#Parasites fail to halt European bumblebee invasion of the UKA species of bee from Europe that has stronger resistance to parasite infections than native bumblebees has spread across the UK according to new research at Royal Holloway
despite them carrying high levels of an infection that normally prevents queen bees from producing colonies.
A novel bio-pesticide created using spider venom and a plant protein has been found to be safe for honeybees
--despite being highly toxic to a number of key insect pests. New research led by Newcastle University UK has tested the insect-specific Hv1a/GNA fusion protein bio-pesticide--a combination of a natural toxin from the venom of an Australian funnel web spider
and snowdrop lectin. Feeding acute and chronic doses to honeybees--beyond the levels they would ever experience in the field--the team found it had only a very slight effect on the bees'survival and no measurable effect at all on their learning and memory.
which suggests the highly selective spider-venom toxin does not interact with the calcium channels in the bee.
Dr Geraldine Wright one of the authors on the paper heads up Newcastle University's Honeybee Lab. Last year she led the research
and should still take the initiative to make sure their hungry teens have healthy fare to eat said Kristen Kizer R. D. L. D. a clinical dietician with Houston Methodist Wellness Services.
and Vitamin d during this time head into adulthood with less than optimal bone density setting themselves up for osteoporosis and bone fractures years later.
Most teens aren't thinking about chronic disease 30 years down the road reminding them that the foods they choose now have an impact on their appearance athletic performance
so helping them select foods that will make them physically feel well can also improve their mood and emotional health.
#Acne cant be prevented or cured, but it can be treated effectivelyacne just won't go away. The skin condition characterized by unsightly blemishes remains one of the most common disorders there is with an estimated 80 percent of all people having outbreaks at some point in their lives.
Acne doesn't discriminate by gender or race and while it's most common in adolescents
and young adults it can appear at later ages especially in women. There's no way to prevent acne there's no cure
and today's over-the-counter remedies contain the same basic ingredients as those on drugstore shelves decades ago.
And acne won't just go away: Not treating it can actually make things worse. But acne can be treated effectively.
Recent advances in both medications and approaches to care have reduced significantly the impact it once had on both skin and self-esteem.
Things are so much better today because there are so many more options for treating acne said Sarah Taylor M d. a dermatologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
While OTC products are pretty much the same as they have been for years--just different concentrations of benzoyl peroxide
and salicylic acid in various forms such as cleansers gels and creams--the prescription world has changed really in the past 10 years or so.
We're much better equipped to deal with all different types of acne. Acne occurs when the skin's pores become clogged.
Each pore opens to a hair follicle containing a gland that produces oil called sebum which helps keep skin soft.
and other lesions commonly referred to as zits. What triggers this process isn't clear.
--thus partially accounting for acne flare-ups in teens and pregnant women--and heredity can be a factor
but research has shown that acne is caused not by dirty skin or by eating chocolate pizza or greasy foods.
While nonprescription acne medications aren't necessarily all that new or improved or that different from each other they can be effective on mild acne.
Over-the-counter products can work in many cases said William Huang M d. another Wake Forest Baptist dermatologist.
But no matter what the TV ads may say they take time usually six to eight weeks.
Acne can cause them a lot of stress and affect their emotional well-being so they want something that works right away
Dermatologists generally don't treat many patients with mild acne because those problems can be cleared up by the proper use of consumer products
or measures prescribed by a pediatrician or family doctor. Instead Taylor said We tend to see people whose acne is out of control
and has not been helped by OTC products or prescriptions from their regular doctor. The National institutes of health recommends contacting a dermatologist
if nonprescription measures don't help after a couple of months; the acne is bad (with for example a lot of redness around pimples
or the appearance of cysts) getting worse or spreading; or scars develop as the lesions clear up.
Skin specialists have both the expertise and the ability to prescribe stronger medications required to deal with more severe cases.
Among the most widely successful strategies they employ is prescribing different topical medications --which are coupled frequently in a single lotion gel or other delivery substance--in combination with oral antibiotics to address multiple causes and effects of acne.
Just like with any condition there isn't a magic bullet Huang cautioned. The treatment depends on the severity of the acne the type of acne where it's located and the patient's individual preference and motivation for treatment.
But these multilayered approaches that are tailored to the individual patient do work well. Dermatologists also have advanced ways to treat scarring including chemical peels microdermabrasion and laser technologies.
