whether with smokiness and a whiff of vanilla or a spicy character with hints of caramel and now the emerging chemistry of brown spirits is proving that they have distinct chemical signatures to match the complex combinations of grains barrels aging and other
Though the ratios of grains used to make them differ significantly bourbons and rye whiskeys made in the same distillery developed chemical signatures that looked more like each other than those of bourbons and rye whiskeys respectively of another producer.
In some cases there's a distillery fingerprint that overrides the difference in the grains he said.
Liu and colleagues recommended several strategies including raising public awareness improving storage systems mechanizing the harvest of grains
and other grass species. Sorghum is not only a food and feed cereal crop but also can be used as the basis of biofuel.
Sorghum is in the same family as rice (Oryza sativa) wheat (Triticum aestivumlinn) and maize (Zea mays) and it is expected to play an increasingly important role in feeding the world's growing population.
Furthermore sorghum's special features such as a small diploid genome and phenotypic diversity make it an ideal C4 grass model.
By conducting whole-genome sequencing the team obtained the genomic data of 44 sorghum lines to represent all major races of cultivated grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in addition to its progenitors and the allopatric Asian species S. propinquum.
The analysis indicated that sorghum possesses a diverse primary gene pool but with decreased diversity in both landrace and improved groups.
This is another significant breakthrough made by BGI on population genomics research after rice soybean and maize.
and the origins of Chinas bamboosafrican mountain bamboos are something of a mystery as nearly all bamboos are found in Asia or South america.
just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant panda there are apparently only 2 species and they had not been examined in very great detail except by the gorillas see image.
It had been thought that they were very closely related to the hundreds of similar bamboos in Asia
As flowering in bamboos is such a rare event spreading by seed takes a very long time
and possibly could even be remnants of the earliest temperate bamboos which spread to Asia on drifting tectonic plates.
A new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys studies the diversity and evolution of African bamboo.
Having studied bamboos in The himalayas extensively and edited the descriptions of all the bamboos of China for the Flora of China Project of Academia Sinica
and Missouri Botanical gardens Dr Chris Stapleton turned his attention to the bamboos of Africa. He found that the features of the mountain bamboos were significantly different to those of Asia
and together with the large geographic separation the differences were sufficient for the recognition of 2 new African genera now named Bergbambos and Oldeania after their local names in the Afrikaans and Maasai languages.
The species are now Bergbambos tessellata and Oldeania alpina. DNA had been extracted from these bamboos and examined on several occasions
but the results of analyses were variable and could not prove a close relationship to any of the bamboos of Asia.
What is clear when looking at all the DNA results together is that the African bamboos represent two separate lineages
and neither can be included in any known Asian genus. Earlier work on the global distribution of bamboos has shown that bamboos evolved in the southern hemisphere on a landmass called Gondwanaland parts
of which spread apart to form South america Africa and Asia when it broke up as a result of continental drift the slow movement of tectonic plates On earth's surface.
The incredible variety of temperate bamboos in China is thought to be a result of the early bamboos spreading out from either Africa
and allowed the hitchhiking bamboos to jump across into new territory. The features and DNA of the African bamboos are certainly different to those of East asia
but it is still not clear whether they are really different enough to represent ancestors of all the Asian bamboos.
It will be necessary to hunt out and study mountain bamboos of Sri lanka and Madagascar and to include them in a broader analysis to be sure.
From this review however it looks as though African bamboos evolved about the same time as the bamboos of E Asia.
The miriad temperate bamboos of China are more likely to have been a gift from India rather than another'Out of Africa'story
but further work is needed to be sure. What is clear is that Africa has two more endemic genera
and the bamboos are seen to be as unique as the animals that depend upon them. Story Source:
Using coal waste from the site of a former colliery in Nottinghamshire as a substrate the researchers grew rapeseed flax sugar beet and maize with different additives:
and found 13 of the species consumed some form of fruit including a variety of berries legumes nuts and grains.
and his colleagues'efforts to fully sequence the genome--think genetic blueprint--of common wheat. Wheat is the only major food plant not to have sequenced its genome.
Researchers were able to study sequenced segments of the common wheat genome and look for a naturally occurring resistance gene.
