The bodies of bedbugs she explained are extremely flat before the creatures slurp up a meal of human blood.
He explained that water pipes use specially prepared tobacco sometimes called shisha--a moist gooey concoction that may include molasses honey
#New weapons on the way to battle wicked weedsa somber picture of the struggle against super-weeds emerged today as scientists described the relentless spread of herbicide-resistant menaces like pigweed
It crowds out crops and drains moisture and nutrients from the soil. Resistant plants thrive
But those plants and others have quietly become sources of a new generation of natural food colorings that are replacing traditional synthetic colors
and beverage coloring he said citing fruit drinks vitamin waters ice cream and yogurt. They are stable for instance
Likewise PSP anthocyanins have advantages over traditional synthetic red food colorings and the carmine reds extracted from cochineal insects.
It takes about 2500 bugs to produce one ounce of cochineal extract used in ice creams yogurts candy beverages and other foods.
Such processes could encourage development of a domestic natural food coloring industry with agriculture spreads devoted specifically to growing foods for use in making food and beverage coloring.
Currently the United states imports much of the natural food coloring it uses commercially. The small amounts of PSPS grown domestically go mainly to sales of fresh potatoes for the table.
because it provides a low-cost source of plant nutrients. Wastewater use in the region is given particularly important that the shortages in supply of phosphate
and cauliflower) industrial crops forage crops (alfalfa and barely) and highway landscapes may be irrigated with treated wastewater in Kuwait.
Most wastewater goes untreated in Sub-saharan africa where water pollution triggers the spread of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and cholera.
Given the inherent uncertainty regarding wastewater quality and nutrient content it is not possible for farmers to optimize the use of nutrients particularly
The increasing demand for plant nutrients in Asia provides an incentive for farmers and public officials to develop safe methods for distributing
subjective ratings from breeders and a berry's sugar-to-acid ratio. Recently scientists have determined that the eating quality of blueberries has a much higher correlation to consumer acceptance
The team evaluated one male and one female Rocky mountain juniper tree over the course of 1 year.
Instead of eating broccoli to unlock the risk-reduction nutrients she's asking patients to apply small doses of sulforaphane to their skin.
In tests using pig bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells Wilson and lead author Eladio Rivera a former postdoctoral researcher at Rice found that the bismuth-filled nanotubes which they call Bi@US-tubes produce CT images far brighter than those from common
and spread of emerging diseases creating agricultural and pharmaceutical products studying climate change controlling invasive species
Researchers studied red junglefowl (the wild ancestor of the domestic chicken) in a collaborative project with the University of Oxford Stockholm University
while long distance spread via cattle movements plays a role local transmission mechanisms appear to drive the spread of the disease
In a larger group we would expect that the CSA program would make a noticeable impact on quality of the families'diets.
#Mediterranean diet is good for the mind, research confirmsthe first systematic review of related research confirms a positive impact on cognitive function but an inconsistent effect on mild cognitive impairment.
Over recent years many pieces of research have identified a link between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and a lower risk of age-related disease such as dementia.
In nine out of the 12 studies a higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with better cognitive function lower rates of cognitive decline and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease.
A Mediterranean diet typically consists of higher levels of olive oil vegetables fruit and fish. A higher adherence to the diet means higher daily intakes of fruit and vegetables and fish and reduced intakes of meat and dairy products.
The study was led by researcher Iliana Lourida. She said: Mediterranean food is both delicious and nutritious and our systematic review shows it may help to protect the ageing brain by reducing the risk of dementia.
While the link between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and dementia risk is not new ours is the first study to systematically analyse all existing evidence.
#Following a Mediterranean diet not associated with delay to clinical onset of Huntington diseaseadhering to a Mediterranean-type diet (Meddi) does not appear associated with the time to clinical onset of Huntington disease (phenoconversion) according to a study by Karen
and cereals) and fish with olive oil as the primary source of monounsaturated fat (MUSF) and low to moderate intake of wine as well as low intake of red meat poultry
Our results suggest that studies of diet and energy expenditure in premanifest HD may provide data for both nonpharmacological interventions
#Spread of crop pests threatens global food security as Earth warmsa new study has revealed that global warming is resulting in the spread of crop pests towards the North and South poles at a rate of nearly 3 kilometers a year.
The spread of pests is caused by both human activities and natural processes but is thought to be primarily the result of international freight transportation.
Renewed efforts are required to monitor the spread of crop pests and to control their movement from region to region
When we are older we no longer rely on our mother's milk for essential nutrients so in most humans manufacture of the lactase enzyme stops through de-activation of the corresponding gene.
and then placed on a diet for one month before and one week after conception. The third group of sheep was placed on a normal
The fourth group was fed a control diet for three months and then these normal weight sheep were placed on a diet for one month before conception until one week after conception.
One week after conception embryos from all of these sheep were transferred to normal weight normally nourished sheep for the remainder of pregnancy.
Liver samples were taken from the lambs born to these ewes at four months of age to examine their genes and proteins.
The researchers'models show that it will take more than 2000 years for Greenland's indigenous species of trees to spread to all those areas of the country that will have a suitable climate by 2100.
#Spread of farming and origin of lactase persistence in Neolithic Agescientists have brought to light the spread of dairy farming in Europe and the development of milk tolerance in adult humans.
The processing of milk to make cheese and yogurt contributed significantly to the development of dairy farming as this represented a way of reducing the lactose content of fresh milk to tolerable levels making a valuable foodstuff available to the human population.
Until 8000 years ago humans were only able to digest lactose a form of sugar present in fresh milk during childhood
because as adults they lost the ability to produce endogenous lactase the enzyme required to break down lactose.
and their mentors from different disciplines i e. anthropology archeology chemistry and genetics has been looking at the role played by milk cheese
and the ability to model the spread of positive selection of lactase persistence said Burger.
The report How Microbes can Help Feed the World is based on the deliberation of a group of scientific experts who gathered for two days in WASHINGTON DC in December 2012 to consider a series of questions regarding how plant-microbe interactions
These estimates rest on the recognition that all plants rely on microbial partners to secure nutrients deter pathogens
and often debilitating osteoarthritis. The researchers found that mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage
and cow cartilage tissue was funded by medical research charity Arthritis Research UK the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC
and you cannot give healthy people drugs unnecessarily so this is where diet could be a safe alternative.
because it is about how diet might work in osteoarthritis. Once you know that you can look at other dietary compounds which could protect the joint
or diet can play any part in reducing the progression of osteoarthritis so if these findings can be replicated in humans it would be quite a breakthrough.
but this adds another layer in our understanding of how diet could play its part.
The spread of plants and animals throughout Europe between 6000 and 4000 BC involved a complex interplay between indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and incoming Neolithic farmers but the scale of the interaction and the extent to
#Genetic treasure hunting in sorghum may benefit crop improvementa consortium of researchers from The University of Queensland the Queensland Department of agriculture Fisheries
and Forestry (DAFF Qld) and BGI has discovered that sorghum a drought-tolerant African crop holds vastly more genetic variation than previously reported.
This study published in Nature Communications today provides an invaluable resource for the genetic improvement of sorghum
and other grass species. Sorghum is not only a food and feed cereal crop but also can be used as the basis of biofuel.
Its resistance to heat and water stress allows it to grow in poor dryland regions as a staple food resource for 500 million poor people in Africa
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.
The researchers'analyses revealed that sorghum has a strong racial structure and a complex domestication history involving at least two distinct domestication events.
More importantly they found that modern cultivated sorghum was derived from a limited sample of racial variation.
The study identified 8m high-quality SNPS 1. 9m indels and specific gene loss and gain events in S. bicolor providing the largest dataset obtained in sorghum to date.
Our joint efforts yield an invaluable genetic resource for researchers to explore sorghum evolution and its genetic improvement. said Shuaishuai Tai Project Manager from BGI BGI is making continuous efforts for the advancement of agricultural research.
In the presence of water it decomposes into oxygen and other salts. The current formulation used by the researchers generates oxygen for about three hours.
and that this ability was lost then repeatedly over the course of evolution. The big hurdle to redesigning nitrogen fixation
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.
and reach potentially sensitive sites such as the spleen brain liver and heart. The growing trend to use other types of nanoparticles has revolutionized the food industry by enhancing flavors improving supplement delivery keeping food fresh longer
Some of the same gases are emitted also from cow pats on pastures. But now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in cow pats may reduce emissions of the key greenhouse gas--methane.
Among these cattle farming for meat and milk are major sources of methane a gas with a potent warming effect.
Much of this methane comes from the guts of ruminating cattle but some escapes from dung pats on pastures.
--and make sure to include them in our calculations of overall climatic effects of dairy and beef farming.
When you combine the current increase in meat consumption around the world with the steep declines in many dung beetle species overall emissions from cattle farming can only increase.
The mixture permits a controlled release of nutrients the regulation of water and an ideal environment for growing crops.
