg" target="_blank">arsenic in seaweed</a>, namely hijiki, a type of seaweed that is distinguished by its <a href="https://www.fsai.ie/faq/hijiki_seaweed.html" target="_blank">black and shredded appearance</a> and is not used in rolling sushi.</p>
<p><strong>7. Fruit and vegetable skins</strong></p>
<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/528ba71c6da811af58625817-1200-924/kiwi-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Kiwi" width="800" /><p class="source">Kyle McDonald/Flickr</p></div><p></p></div></strong>The skin, cores, or stalks of fruits and vegetables - parts that we normally throw away - can be full of nutrients. Take the hairy skin of a kiwifruit, which is completely edible and "contains three times the anti­oxidants of the pulp," according to Marilyn Glenville, former president of the Food and Health Forum at the Royal Society of ­Medicine.</p>
<p>Glenville <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1325741/Eating-skin-fruit-vegetables-combat-cancer.html" target="_blank">told The Daily Mail</a> that the brown fuzz "also fights off bugs such as Staphylococcus and E-coli, which are responsible for food poisoning."</p>
<p>To make the skin easier to eat (it is slightly tart and some people might not like the texture), the <a href="http://www.kiwifruit.org/about/faqs.aspx" target="_blank">California Kiwifruit Commission</a> suggests leaving the skin on and slicing the fruit into thin pieces, so you only get a small amount of skin with each bite.</p>
<p>Potato skins, orange peels (an unpeeled orange can be thrown into a juicer), and broccoli stalks are also good sources of nutrition.</p>

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