PHSC 12200 Chemistry of Food and Cooking

Information on food science and technology, health and nutrition and other topics may be found in newspapers, television, and radio, as well as all over the internet.  The accuracy, level of detail and quality of information  varies among sources. The following are few good quality sources for news about food and related matters.

The Salt:  What's on Your Plate (NPR) 

Science Daily 

The Scientist  (use the search feature to explore topics)

To follow up in the scientific literature and find original research reports, you will need to look for clues.  You should note if there is a particular journal title mentioned (e.g., "In this week's Science..."), if an institution is given (e.g., "Researchers at the University of Chicago...), or if a particular person is named (e,g,m Dr. Francis S. Collins).  Using these clues, you can search in a scientific articles database, look at the website of the journal or search the news section of  a university website to try to find the original reference.

Scientific references vary from journal to journal, but usually you will see the following elements:  author, journal name (or abbreviation), volume and/or year of publication, inclusive pages numbers.  Other elements may include an article title, issue number, digital object identifer (DOI) and/or URL (for online versions).

In order to read a scientific paper, it helps to understand the different parts of the article, the purpose of each part and the information contained in the different parts. 

How to Read a Scientific Paper - a PDF tutorial from Purdue University LIbraries

Parts of a scientific paper (Nature)