The coal waste contains chemical elements that can be ionised by the biofertiliser making nutrients which are essential to growth available for uptake by the plants.
Our findings could help land managers to plan schemes to help conserve bumblebee populations in both agricultural
or disabled by the disease a parasitic-worm infection spread by mosquitoes. Our study quantifies the effect of the most widely implemented vector control measure--insecticide-treated bed nets
They block female mosquitoes from securing blood a process that is essential for them to lay eggs and produce offspring.
Working in three Chinese provinces researchers led by Yi Guan Ph d. of the University of Hong kong collected samples from the throats and digestive tracts of chickens ducks geese pigeons and quail.
According to their analysis domestic ducks and chickens played distinct roles in the genesis of the H7n9 virus infecting humans today.
Within ducks and later within chickens various strains of avian H7n9 H7n7 and H9n2 influenza exchanged genes with one another in different combinations.
The resulting H7n9 virus began causing outbreaks among chickens in live poultry markets from which many humans became infected.
#Forest-interior birds may be benefiting from harvested clearingsefforts to conserve declining populations of forest-interior birds have focused largely on preserving the mature forests where birds breed
Meat-eating predators occasionally eat fruitit turns out that alligators do not live on meat alone. Neither do Nile crocodiles.
and a dozen other crocodile species enjoy an occasional taste of fruit along with their normal meat-heavy diets of mammals birds and fish.
and other plant-based nutrients though studies suggests that fruit eating is likely to yield nutritional rewards for crocodilians.
#Honeyguide birds destroy own species eggs to eliminate competitionlike cuckoos honeyguides are parasitic birds that lay their eggs in other birds'nests
Now scientists reveal that unlike in cuckoos the resemblance between honeyguide eggs and those of their bee-eater bird hosts hasn't evolved to trick hosts into accepting the imposter egg as one of their own.
Rather it appears to have evolved to trick other honeyguides who would otherwise destroy the eggs because of fierce competition for host nests.
The new research is published today 21 august in the journal Biology Letters. Honeyguides are intriguingly odd birds that are best-known for their unique mutually beneficial relationship with humans.
The researchers'curiosity was piqued by their earlier finding that like cuckoo eggs honeyguide eggs resemble those of each of their several host species. Instead of mimicking their colour
For example honeyguides parasitising little bee-eaters lay smaller eggs in their nests than do honeyguides parasitising larger hosts.
Many classic studies have shown that comparable mimicry in cuckoo eggs has evolved to reduce rejection by choosy hosts that eject mismatched eggs from their nests.
I assumed honeyguide egg mimicry had evolved just like cuckoo mimicry so was bowled over and baffled when little bee-eaters turned out to be pretty dim.
and experimentally parasitised their nests the bee-eaters blithely incubated eggs even much larger than their own.
and my experimental eggs were pecked to pieces that the penny dropped--perhaps they need to look like bee-eaters
A second experiment supported this hypothesis again the researchers placed a larger foreign egg in bee-eaters nests
and lay her own egg. When this happened they counted the number of puncture holes the female honeyguide made in each egg in the clutch.
This revealed that laying honeyguides punctured the larger foreign egg more heavily than host eggs
lest it be another honeyguide's egg and kill their own chick should it hatch first.
Evolution should then favour honeyguide females that lay eggs resembling those of bee-eaters and thereby avoid being detected
and destroyed by a competing honeyguide. The suggestion that mimicry might evolve because parasites benefit from concealing their eggs from one another was made first by Cambridge scientists Nick Davies
and Michael Brooke 25 years ago but this study is the first to show that it probably happens in the wild.
and about a third of parasitised nests contain eggs laid by two or more honeyguide females resulting in especially strong parasitic competition.
#Unscrambling the genetics of the chickens blue eggresearchers at The University of Nottingham have unscrambled the genetic mutation that gives the distinctive blue eggs laid by some breeds of chickens.
and look set to become big business in the baking aisles of all the major supermarkets--the blue egg produced by some chickens is prettier
--and now thanks to scientists from The University of Nottingham we know what caused the eggs in some breeds to turn this unusual Colour in a four-year research project just published in the journal PLOS ONE the team from the School of Biology has identified the genetic mutation
which first produced the blue egg in native South american chicken the Mapuche fowl and their European descendants Araucana between 200 and 500 years ago.
if demand for the blue egg continues to grow. The scientists used the unique genetic resources conserved by heritage
which revealed the genetic cause of the blue coloured egg shell--surprisingly--an ancient harmless retrovirus in the domestic chicken.
