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This article discusses the discovery of phosphorescent lithopone on watercolor drawings by American artist John La Farge dated between 1890 and 1905 and the history of lithopone in the pigment industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite having many desirable qualities for use in white watercolor or oil paints, the development of lithopone as an artists’ pigment was hampered by its tendency to darken in sunlight. Its availability to, and adoption by, artists remain unclear, as colormen's trade catalogs were generally not explicit in describing white pigments as containing lithopone. Further, lithopone may be mistaken for lead white during visual examination and its short-lived phosphorescence can be easily missed by the uninformed observer. Phosphorescent lithopone has been documented on only one other work-to-date: a watercolor by Van Gogh. In addition to the history of lithopone's manufacture, the article details the mechanism for its phosphorescence and its identification aided by Raman spectroscopy and spectrofluorimetry.

For a review published in 2023 in the journal Environmental Pollution, researchers examined E171 as a possible factor promoting obesity-related metabolic disorders. Because gut microbiota play an important role in immune function maintenance and development, and because titanium dioxide as a food additive has been shown to alter gut microbiota, researchers wanted to review “the dysregulations along the gut microbiota-immune system axis after oral TiO2 exposure compared to those reported in obese or diabetic patients, and to highlight potential mechanisms by which foodborne TiO2 nanoparticles may increase the susceptibility to develop obesity-related metabolic disorders.” The study authors discovered recurrent changes in the gut microbiota composition when exposed to titanium dioxide nanoparticles, with an imbalance of intestinal symbiotic microbiota. These changes and imbalances were also reported and played a role in the development of obesity, the authors wrote. This highlights “foodborne TiO2 nanoparticles as an endocrine disruptor-like chemical promoting obesity-related disorders,” the authors concluded.

Overall, the Food Directorate's comprehensive review of the available science of TiO₂ as a food additive showed: