Two new vegetable fatty acids found
WASHINGTON - American and Chinese scientists have discovered two new fatty acids in vegetable oils, potentially to be developed as high-quality lubricants.
The study published last month in the journal Nature Plants revealed that two acids, Nebraskanic acid and Wuhanic acid, made up nearly half of the seed oil found in Chinese violet cress, and named them after their discoverers, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Huazhong Agricultural University in China.
"People thought maybe they'd found everything there was to find," said Nebraska's Ed Cahoon, a George Holmes University Professor of biochemistry who co-authored the paper. "It's been at least several decades since somebody has discovered a new component of vegetable oil like this."