And they're generally more cognizant of the psychological damage that acne can inflict. Whether it's because of personal experience
or familiarity with studies that have been done on the subject I'd say dermatologists as a whole are much more sensitive to the psychosocial aspects of acne than in the past Huang said.
For me personally it's something I can relate to. Some teenagers are very confident and self-assured
even if their face looks terrible so they're easy to deal with Taylor said. But then there are kids who become very depressed
and withdrawn and may isolate themselves. With them I try to be hopeful and optimistic upbeat
and positive to tell them that I know it's hard having this condition and to show some sympathy.
Or empathy really because I had acne too when I was a teen. But no matter how understanding dermatologists are they--like other clinicians--face the problem of getting patients to follow their instructions.
Compliance is definitely highest right before and right after doctor visits Huang said. But it falls off over time and that can really hinder the effectiveness of any treatment.
To combat this dermatologists are turning to new devices. Research studies some conducted at Wake Forest Baptist have found that tools such as Web-based surveys email reminders
and encouraging text messages can help increase teenage patients'proper use of acne medications Consistency is the whole key to treating acne Taylor said.
So anything that can promote that has to be a plus. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Farmers markets inspire mothers to eat more veggies, but grocery-store produce costs lesswhen participants in a local Women Infants and Children (WIC) program received vouchers for fruits and vegetables at area farmers markets they ate a greater variety of vegetables
and more often chose fruits or vegetables as snacks. But a survey comparing prices at grocery stores
In the study 377 participants were recruited from the WIC Clinic in Champaign Illinois and surveyed on their dietary intake and habits.
and vegetables said Brandon Meline director of maternal and child health at the Champaign-Urbana (Ill.)
Public health District. The WIC farmers market voucher program has been important in giving many residents the possibility of increasing their intake variety Meline added.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend increased vegetable consumption to reduce the risk of heart disease certain cancers obesity type 2 diabetes high blood pressure osteoporosis and kidney stones.
A porous material invented by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour sequesters carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas at ambient temperature with pressure provided by the wellhead
Dr Duncan Rowland a fine artist and Reader in the School of Computer science developed the software application.
and the diseases they can spread as trends show travel to tropical countries is rising among Britons.
& Tropical Medicine today launch Bug Off--the first ever Insect repellent Awareness Day to highlight the issue.
They recommend applying repellents containing 20-50%DEET to the skin when in countries with diseases spread by insects such as malaria and dengue fever.
Although medicine and vaccines can prevent some diseases they don't prevent them all in those cases stopping the bite in the first place is the best line of defense.
They also conclude that the benefits of avoiding disease-spreading insect bites outweigh any theoretical risks associated with applying DEET to the skin.
They also looked at case reports of people suffering encephalopathy (brain condition) following exposure to DEET in the 1980s.
when allowing for underreporting the incidence of 14 reported cases of DEET-associated encephalopathy since 1957 is considered small
Brazil for example has dengue fever--a viral infection that is transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes which can cause life-threatening illness.
As there is no cure and no vaccine against the disease repellents are the number one protection.
It is winter in Brazil at the moment which means the risk is lower in most areas
but football fans travelling to the country are advised still to apply effective repellent frequently. Insect repellent Awareness Day aims to dispel myths
and other biting insects which can leave people at risk of harm to their health.
Dr James Logan Senior Lecturer in Medical Entomology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Director of arctec said:
Biting arthropods can transmit a whole range of diseases to humans and it is vital to protect ourselves.
Vaccines and treatments are available for some diseases but not all and so the best way to keep as safe as possible is to use an insect repellent containing DEET and reapply it regularly.
and tropical trips--we don't want them ruined by illness so we want to do all we can to help inform
and when insects transmit disease and we also teach courses on all aspects of biting insects vector-borne diseases and travel health.
We hope Insect repellent Awareness Day will cause people to stop and think this summer and pack their repellents.
Dr Ron Behrens Consultant in Travel Medicine and Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said:
If bites do happen make sure they don't become infected by applying an antiseptic and try to avoid scratching them.
The above story is provided based on materials by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Note:
#Tracking potato famine pathogen to its home may aid $6 billion global fightthe cause of potato late blight
and now known to be the ancestral home of one of the most costly and deadly plant diseases in human history.