In this case the retrovirus'effect was to trigger an accumulation of a green-blue bile pigment called biliverdin in the eggshell as the egg develops in the hen.
An unexpected find was the unique integration sites for the retrovirus in South american/European and Asian chickens.
and so the chance of a retrovirus integrating at more or less the same location in two chicken populations is extremely low.
Moreover when appearing in the population the unusual egg coloration must have attracted the attention of the owners who must be praised for having selected the trait in subsequent breeding.
Of course it's not only some breeds of chicken that produce blue eggs. They are commonly found across species of birds including those that lay blue eggs as well as non-blue eggs within a single population like the cuckoo and guillemot.
It's therefore entirely possible that retroviruses could be playing a part in the diversity of egg colour
and patterning across avian species more generally but this remains to be studied. The work was initiated by Professor Olivier Hanotte
whose curiosity about blue eggs was sparked on a trip to Brazil where he met Professor Jos Antonio Alcalde co-author of the paper.
because some of these rarer native breeds of chicken with this unusual egg colour and high quality have become low in number
The fungus Trichoderma reesei is already very good at breaking down tough plant material into sugars.
James Liao's lab at the University of California-Los angeles provided E coli bacteria that had been engineered to convert sugars into isobutanol.
Colleagues at Michigan State university had treated pre the roughage to make it easier to digest. If you've ever had puffed rice cereal it's somewhat analogous said Jeremy Minty first author of the paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
and a recent doctoral graduate in Lin's lab. The fungi turned the roughage into sugars that fed both microbe species with enough left over to produce isobutanol.
The team managed to get 1. 88 grams of isobutanol per liter of fluid in the ecosystem the highest concentration reported to date for turning tough plant materials into biofuels.
Breaking cellulose down into sugar is hard work so T. reesei's tendency to do this and then share the spoils mark it as a cooperator.
Meanwhile the E coli use the sugars without offering the fungus anything in return which makes it a cheater.
because the fungi produce the sugars near their cell membranes which gives them the first crack at using the sugars.
The researchers can control E coli's advantage by tweaking how quickly the bacteria grow. Minty and others in Lin's group are now trying to improve on their energy conversion rate
while grazing gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazella) in contrast switch their diet to a high proportion of poisonous plants
Researchers from theizw the University of Namibia and other Namibian partners found that gemsbok (also called oryx) adjusted its diet according to season.
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.
Springbok therefore adopted a different dietary strategy than gemsbok when facing a shortage of food sources.
The researchers forecast changes to natural selection the spread of infections and the sexual development and fertility of wild animals.
and herbs especially Mexican oregano all contain apigenin and luteolin flavonoids that kill human pancreatic cancer cells in the lab by inhibiting an important enzyme according to two new University of Illinois studies.
The fossil--particularly its dentition which reveals teeth designed for shearing plant matter--confirms a 2012 analysis of tooth types that suggested multituberculates consumed an animal-dominated diet for much of their existence later diversifying to a plant-dominated one.
By the end of their run on the planet multituberculates had evolved complex teeth that allowed them to enjoy vegetarian diets
and its teeth were oriented already for an omnivorous diet. Based on their findings the researchers suggest that such adaptations must have arisen very early in the evolution of the order setting the stage for the major diversification of rodent-like mammals that ensued.
Sugars derived from the grain of agricultural crops can be used to produce biofuel but these crops occupy fertile soils needed for food and feed production.
Fast growing plants such as poplar eucalyptus or various grass residues such as corn stover and sugarcane bagasse do not compete
and can be a sustainable source for biofuel. An international collaboration of plant scientists from VIB and Ghent University (Belgium) the University of Dundee (UK) The James Hutton Institute (UK) and the University of Wisconsin (USA) identified a new gene in the biosynthetic
A plant cell wall mainly consists of lignin and sugar molecules such as cellulose. Cellulose can be converted to glucose
Lignin is a kind of cement that embeds the sugar molecules and thereby gives firmness to plants.
Unfortunately lignin severely reduces the accessibility of sugar molecules for biofuel production. The lignin cement has to be removed via an energy-consuming and environmentally unfriendly process.
The olinguito (oh-lin-GHEE-toe) looks like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear.
E-cigarettes are powered battery devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapors and flavorings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 6 percent of adults have tried e-cigarettes a number that has doubled nearly since 2010.
High risk times for the disease to spread include during transportation slaughter preparation and consumption.
and recommendations will help stop the spread of other infectious diseases. The H5n1 avian flu strain has been responsible for the deaths of millions of poultry as well as 375 confirmed human deaths.
