#Skin grafts from genetically modified pigs may offer alternative for burn treatmenta specially-bred strain of miniature swine lacking the molecule responsible for the rapid rejection of pig-to-primate organ transplants may provide a new source of skin grafts
A team of investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that skin grafts from pigs lacking the Gal sugar molecule were as effective in covering burn-like injuries on the backs of baboons as skin taken from other
baboons a finding that could double the length of time burns can be protected while healing.
and tissue transplants from animals. Sachs and his team developed a strain of inbred miniature swine with organs that are close in size to those of adult humans.
Since pig organs implanted into primates are rejected rapidly due to the presence of the Gal (alpha-13-galactose) molecule Sachs
When Cetrulo's team used skin from these Gal-free pigs to provide grafts covering burn-like injuries on the backs of baboons--injuries made
while the animals were under anesthesia--the grafts adhered and developed a vascular system within 4 days of implantation.
and identical to that observed when the team used skin grafts from other baboons. As with the use of second deceased-donor grafts to treat burned patients a second pig-to-baboon graft was rejected rapidly.
But if a pit-to baboon was followed by a graft using baboon skin the second graft adhered to the wound
and remained in place for around 12 days before rejection. The researchers also showed that acceptance of a second graft was similar no matter
whether a pig xenograft or a baboon skin graft was used first. These results raise the possibility
#Slowing the insect invasion: Wood packaging sanitation yields US $11. 7 billion net benefitthe emerald ash borer (Agrilus plantipenis) a recent insect immigrant to North america carried in with the wooden
packing material of imported goods is projected to cause over a billion dollars in damages annually over the next decade.
or heat treatment of wood pallets and crates to prevent the inadvertent import of new wood boring insect pests in shipping materials.
The emerald ash borer is established already throughout much of Michigan and areas of Illinois Indiana Ohio Pennsylvania and Ontario Canada.
Some critics have argued that investments in pest management are justified not because prevention can only delay invasions
and unlike the emerald ash borer many introduced species do not cause substantial damages. But there is an economic net benefit to preventing
or delaying the introduction of the emerald ash borer to parts of the US that do not yet harbor it.
or delaying the introduction of new pests a few of which may be as bad or worse than the emerald ash borer said lead author Brian Leung an ecologist at Mcgill University in Montreal Canada.
Treatment reduces the risk of low probability but highly damaging events much like an insurance policy or mitigation of natural disasters.
The emerald ash borer a native of Southeast asia and Eastern Russia lacks predators in North america
Emerald ash borer larvae feed on the cells of the tree's nutrient and water transport systems.
For their risk analysis Leung and colleagues drew on a study of the Effectiveness of the International Phytosanitary Standard ISPM No. 15 on reducing wood borer infestation rates in wood packaging material entering
the United states published last week in the journal PLOS ONE by coauthor Robert Haack (press release) that found that implementation of ISPM15 treatment standards reduced wood borer infestation rates
and colleagues estimate that the economic benefits of slowing the introduction of wood boring insect pests will accumulate a net benefit of $11. 7 billion taking into account benefits minus costs through 2050.
A stamped seal on treated pallets and crates marks compliance. Treatment costs about $1. 50 per pallet amounting to an estimated $437 million in up-front costs (calculated in 2004 dollars.
The people who experience the majority of the damages of invasive pests are not generally the people who benefit the most from the imports said Leung.
The costs of invasive pests are distributed very unevenly. Ash trees (Fraxinus spp. line city streets and fill agricultural windbreaks throughout much of North america--38 million landscape trees in the 25 states surrounding Detroit according to US Forest Service estimate.
Sometimes you don't have a choice to manage pests once they're here. You can't leave a dead tree to fall on someone's house said Leung.
and doesn't keep out 100%of wood borers when you incorporate all the data this preventative policy is still worth it.
but we should not underestimate the benefits of even delaying the arrival of new pests
which may avoid the cost of another emerald ash borer for a generation. Story Source:
Protective milk as the basis for a vaccineresearchers found particularly high concentrations of Iga in the very first milk known as colostrum a highly nutritious milk all mammals ingest during the first days of life.
by listening in on the conversations honeybees have with each other. The scientists'analyses of honeybee waggle dances reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 22 suggest that costly measures to set aside agricultural lands
and let the wildflowers grow can be very beneficial to bees. In the past two decades the European union has spent â1 billion on agri-environment schemes which aim to improve the rural landscape health
and are required for all EU-member states says Margaret Couvillon of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex.
Our work uses a novel source of data--the honeybee an organism that itself can benefit from a healthy rural landscape--to evaluate
and decoded the waggle dances of bees in three hives over a two-year period. Bees dance to tell their fellow bees where to find the good stuff:
and by extension other insect pollinators are concerned--is called a place Castle Hill which happened to be the only National Nature Reserve in the area.
The study shows that honeybees can serve as bioindicators to monitor large land areas and provide information relevant to better environmental management the researchers say.
It also gives new meaning to the term worker bee. Imagine the time manpower and cost to survey such an area on foot--to monitor nectar sources for quality and quantity of production to count the number of other flower-visiting insects to account for competition
and then to do this over and over for two foraging years Couvillon says. Instead we have let the honeybees do the hard work of surveying the landscape and integrating all relevant costs and then providing through their dance communication this biologically relevant information about landscape quality.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cell Press. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
We killed two birds with one stone --or rather with one diet explained lead author Dr. David Jenkins who is director of the Clinical Nutrition and Risk Modification Centre of St michael's Hospital and a Nutritional Sciences professor at the University of Toronto.
#Top ten new species for 2014an appealing carnivorous mammal a 12-meter-tall tree that has been hiding in plain sight
and a sea anemone that lives under an Antarctic glacier are among the species identified by the SUNY College of Environmental science and Forestry's (ESF) International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) as the top 10 species discovered last
a miniscule skeleton shrimp from Santa catalina Island in California a single-celled protist that does a credible imitation of a sponge a clean room microbe that could be a hazard during space travel and a teensy fringed fairyfly named Tinkerbell.
Also on the list are a gecko that fades into the background in its native Australia
The majority of people are unaware of the dimensions of the biodiversity crisis said Dr. Quentin Wheeler founding director of the IISE and ESF president.
The top 10 is designed to bring attention to the unsung heroes addressing the biodiversity crisis by working to complete an inventory of earth's plants animals and microbes.
which species have adapted for survival Wheeler said. One of the most inspiring facts about the top 10 species of 2014 is that not all of the'big'species are known already
the shrimp Liropus minusculus with its phantasmagoric appearance and the gecko which bears a disturbing likeness to some imaginary monster.
A New Carnivore Hidden in Trees Bassaricyon neblina Location: Ecuador The appealing olinguito resembling a cross between a slinky cat
and a wide-eyed teddy bear lives secretively in cloud forests of the Andes mountains in Colombia and Ecuador.
It is an arboreal carnivore that belongs to the Family procyonidae which includes the familiar raccoon.
The olinguito is smaller though typically topping out at about two kilograms (approximately 4. 5 pounds.
It is the first new carnivorous mammal described in the Western hemisphere in 35 years. Its apparent dependence on cloud forest habitat means deforestation is a threat.
Mother of Dragons Dracaena kaweesakii Location: Thailand Sounding like something out of Game of Thrones and standing 12 meters (nearly 40 feet) tall it's hard to believe the dragon tree went unnoticed this long.
Antarctica A species of sea anemone living under a glacier on the Ross Ice shelf in Antarctica raises questions by its very existence.
It is the first species of sea anemone reported to live in ice. It was discovered when the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) sent a remotely operated submersible vehicle into holes that had been drilled into the ice.
Leaf-tailed Gecko: Look Hard to See This One Saltuarius eximius Location: Australia It's not easy to spot this gecko which has an extremely wide tail that is employed as part of its camouflage.
With longer limbs a more slender body and larger eyes than other Saltuarius species this one has mottled a coloration that allows it to blend in with its surroundings.
Native to rain forests and rocky habitats this gecko is a bit of a night owl. It is found on the vertical surfaces of rocks
Surveys of similar habitat near the area where this species was found did not reveal additional populations so this may be a rare species. The gecko was discovered on rocky terrain in isolated rain forests of the Melville Range of eastern Australia.
Amoeboid Protist: Body Builder from the Mediterranean Spiculosiphon oceana Location: Mediterranean sea This one-celled organism is four to five centimeters high (1. 5 to two inches) making it a giant in the world of single-celled creatures.
This foram (part of a distinct group among the many amoeboids) from the Mediterranean sea gathers pieces of silica spicules
It ends up looking much like a carnivorous sponge as well as feeding like one extending pseudopods (a protist's version of arms) outside the shell to feed on invertebrates that have become trapped in the spiny structures.
Interestingly they are the same caves where carnivorous sponges were discovered first. Clean room Microbes: Alien Invaders?
Costa rica The tiny size and delicately fringed wings of the parasitoid wasp family Mymaridae led to their common name:
and is among the smallest insects. It is the latest addition to the 1400 or so known species of the family.
Although its host is known not yet like other fairyflies it presumably has a life span of not more than a few days and attacks the eggs of other insects.
or hitchhike on other cave animals such as bats or crickets to travel longer distances. Why inventory mattersi have been participating in the top 10 since its beginning in 2008 and
Wheeler offered three reasons why an inventory of Earth's species is critical: â#¢Without a baseline of what exists humans will not know
and animals to solve the same survival problems that humans face. By studying the millions of ways in
Wheeler hopes the Top 10 draws attention to the urgent need and real possibility of completing an inventory of all of Earth's species. Advances in technology
and animals of home the smell of spring and the sound of running water. Nothing nothing could ever compensate for that he said.
#More male bugs in a warmer world? Temperature influences gender of offspring in bugswhether an insect will have a male
or female offspring depends on the weather according to a study led by Joffrey Moiroux and Jacques Brodeur of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological sciences.
The research involved experimenting with a species of oophagous parasitoid (Trichogramma euproctidis) an insect that lays its eggs inside a host insect that will be consumed by the future larvae.
We know that climate affects the reproductive behaviour of insects. But we never clearly demonstrated the effects of climate change on sex allocation in parasitoids Moiroux explained.
Cold impairs gender selectionas in bees wasps and ants the gender determination of Trichogramma parasitoids is called haplodiploid that is fertilized eggs produce female offspring
while unfertilized eggs produce male offspring summarizes Moiroux. It is possible to predict whether the parasitoid will lay a son
Increasing fitnessin insects fitness is correlated positively with the size of an individual and this relationship is greater in females than in males.
Biocontrolas part of this study which was funded by the Ouranos Consortium Moiroux tried to understand the possible role of global warming on the relationship between crop pests and their natural enemies--parasitoids and predators.
whether there is an effect of phenological asynchrony between parasitoids and their hosts and therefore an impact on the availability of host eggs and on pest control by their natural enemies.
Predators and parasitoids are more sensitive to climate change and this is why many researchers expect an increase in episodes of phenological asynchrony.
In Quebec the European corn borer is a pest that farmers face every year. The parasitoid Trichogramma for its part is an ally
since its larvae kill this insect host. It is of the utmost importance to clearly identify harmful and beneficial insects in the field
in order to adopt an appropriate strategy for integrated pest management Moiroux said. He will now be looking at
which species of soybean pests could come to Quebec in the coming years due to climate change.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Universite de Montreal. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Ape ancestors teeth provide glimpse into their diets and environments: Helped apes move to Eurasia,
may have led to extinctionnewly analyzed tooth samples from the great apes of the Miocene indicate that the same dietary specialization that allowed the apes to move from Africa to Eurasia may have led to their extinction according to results published May 21 2014 in the open access journal
PLOS ONE by Daniel Demiguel from the Institut Catalã¡de Palontologia Miquel Crusafont (Spain) and colleagues.
Apes expanded into Eurasia from Africa during the Miocene (14 to 7 million years ago)
To better understand the apes'diet during their evolution and expansion into new habitat scientists analyzed newly-discovered wearing in the teeth of 15 upper
and lower molars belonging to apes from five extinct taxa found in Spain from the mid-to late-Miocene (which overall comprise a time span between 12. 3â#2. 2 and 9. 7 Ma).
They combined these analyses with previously collected data for other Western Eurasian apes categorizing the wear on the teeth into one of three ape diets:
and Turkey suggested that the great ape's diet evolved from hard-shelled fruits and seeds to leaves but these findings only contained samples from the early-Middle and Late Miocene while lack data from the epoch of highest diversity
and seeds at the beginning of the movement of great apes to Eurasia soft and mixed fruit-eating coexisted with hard-object feeding in the Late Miocene
#Oil, gas development homogenizing core-forest bird communitiesconventional oil and gas development in northern Pennsylvania altered bird communities and the current massive build-out of shale-gas infrastructure may accelerate these changes according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural
Sciences. The commonwealth's Northern Tier--one of the largest blocks of Eastern deciduous forest in the entire Appalachian region--is an important breeding area for neotropical migrant songbirds.
These diminutive insect-eating creatures which breed in Pennsylvania and winter in Central and South america contribute greatly to the health of forests.
But they are being affected negatively in areas where there are high densities of shallow oil and gas wells says Margaret Brittingham professor of wildlife resources who conducted a study of bird communities in the Allegheny National Forest.
The national forest on the extensively forested Allegheny Plateau in northwestern Pennsylvania has more than 14000 active oil and gas wells.
and pipelines create networks of disturbance that fragment forests changing songbird communities Brittingham explained. The cumulative effect of many small-scale disturbances within the forest is resulting in the homogenization of bird communities with species that inhabit the interior forest such as black-throated blue warblers ovenbirds
and Blackburnian warblers being pushed out and species that prefer living in edge habitat and near people and development such as robins blue jays and mourning doves moving in she said.
Biotic homogenization is a subtle process by which generalists replace specialists with common and widespread species tending to become more abundant and habitat specialists declining.
Our results revealed changes in avian guilds resulting from oil and gas development and suggest that a loss of community uniqueness is a consequence.
The study done in collaboration with the U s. Department of agriculture's Northern Forest Research Station took place over three years.
Lead researcher Emily Thomas at the time a graduate student advised by Brittingham surveyed birds in 50-acre blocks selected for their varied amount of oil and gas development.
or absence of different songbird species in a range of landscapes including undisturbed forest low-density oil and gas development and high-density development.
They catalogued the abundance and diversity of songbirds in the study areas which spanned two types of forest--northern hardwood and oak.
and gas development are doing to bird populations said Brittingham. We compared and contrasted the abundance
and diversity of birds near well sites to bird communities in reference sites far away from disturbances in the big woods and
Songbird species that prefer early successional habitat increased in abundance on the edge of gas development.
In addition Brittingham noted the generalist bird species that do better around people and tend to be common wherever there are people
Brittingham and her students are currently studying the effects of shale-gas development on birds to determine how it affects avian communities.
Birds are easy to study and survey to gauge the impacts of gas development because they are abundant respond quickly to habitat change
The discovery is reported this week in the journal Physical Review Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Thomas Peacock and four others.
The finding was unexpected an outcome of research on other effects of temperature differences such as the way winds form over glaciers in a valley Peacock says.
People had studied only ever this phenomenon in relation to a fixed object Peacock says. But his group realized that
Peacock's first study of the concept about four years ago focused on slow flows caused by diffusion--work that demonstrated that induced boundary flows can generate small propulsive forces.
and cooling of an object could be more significant Peacock says. But perfecting the experimental setup was challenging.
The effect itself is surprisingly simple Peacock explains: By virtue of heating or cooling the surface of an object you change the density of any fluid next to that surface.
The changed density of the fluid generates a flow over the surface Peacock says adding That flow then creates unbalanced forces with lower pressure on one side
and its temperature is different from that of the fluid Peacock says. The basic equations that govern convection are well known Peacock says.
This type of flow has been studied for over 100 years but somehow in all that time no one had thought to do this.
Peacock is already working on such follow-up experiments to figure out whether the effect can be exploited in an engineering sense
It may Peacock says even turn out to be something that living organisms have learned to harness:
It's very rare in fluid mechanics to discover a new phenomenon like this Peacock says.
In addition to Peacock the work was carried out by former MIT postdoc Matthieu Mercier now at the Institut de MÃ canique des Fluides de Toulouse in France;
Cook-Mills had done previous allergy research in mice showing alpha-tocopherol decreased lung inflammation protecting healthy lung function and gamma-tocopherol increased lung
#With climate changing, Southern plants outperform Northerncan plants and animals evolve to keep pace with climate change?
Small and fast-growing Arabidopsis thaliana is used widely as the lab mouse of plant biology. The plant grows in Europe from Spain to Scandinavia
Ecological history--on both land and water--is no longer the province of the lone wolf no matter how talented and dedicated Williams says.
and soil coming from intensive livestock farms (farms with a population of over 40000 hens 2000 fattening pigs
and grass-grazing baboons digest different diets researchers have shown that ancestral human diets so called paleo diets did not necessarily result in better appetite suppression.
and from three gelada baboons the only modern primate to eat mainly grasses. Getting to the bottom of how our gut bacteria
Even the baboon cultures fed potato produced more SCFAS than the baboon cultures fed grass.
When the researchers applied some of these cultures to mouse colon cells in the lab dish the cells were stimulated to release PYY hormone.
Those exposed to human cultures digesting a potato diet released the most PYY followed by those exposed to baboon cultures on a potato diet.
Rather the researchers propose little to no appetite suppression might help baboons maintain grazing all day to consume enough nutrients.
#Fairy circles apparently not created by termites after allfor several decades scientists have been trying to come up with an explanation for the formation of the enigmatic vegetation-free circles frequently found in certain African grassland regions.
of which hypothesises that these mysterious patches are the work of termites. The insects allegedly nibble away at the grassroots
thus causing the dieback of vegetation. Other researchers consider hydrocarbons emanating from the depths of the earth being responsible for this phenomenon.