When food was plentiful gemsbok specialised exclusively on grasses and more ephemeral succulent species. In contrast springboks fed on a higher proportion of shrubs and trees than grasses and succulent plants irrespective of environmental conditions.
As the researchers expected springbok opportunistically adjusted their diet in response to variation in food sources availabilities preferring e g. grass sprouts during the wet season and browsing predominantly on leaves of bushes when grass quality decreased during drought.
or various grass residues such as corn stover and sugarcane bagasse do not compete and can be a sustainable source for biofuel.
These new insights published this week online in Science Express can now be used to screen natural populations of energy crops such as poplar eucalyptus switchgrass or other grass species for a nonfunctional CSE gene.
and a mechanistic model to see how maize and wheat crops in South africa--the world's ninth largest maize producer and Sub-saharan africa's second largest source of wheat--would fare under climate change in the years 2046 to 2065.
Under the hotter wetter conditions projected by the climate scenarios they used the empirical model estimated that maize production could drop by 3. 6 percent
while wheat output could increase by 6. 2 percent. Meanwhile the mechanistic model calculated that maize
and wheat yields might go up by 6 5 and 15.2 percent respectively. In addition the empirical model estimated that suitable land for growing wheat would drop by 10 percent
The researchers cite previous studies that suggest climate change will reduce South african maize and wheat yields by 28 to 30 percent--according to empirical studies.
For the first time the consequences of various extreme climate events on forests bogs grass landscapes and arable areas throughout the world underwent systematic scrutiny.
In addition to Graven and Ralph Keeling Science paper co-authors include Stephen Piper Lisa Welp and Jonathan Bent of SIO;
and vegetables low-fat dairy products and whole grains while minimizing saturated and total fat they conclude.
#Weeds threaten carbon offset programsresearchers have identified gamba grass and other invasive weeds as a potential threat to landholder involvement in environmental offset programs such as the Carbon Farming Initiative.
But when native savannas are invaded by weeds such as gamba grass fuel loads are increased dramatically and fires can burn up to five times hotter than a native wildfire Dr Adams said.
We examined the spatial and financial extent of the threat of gamba grass and found that 75%of the area across northern Australia suitable for savanna burning is also highly suitable for gamba grass.
There's a large disparity between the profits generated from savanna burning--$1. 92 per hectare --and the costs of managing gamba grass--$40 per hectare--meaning that much more savanna needs to be enrolled for carbon farming to cover the costs of weed eradication.
The good news is that in the Northern territory only about 20%of properties that could run profitable savanna burning programs had gamba grass
and of these about 16%had small infestations. A one-off investment of $200000 would eradicate these infestations
Rain will lead to build up of grasses that dry out in the summer heat and become fuel for fires.
The surge of rain-coaxed grasses greening is their prompt to depart. But now researchers are able to take that data
or pizza than for whole grains and leafy green vegetables suggests a new study from UC Berkeley that examines the brain regions that control food choices.
#A layer of tiny grains can slow sound wavesin some ways granular material--such as a pile of sand--can behave much like a crystal with its close-packed grains mimicking the precise orderly arrangement of crystalline atoms.
Research on the properties of granular materials--collections of small grains such as sand or tiny glass beads--has become a rich
or grains such as polycrystalline nanopillars their mechanical behavior is difficult to predict because the grains vary in size and orientation.
Researchers from the California Institute of technology USA and A*STAR Institute Of high Performance Computing (IHPC) Singapore have determined now how miniaturization
Dissolving the template then produced nanopillars that displayed well-defined grains of similar sizes and grain boundaries or interfaces Compression experiments on the nanostructures showed that the thinnest nanopillars remained almost cylindrical under low pressure
Wu and co-workers also found that reducing the number of grains across a nanopillar's diameter weakened the structure.
Close to the nanopillar surface the grains easily slide against each other to create atom-sized steps reducing material strength.
and grass-fed livestock--can have worsened effects over consecutive generations especially affecting teens according to a University of Pittsburgh study.
and grass-fed livestock--can have worsened effects over consecutive generations especially affecting teens according to a University of Pittsburgh study.
and farm animals moved from eating grass to grain. Since omega-3s are present in grass and algae much of today's grain-fed cattle contain less of these essential fatty acids.