Knowing the origin of the pathogen does more than just fill in a few facts in agricultural history the scientists say.
and helps explain the mechanisms of repeated emergence of this disease which to this day is still the most costly potato pathogen in the world.
But P. infestans is now one of the few plant pathogens in the world with a well-characterized center of origin.
and Plant Pathology in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State university a researcher with the USDA Agricultural research service and lead author on the study.
This is just a textbook example of a center of origin for a pathogen and it's a real treat Grunwald said.
Gene sequencing technology used by this research group helped pin down the Toluca Valley as the ancestral hot spot. The P. infestans pathogen co-evolved there hundreds of years ago with plants that were distant cousins of modern potatoes
Today the newly-confirmed home of this pathogen awaits researchers almost as a huge natural laboratory Grunwald said.
Since different potato varieties plants and pathogens have been co-evolving there for hundreds of years it offers some of the best hope to discover genes that provide some type of resistance.
#Blunting rice disease: Natural microbe inhibits rice blast fungusa fungus that kills an estimated 30 percent of the world's rice crop may finally have met its match thanks to a research discovery made by scientists at the University of Delaware
As global population continues to grow biocontrol bacteria may be an important key for farmers to overcome crop losses due to plant disease and to produce more food from the same acre of land.
Common symptoms of rice blast are shaped telltale diamond-lesions on the plant leaves. In order to do its work the spore must produce a structure called the appressorium a filament that adheres to the plant surface like an anchor.
and colleagues Spence Donofrio and Vidhyavathi Raman showed that Pseudomonas chlororaphis EA105 strongly inhibited the formation of the appressorium and that priming rice plants with EA105 prior to infection by rice blast decreased lesion
However a study by the University's Institute of Psychology Health and Society of 100 overweight and obese low fiber consumers tested
Liverpool psychologist Dr Jo Harrold who led the research said: These are the first data to demonstrate both weight loss and no negative side effects when consuming prunes as part of a weight management diet.
This study should help to measure the socioeconomic public health and environmental impacts of livestock and poultry worldwide.
The evaluation of multiple socioeconomic environmental and public health around the livestock sector requires accurate accessible and comprehensive spatial data on the distribution and abundance of livestock.
Also of concern are the public health implications of livestock intensification. The widespread use of antibiotics in livestock for preventive or curative purposes or as growth promoters directly contributes to the increasing prevalence of resistant strains of bacteria to antibiotics both at local and global levels.
In many countries the pressure on the land available for agriculture and livestock farmers pushes people
and spread of zoonotic infectious agents originating in wild animals. Finally it is estimated today that one in three human in the world--1. 46 billion--is obese or overweight a problem to
and the number of children affected by stunting due to malnutrition is estimated at 165 million. There has never been need a greater to ensure equitable efficient and sustainable food production;
Those conversions can in turn diminish the health of natural ecosystems and their ability to provide an array of valuable services such as clean air
In this way the bacterium can infect new citrus trees where it causes the incurable and deadly disease huã¡
#Drop in global malnutrition depends on agricultural productivity, climate changeglobal malnutrition could fall 84 percent by the year 2050 as incomes in developing countries grow
--but only if agricultural productivity continues to improve and climate change does not severely damage agriculture Purdue University researchers say.
The prevalence and severity of global malnutrition could drop significantly by 2050 particularly in the poorest regions of the world said Thomas Hertel Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics.
But if productivity does not grow global malnutrition will worsen even if incomes increase. Climate change also adds a good deal of uncertainty to these projections.
The shift toward a diet higher in calories and richer in protein could lift many in hunger-stricken regions such as Sub-saharan africa South Asia China and Mongolia above the malnutrition line.
Income growth alone will not be enough to solve the malnutrition problem. Historically agricultural productivity has been driven by investments in agricultural research and development.
study from the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health.
The study appeared in the April 16 2014 online edition of the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
There is a mistaken notion that tobacco smoking in a waterpipe is safer than cigarettes said Patrick Breysse Phd professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the study's senior author.
Our study found that waterpipe smoking creates higher levels of indoor air pollution than cigarette smoking placing patrons and employees at increased health risk from secondhand smoke exposure.
and tobacco control policies need to be strengthened to include water pipes said Christine Torrey BA senior research specialist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the study's lead author.