However in his view this rather discredits the generally popular termite theory. In a study published in the scientific journal Science (2013) the sand termite species Psammotermes allocerus was presented indeed as most likely suspect for the creation of the enigmatic barren patches
--albeit primarily based on the argument that the occurrence of this particular species of termites has been common to all fairy circles investigated at the time.
No one has observed so far these creatures actually grazing holes into the Namibian grasslands--let alone in such consistent patterns.
There is up to now not one single piece of evidence demonstrating that social insects are capable of creating homogenously distributed structures on such a large scale.
The entire range of studies covering the distribution of ant and termite populations in arid territories predominantly rather attests to the occurrence of irregular clustered distribution patterns at large scales.
And according to the research team underground emission of abiotic gases as well is unlikely to result in such evenly dispersed and homogeneous spatial distribution.
#Genetic basis of pest resistance to biotech cotton discoveredan international team led by scientists at the University of Arizona
what happens on a molecular basis in insects that evolved resistance to genetically engineered cotton plants.
Their findings reported in the May 19 issue of the journal PLOS ONE shed light on how the global caterpillar pest called pink bollworm overcomes biotech cotton
which was designed to make an insect-killing bacterial protein called Bt toxin. The results could have major impacts for managing pest resistance to Bt crops.
Bt crops have had major benefits for society said Jeffrey Fabrick the lead author of the study and a research entomologist at the USDA Agricultural research service in Maricopa Arizona.
By understanding how insects adapt to Bt crops we can devise better strategies to delay the evolution of resistance
but this is the first analysis of the molecular genetic basis of severe pest resistance to a Bt crop in the field said Bruce Tabashnik one of the paper's authors and the head of the Department of Entomology in the UA College
Based on laboratory experiments aimed at determining the molecular mechanisms involved scientists knew that pink bollworm can evolve resistance against the Bt toxin
Farmers in the U s. but not in India adopted tactics designed to slow evolution of resistance in pink bollworm.
and implement resistance management strategies such as providing refuges of standard cotton plants that do not produce Bt proteins and releasing sterile pink bollworm moths.
Planting refuges near Bt crops allows susceptible insects to survive and reproduce and thus reduces the chances that two resistant insects will mate with each other
and produce resistant offspring. Similarly mass release of sterile moths also makes it less likely for two resistant individuals to encounter each other and mate.
As a result pink bollworm has been eradicated all but in the southwestern U s. Suppression of this pest with Bt cotton is the cornerstone of an integrated pest management program that has allowed Arizona cotton growers to reduce broad spectrum insecticide use by 80
percent saving them over $10 million annually. In the U s. pink bollworm populations have not evolved resistance to Bt toxins in the wild.
However resistant pink bollworm populations have emerged in India which grows the most Bt cotton of any country in the world.
Crops genetically engineered to produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis --or Bt--were introduced in 1996 and planted on more than 180 million acres worldwide during 2013.
because they kill certain pests but are not toxic to people and most other organisms.
Pest control with Bt proteins--either in sprays or genetically engineered crops--reduces reliance on chemical insecticides.
when pests evolve resistance. The emergence of resistant pink bollworm in India provided the researchers an opportunity to test the hypothesis that insects in the field would evolve resistance to Bt toxin by the same genetic mechanism found previously in the lab. In the lab strains the scientists had identified mutations in a gene
encoding a protein called cadherin. Binding of Bt toxin to cadherin is an essential step in the intoxication process.
which leaves the insect unscathed by the Bt toxin. We wanted to see if field-resistant pink bollworm from India harbored these same changes in the cadherin gene Fabrick said.
He said that by collaborating with Indian scientists we discovered that the same cadherin gene is associated with the resistance in India
but the mutations are different and much more numerous than the ones we found in lab-selected pink bollworm from Arizona.
Sequencing the DNA of resistant pink bollworm collected from the field in India the team found that the insects produce remarkably diverse disrupted variants of cadherin.
The researchers learned that the astonishing diversity of cadherin in pink bollworm from India is caused by alternative splicing a novel mechanism of resistance that allows a single DNA sequence to code for many variants of a protein.
Mario Soberã n a Bt expert at the Universidad Nacional Autã noma de MÃ xico in Cuernavaca who was not an author of the study commented This is a neat example of the diverse mechanisms insect
An important implication is that DNA screening would not be efficient for monitoring resistance of pink bollworm to Bt toxins.
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