The Pitt team administered a set of behavioral tasks to study the learning and memory decision making anxiety and hyperactivity of both adults and adolescents.
Casazza suggests kids start the day with fruits proteins and whole grains. Avoid sugary cereals
which includes a large amount of fruits vegetables whole grains lean meat fish and low-fat dairy.
As the base of the slopes eroded areas higher on the bedrock hillsides tumbled into the channel freeing microscopic grains of zircon that were carried out of the gorge by the fast-moving water
Uranium-bearing zircon grains carry a sort of geochemical signature for the place where they originated so grains found downstream can be traced back to the rocks from
Lang found that normal annual river flow carries about 40 percent of the grains from the Tsangpo Gorge downstream.
But grains from the gorge found in prehistoric megaflood deposits make up as much as 80 percent of the total.
Double domesticationworldwide most of the cultivated rice is Asian rice Oryza sativa which was bred from its wild progenitor Oryza rufipogon in southern Asia within the past 10000 years.
when African cultivated rice (O. glaberrima) was bred from the African wild species O. barthii in the Niger river delta.
-colored hulls and white grains of both Asian and African cultivated rice. So both Asian and African cultivated rice broke at roughly the same places under selection pressure from early farmers.
Double de-domesticationlike domestication de-domestication or evolution from the crop species of unpalatable weedy species that have many wild-like traits also seems to have happened twice.
Because the seedlings of both weedy and cultivated rice look alike farmers often don't realize they have a problem until the field is infested really.
Because both cultivated rice and weedy rice tend to self-fertilize there hasn't been a lot of gene flow going on in rice in general Olsen says.
The new species was collected in a narrow river valley dominated by mountain sainfoin (Onobrychis cornuta) wild almond (Prunus amygdalus) scoparia) and downy brome (Bromus tectorum.
#Maize trade disruption could have global ramificationsnew research on the global maize (corn) trade suggests that any disruptions to U s. exports could pose food security risks for many U s. trade partners due to the lack of trade among other producing
Maize is at the center of global food security as increasing demands for meat fuel uses
The centrality of maize means that it would become a critical food security risk if major exporters experience disruptions due to non-food diversions plant diseases and climate impacts according to the article.
The researchers studied trade patterns from 2000-2009 and determined that the U s. is by far the largest exporter exporting four times as much maize as Argentina the next largest exporter.
Felicia Wu of Michigan State university and Hasan Guclu of the University of Pittsburgh use network models--essentially food trade maps--to track the movement of maize in their article Global Maize Trade and Food security:
and developed a social network model of maize exports and imports to study how clustering in trade patterns may affect food security.
Nations that import maize primarily from only one other nation may be vulnerable to any changes in their exporters'ability to produce
and ship maize. These statistics show that the vast majority of nations are exporting to
while other nations such as Taiwan and Egypt have diversified more broadly their sources of maize thereby reducing their vulnerability to export disruptions.
The article suggests that the largest maize producers may be wise to consider potential solutions to combat impacts of climate change on maize production for the purpose of maintaining supplies.
if the maize supply were to change from a global perspective for whatever reason other cereal grains
or legumes could fill gaps softening the impacts of disrupted maize production and trade. Risk Analysis:
However this new research shows that enriched levels of nitrogen-15 a stable isotope abundant in manure have been found in the charred cereal grains
and nitrogen isotope analysis of 124 crop samples of barley wheat lentil and peas totalling around 2500 grains or seeds.
Fructooligosaccharides are naturally found in chicory onions asparagus wheat tomatoes and other fruits vegetables and grains.
Mixed fibers from fruits vegetables and whole grains also topped the charts as high energy sources he added.
Yorkshire fog; rough-stalked meadow grass creeping red fescue and red clover. On the bright side said Dr Barlow the slugs did not like the seedlings of some of the desirable wildflowers such as wood cranesbill rough hawkbit and greater burnet.
Newcastle University's Dr Gordon Port a senior lecturer and an expert in pest management said:
and then hide nests in tall prairie grass The scientists researched many different features of prairie chickens and their biology:
New research to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on July 5 shows that maize roots which have fewer cortical cells in the outer layer of their roots are more efficient at accessing water and nutrients.
