A chemical reaction that gives food flavour could have helped evolution, one study suggests. According to New Scientist, the Maillard reaction is when the temperature between sugars and amino acids rises above approximately 140°C. It often occurs in food such as toasted bread, meats and roasted vegetables. Caroline Peacock at the University of Leeds wanted to explore whether it could happen at lower temperatures. To do this, scientists added iron or manganese minerals to a solution made up of sugar glucose and the amino acid glycine. When the substance was incubated at 10°C, the process was sped up by around 100 times. The temperature is said to be similar to the seabed at the edges of continents. Peacock and the team discovered that the Maillard reaction also occurs on the ocean floor, where iron and manganese minerals are often found. If this is the case, it could cause the carbon in sugars and amino acids to be stored in "large, complex polymers that microbes find harder to ingest," Peacock said, as per the publication. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "If you can get your carbon through the 1-metre danger zone [at the top of the sea floor], where carbon generally is attacked and degraded and turned back into carbon dioxide by microbes, that will lock it away from the atmosphere," she explained. The team estimated that the minerals could lock away roughly 4 million tonnes of carbon every year. If this process didn't exist, the atmosphere could have warmed by a further 5°C over the past 400 million years, the study suggested. "This process has such a profound impact on atmospheric oxygen," she says. "Because complex life forms require higher levels of oxygen, as they’re more energetically demanding, we think it’s reasonable to surmise this process had a hand in creating conditions required for complex life." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Russia is set to ban iPhones for government officials and state employees after accusing Apple of helping the US government conduct espionage operations. Government officials at Russia’s trade ministry will be banned from using iPhones and other Apple products for “work purposes” from July 17, the Financial Times reported. The trade ministry’s ban includes emailed correspondence relating to work activities, said its deputy head Vasily Osmako. The digital development ministry said it will follow suit, while state-owned company Rostec, which is under Western sanctions, said it has already introduced a ban on Apple products. It comes after the Kremlin told officials to stop using Apple products in March, citing fears they were vulnerable to US hacking. “Officials truly believe that Americans can use their equipment for wiretapping,” Andrey Soldatov, a Russia security and intelligence services expert, told the Financial Times. Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed in June it had uncovered a “spying operation by US intelligence agencies using Apple devices”. However, the FSB provided no evidence. The security service claimed several thousand iPhones with Russian SIM cards or registered with Moscow diplomatic missions in Nato countries were “infected” with monitoring software that indicated Apple’s “close co-operation” with the US National Security Agency. “Everyone in the presidential administration is aware that the iPhone is a completely transparent device and its use for official purposes is unacceptable and prohibited,” Dmitry Peskov, president Putin’s spokesperson, said last month. Apple has denied working with US intelligence services. The tech company said it “has never worked with any government to build a backdoor into any Apple product, and never will”. The ban will not impact regular consumers. Apple pulled out of Russia following last year’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Apple products continue to be imported to Russia from other countries. Read More Calls for security review after Briton arrested in Germany accused of spying for Russia Huawei: Why are western governments worried about China's technology powerhouse? Privacy: Why the iPhone battery spying trick shows that everyone needs to care about being snooped on