-Transportation and sale of poultry and eggs. -Purchase and slaughter of poultry from markets. -Preparation of poultry for consumption--particularly in unhygienic conditions and when meat is undercooked raw
or. Preventative measures outlined in the report include isolating and quarantining flocks using protective equipment such as masks gloves
When young men skip even a single meal their testosterone levels can drop as much as 10 percent.
While Tsimane men have a relatively low baseline testosterone level--33 percent lower than that of men living in the United states where life is less physically demanding--they appear to maintain their testosterone levels over the course of their lives.
One of the important take-home messages of this study is that over the course of human evolution we had very physical strategies for producing calories.
test findswhen mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar--the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily--females died at twice the normal rate
Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health the researchers say in a study set for online publication Tuesday Aug 13 in the journal
This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts the study's senior author He says previous studies using other tests
fed mice large doses of sugar disproportionate to the amount people consume in sweetened beverages baked goods and candy.
and encouraged my family to do the same he adds noting that the new test showed that the 25 percent added-sugar diet--12.5 percent dextrose (the industrial name for glucose)
or added sugar Potts says. The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.
The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet
but is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns
A Mouse Diet Equal to What a Quarter of Americans Eatthe experimental diet in the study provided 25 percent of calories from added sugar--half fructose and half glucose--no matter how many calories the mice ate.
Both high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose) are half fructose and half glucose. Potts says the National Research Council recommends that for people no more than 25 percent of calories should be added from sugar which means they don't count what's naturally in an apple banana potato or other nonprocessed food.#
The diet fed to the mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet is equivalent to the diet of a person who drinks three cans daily of sweetened soda pop plus a perfectly healthy no-sugar-added diet Potts says.
Ruff notes that sugar consumption in the American diet has increased 50 percent since the 1970s accompanied by a dramatic increase in metabolic diseases such as diabetes obesity fatty liver and cardiovascular disease.
The researchers used a mouse supply company that makes specialized diets for research. Chow for the mice was a highly nutritious wheat-corn-soybean mix with vitamins and minerals.
For experimental mice glucose and fructose amounting to 25 percent of calories was included in the chow.
For control mice corn starch was used as a carbohydrate in place of the added sugars. House Mice Behaving Naturallymice often live in homes with people
because they've been living on the same diet as we have ever since the agricultural revolution 10000 years ago Potts says.
and then assigned either to the added-sugar diet or the control diet with half the males and half the females on each diet.
while they were fed these diets. Then the mice were placed in the mouse barns to live compete with each other
They all received the same added-sugar diet while in the mouse barns so the study only tested for differences caused by the mice eating different diets for the previous 26 weeks.
The founder mice had implanted microchips like those put in pets. Microchip readers were placed near the feeding stations to record which mice fed where and for how long.
Added Sugar Impairs Mouse Lifespan and Reproduction--After 32 weeks in mouse barns 35 percent of the females fed extra sugar died twice the 17 percent death rate for female control mice.
There was no difference in the 55 percent death among males who did did and not get added sugar.
Ruff says males have much higher death rates than females in natural settings because they compete for territory
but there's no relation to sugar. --Males on the added-sugar diet acquired and held 26 percent fewer territories than males on the control diet:
control males occupied 47 percent of the territories while sugar-added mice controlled less than 36 percent.
Male mice shared the remaining 17 percent of territories. --Males on the added-sugar diet produced 25 percent fewer offspring than control males as determined by genetic analysis of the offspring.
The sugar-added females had higher reproduction rates than controls initially--likely because the sugar gave them extra energy to handle the burden of pregnancy
--but then had lower reproductive rates as the study progressed partly because they had linked higher death rates to sugar.
The researchers studied another group of mice for metabolic changes. The only differences were minor:
cholesterol was elevated in sugar-fed mice and the ability to clear glucose from the blood was impaired in female sugar-fed mice.
The study found no difference between mice on a regular diet and mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet
when it came to obesity fasting insulin levels fasting glucose or fasting triglycerides. Our test shows an adverse outcome from the added-sugar diet that couldn't be detected by conventional tests Potts says.
Human-made toxic substances in the environment potentially affect all of us and more are discovered continually Potts says.
You have to ask why we didn't discover them 20 years ago he adds.
The answer is that until now we haven't had a functional broad and sensitive test to screen the potential toxic substances that are being released into the environment or in our drugs or our food supply.
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