A research team headed by Prof Jonathan Lynch at the Pennsylvania State university United states found that maize roots show natural variation in the number of cortical cells in their roots which can be selected preferentially for cultivation on land where deep roots are an advantage.
In drought-stressed maize this trait increases rooting depth as the plants can spend more nutrients growing deeper
The most numerous species from Chogha Golan are wild barley goat-grass and lentil which are all wild ancestors of modern crops.
In horizon II dating to 9. 800 years ago domesticated emmer wheat appears. The plant remains from Chogha Golan represent a unique long-term record of cultivation of wild plant species in the eastern Fertile Crescent.
which is when dietary supplementation is greater as a result of the reduced availability of grass. In any case although one might draw the conclusion that conventional milk is more nutritious in terms of minerals LÃ pez is cautious:
The samples included elephant tusks and molars hippo tusks and canine teeth oryx horn hair from monkeys and elephant tails and some grasses collected in Kenya in 1962.
and that grasses and the animals eating them had the same levels. By determining carbon-14 in these samples of known dates the researchers now can measure carbon-14 levels in other ivory to determine its age within about a year.
whether animals ate diets based on tree and shrub leaves and fruits or upon grasses and grazing animals.
A team of researchers from Switzerland found that the odor released by maize plants under attack by insects attract not only parasitic wasps
which prey on herbivorous insects but also caterpillars of the Egyptian cotton leafworm moth Spodoptera littoralis a species that feeds on maize leaves.
When damaged many plants release hydrocarbons called volatile organic compounds similar to the compounds that cause the characteristic smell of freshly cut grass.
But we found that S. littoralis caterpillars are attracted actually to the odor of damaged maize plants even
The caterpillars were more than twice as likely to crawl towards the odor from maize plants under attack by conspecifics than towards undamaged plants especially
and the caterpillars had fed already on maize. So what might be the advantage to the caterpillars of moving towards plants that are infested already?
Turlings and colleagues propose that hungry S. littoralis caterpillars do the best of a bad job by moving towards volatile organic compounds released by damaged maize plants.
--so they avoid maize that is already under attack. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Frontiers.
of forests to grass or shrub lands a report suggests. Researchers from Oregon State university concluded that moisture stress is a key limitation for conifer regeneration following stand-replacing wildfire
#Crabgrass secret: The despised weed makes herbicide to kill neighboring plantscontrary to popular belief crabgrass does not thrive in lawns gardens and farm fields by simply crowding out other plants.
A new study in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that the much-despised weed actually produces its own herbicides that kill nearby plants.
Chui-Hua Kong and colleagues point out that crabgrass is not only a headache for lawns and home gardens but also a major cause of crop loss on farms.
if crabgrass has this oppressive ability. Kong's team isolated three chemicals from crabgrass that affect the microbial communities in nearby soil
and did indeed inhibit the growth of staple crops wheat corn and soybeans. The chemical-specific changes in the soil microbial community generated a negative feedback on crop growth the scientists said noting that the chemicals also would have a direct toxic effect on other plants.
Climate is likely to reduce the nutritional quality of grasses causing the animals to grow more slowly.
We also know that warmer grasslands have grasses with less protein and we now know that warmer grasslands have smaller grazers.
It all lines up to suggest that climate change will cause grasses to have less protein
grasses in the southern Great plains have less protein than grasses in the northern Great plains because of the warmer climate.
In normal pollination sperm-carrying pollen grains land on the pistil's tip or stigma and grow tubes down its style to reach the ovaries in the ovules at the pistil's base.
because high-nutrient conditions promote the growth of cattail reeds and other wetland big boys that produce a lot of plant biomass and carbon Mitsch says.
and they are more likely to have close contact with plants grass and other surfaces.
Notes 1 Cosmic dust consist of silicate and graphite grains--minerals also abundant On earth. The soot from a candle is very similar to cosmic graphite dust
although the size of the grains in the soot are ten or more times bigger than typical grain sizes of cosmic graphite grains. 2 The VLTI is formed from a combination of the four 8. 2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes or the four moveable
1. 8-metre VLT Auxiliary Telescopes. It makes use of a technique known as interferometry in
and found that yields of four key crops--maize rice wheat and soybean--are increasing 0. 9-1. 6 percent every year.
and other grains that contain gluten-related proteins. Boye's team sought to expand dietary options for CD
--which now include non-gluten-containing cereals like corn rice teff quinoa millet buckwheat and sorghum.
some that contained only native grasses and herbs others that had plants and an herbivore grasshopper and some others that had plants and herbivores along with a carnivore spider species--all three tiers of the food chain.
