The bioactive materials in brown seaweeds hold great interest for developing new drugs and healthy foods. The oil content in brown seaweeds (Saccharina japonica and Sargassum horneri) was extracted by using environmentally friendly supercritical CO₂ (SC-CO₂) with ethanol as a co-solvent in a semi-batch flow extraction process and compared the results with a conventional extraction process using hexane, ethanol, and acetone mixed with methanol (1:1, v/v). The SC-CO₂ method was used at a temperature of 45 °C and pressure of 250 bar. The flow rate of CO₂ (27 g/min) was constant for the entire extraction period of 2 h. The obtained oil from the brown seaweeds was analyzed to determine their valuable compounds such as fatty acids, phenolic compounds, fucoxanthin and biological properties including antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antihypertension effects. The amounts of fucoxanthin extracted from the SC-CO₂ oils of S. japonica and S. horneri were 0.41 ± 0.05 and 0.77 ± 0.07 mg/g, respectively. High antihypertensive activity was detected when using mixed acetone and methanol, whereas the phenolic content and antioxidant property were higher in the oil extracted by SC-CO₂. The acetone–methanol mix extracts exhibited better antimicrobial activities than those obtained by other means. Thus, the SC-CO₂ extraction process appears to be a good method for obtaining valuable compounds from both brown seaweeds, and showed stronger biological activity than that obtained by the conventional extraction process.

Contamination of agricultural products and foods by aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) is becoming a serious global problem, and the presence of AFB₁ in edible oil is frequent and has become inevitable, especially in underdeveloped countries and regions. As AFB₁ results from a possible degradation of aflatoxins and the interaction of the resulting toxic compound with food components, it could cause chronic disease or severe cancers, increasing morbidity and mortality. Therefore, rapid and reliable detection methods are essential for checking AFB₁ occurrence in foodstuffs to ensure food safety. Recently, new biosensor technologies have become a research hotspot due to their characteristics of speed and accuracy. This review describes various technologies such as chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques, ELISA techniques, and biosensing techniques, along with their advantages and weaknesses, for AFB₁ control in edible oil and provides new insight into AFB₁ detection for future work. Although compared with other technologies, biosensor technology involves the cross integration of multiple technologies, such as spectral technology and new nano materials, and has great potential, some challenges regarding their stability, cost, etc., need further studies.

This study aims to explore the impact of aging on skin elasticity, a key biomechanical property that diminishes over time, using the Cutometer to assess viscoelastic parameters. Methods: Researchers analyzed 22 viscoelastic parameters from the facial skin of 60 women aged 18 to 70. Key Results: The findings indicate that relaxation phase parameters, particularly biological elasticity (R7), exhibited the strongest negative correlation with age (r = −0.62), signifying a notable decline in biological elasticity as women age. In contrast, maximum deformation during the first cycle (R0) and the total area under the upper curve after 10 cycles of deformation (F4) also showed significant negative correlations with age (r = −0.47, r = −0.48), suggesting that younger skin typically presents higher values. These correlations raise questions regarding practical applications, as the presence of moisturizers and emollients may alter the stratum corneum’s properties, thus impacting these measurements. Additionally, the ratio of delayed deformation to instantaneous deformation (R6) demonstrated a positive correlation with age (r = 0.49), indicating its potential as a marker for skin aging. Conclusions: This study highlights the critical role of relaxation phase parameters in accurately reflecting skin elasticity changes associated with aging. The results offer valuable insights for evaluating cosmetic efficacy, reinforcing the need for a nuanced understanding of how various parameters interact. These findings contribute to the ongoing development of more effective anti-aging treatments and products.

In the recent years, edible brown seaweed,Undaria pinnatifida, has presented beneficial effects, which may be correlated with this species containing major bioactive compounds, such as carotenoids, fatty acids, and phytosterols. Marine carotenoid fucoxanthin is abundantly present in edibleUndaria pinnatifidaand features strong bioactive activities. The stem ofUndaria pinnatifidais very hard to gnaw off and cannot be swallowed; therefore, it is usually discarded as waste, making it an environmental issue. Hence, making full use of the waste stem ofUndaria pinnatifidais an urgent motivation. The present study aims to explore the optimal preparation technology of fucoxanthin fromUndaria pinnatifidastems using supercritical carbon dioxide methods and provides approaches for the extraction and preparation of bioactive compounds from a waste seaweed part. With the comprehensive optimization conditions applied in this study, the experimental yield of fucoxanthin agreed closely with the predicted value by > 99.3%. The potential of α-amylase and glucoamylase to inhibit bioactive compounds was evaluated. The results demonstrated that the inhibition activity (IC₅₀value) of α-amylase (0.1857 ± 0.0198 μg/ml) and glucoamylase (0.1577 ± 0.0186 μg/ml) varied with extraction conditions due to the different contents of bioactive components in the extract, especially fucoxanthin (22.09 ± 0.69 mg/g extract). Therefore, this study confirmed supercritical fluid extraction technology to be a useful sample preparation method, which can effectively be used to prepare fucoxanthin from waste marine resources. This method can potentially be applied in functional food and related industries.

Stems of brown seaweed Undaria pinnatifida are not often used because they are too difficult to masticate. This study used conventional liquid solvent extraction methods and supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) fluid extraction to investigate the yields of various bioactive compounds in Undaria pinnatifida stems. The enzymatic (α-amylase and glucoamylase) inhibitor activities of the extracts were also examined. The SC-CO2 with ethanol extraction produced high amounts of phenolic and flavonoid compounds, fucoxanthin, epicatechin, and gallic acid. Also, the extracts obtained by SC-CO2 with ethanol exhibited the most potent inhibitor of α-amylase and glucoamylase among all the extracts studied, perhaps because of the high content of fucoxanthin. These results suggest that stems of Undaria pinnatifida could have value as a raw material to extract these bioactive substances.