The grasshoppers also shifted towards eating more herbs instead of grass under fearful scenarios. At the same time the grasses stored more carbon in their roots in a response to being disturbed at low levels
when both herbivores and carnivores were present. In cases where only herbivores were present the plants stored less carbon overall likely due to the more intense eating habits of the herbivores that put pressure on plants to reduce their storage
but understanding how they work in the context of the ant community could help researchers create similar methods for processing cellulosic biofuel feedstocks such as corn stalks and grasses.
and prairie cord grass Kling is examining which short-rotation woody crops grow best in the Midwest.
It's better to wait until the grass matures a little--not to the point where it's actually making seeds
Early CVD experiments produced MDS with grains that were too tiny to be of use for their electrical properties.
when grains met at precise 60-degree angles. The ORNL electron microscopy images make it possible to view these grain boundaries directly.
New studies spearheaded by the University of Utah show that human ancestors expanded their menu 3. 5 million years ago adding tropical grasses and sedges to an apelike diet and setting the stage for our modern diet
of grains grasses and meat and dairy from grazing animals. In four new studies of carbon isotopes in fossilized tooth enamel from scores of human ancestors and baboons in Africa from 4 million to 10000 years ago a team of two dozen researchers found a surprise
increase in the consumption of grasses and sedges--plants that resemble grasses and rushes but have stems and triangular cross sections.
At last we have a look at 4 million years of the dietary evolution of humans and their ancestors says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling principal author of two of the four new studies published online June 3 by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
and fruits--and by 3. 5 million years ago they started exploring new diet possibilities--tropical grasses
Tropical grasses provided a new set of restaurants. We see an increasing reliance on this new resource by human ancestors that most primates still don't use today.
It is a major question why human ancestors didn't seriously start exploiting savanna grasses until less than 4 million years ago.
The isotope method cannot distinguish what parts of grasses and sedges human ancestors ate--leaves stems seeds and-or underground storage organs such as roots or rhizomes.
when human ancestors began getting much of their grass by eating grass-eating insects or meat from grazing animals.
cool-season grasses and grains such as timothy alfalfa wheat oats barley and rice; soybeans; non-grassy herbs and forbs.
C4 plants are warm-season or tropical grasses and sedges and their seeds leaves or storage organs like roots and tubers.
C4 grasses include Bermuda grass and sorghum. C4 grains include corn and millet. CAM plants include tropical succulent plants such as cactus salt bush and agave.
Today North americans eat about half C3 plants including vegetables fruits and grains such as wheat oats rye and barley and about half C4
which largely comes from corn sorghum and meat animals fed on C4 grasses and grains Cerling says.
The highest human C3 diets today are found in Northern europe where only C3 cool-season grasses grow so meat animals there graze them not C4 tropical grasses.
The highest C4 diets likely are in Central america because of the heavily corn-based diet. If early humans ate grass-eating insects
or large grazing animals like zebras wildebeest and buffalo it also would appear they ate C4 grasses.
The Only Surviving Primates with a C4 Grass Dietcerling's second new study shows that
while human ancestors ate more grasses and other apes stuck with trees and shrubs two extinct Kenyan baboons represent the only primate genus that ate primarily grasses and perhaps sedges throughout its history.
Theropithecus brumpti ate a 65 percent tropical grass -and-sedge diet when the baboons lived between 4 million
Later Theropithecus oswaldi ate a 75 percent grass diet by 2 million years ago and a 100 percent grass diet by 1 million years ago.
Modern Theropithecus gelada baboons live in Ethiopia's highlands where they eat only C3 cool-season grasses.
Cerling notes that primate tropical grass-eaters--Theropithecus baboons and Paranthropus human relatives--went extinct
while human ancestors ate an increasingly grass-based diet. Why is an open question. Story Source:
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