The above story is provided based on materials by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and nutrition and can grow successfully in environments stressed by drought pests diseases or poor soil quality.
since the completion of the first high-quality rice genome sequence in 2005 there has been limited change in breeding practices that are important for producing improved and better adapted rice strains.
which take advantage of the natural variation between different plant strains and information on the genetic mechanisms that underlie these traits to select strains for breeding that will be more successful in producing hybrid strains with characteristics that are suited highly for growing successfully in different environments.
Dr. Zhikang Li the Project Director at CAAS stated that the 3000 Rice Genomes Project is part of an ongoing effort to provide resources specifically for poverty-stricken farmers in Africa
and Asia aiming to reach at least 20 million rice farmers in 16 target countries (8 African and 8 Asian countries).
and has increasing consumption in Africa said Dr. Li. With decreasing resources (water and land) food security is
Dr. Jun Wang Director of BGI added to this saying that the population boom and worsening climate crisis have presented big challenges on global food shortage and safety.
According to IRRI director general Dr. Robert Zeigler access to 3000 genomes of rice sequence data will tremendously accelerate the ability of breeding programs to overcome key hurdles humankind faces
Drs Wang and Zeigler and Dr. Jia-Yang Li President of CAAS provide further information on the goals of this project in an accompanying commentary in Gigascience.
not only 13.4 terabytes of data they have collected also seeds from each strain (available in the International Rice Genebank Collection housed at IRRI).
Having banked seeds is essential to make full use of these now genetically defined strains to develop
and sustain the most appropriate hybrid strains for different environments. There remains however one additional component to achieve this goal:
and breeders to directly link the genetic information (genotype) to the physical traits (phenotype) of these different strains.
since the development of agriculture typically use apparent physical traits to guide strain selection for crossbreeding with the hope that the offspring will manifest a combination and improvement of the desired traits such as drought pest and disease resistance
when two strains are bred. Thus trial and error and multiple successive breeding stages are required often. Having full knowledge of the genetic makeup of a plant allows researchers to identify genetic markers related to specific physical traits
This information allows a breeder to make more intelligent choices in strain selection resulting in more accurate and rapid development of rice strains that are suited better to different agricultural environments in poor and environmentally stressed economies.
which may be a factor in declining rates of childhood obesity finds a new report in the American Journal of Preventive medicine.
The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed a significant decline in obesity among children aged 2 to 5 years from 12.1 percent to 8. 4 percent.
Discussions about childhood obesity often focus on the negative impacts of fast food said Meghan Slining Ph d. assistant professor of health services at Furman University.
The above story is provided based on materials by Health Behavior News Service part of the Center for Advancing Health.
#Understanding disease resistance genes in crops to secure future food productiona new understanding as to how plants defend themselves against some pathogens that cause crop diseases is proposed by researchers from the University of Hertfordshire to help scientists
breed new more successful disease-resistant agricultural crops. The new concept is called effector-triggered defense or ETD.
Breeding agricultural crops for resistance against disease pathogens is essential in the quest to secure global food production.
However despite efforts to control them crop diseases still account for fifteen percent of the losses in the world's food production.
Farmers spray their crops with fungicides to control these plant diseases but their effectiveness is limited as disease pathogens mutate to become insensitive to the fungicides.
By exploiting new molecular and genetic insights the research done in collaboration with Pierre de Wit from Wageningen Agricultural University in The netherlands provides a better understanding of the defense system of crop plants against the damaging pathogens that grow in the spaces between plant cells.
This provides new opportunities to improve the effectiveness of breeding crops for resistance against disease.
Dr Henrik Stotz Marie Curie Fellow and lead researcher from the School of Life and Medical sciences at the University of Hertfordshire said:
As traditional methods of controlling crop disease become less effective the need to breed new strains of crops with an inbuilt resistance to the disease pathogens increases.
In the same way that humans have developed immune responses against human disease pathogens crops can be bred for resistance against disease pathogens
but we need to improve our understanding of effective resistance mechanisms within plants. Our research enhances the traditional understanding of the plant defense system
and describes a new concept describing how plants protect themselves against the pathogens that grow in the space outside plant cells (the apoplast)--a new concept called effector-triggered defense or ETD.
and inside the plant cells Both sets of receptors sense the invasive pathogen and respond to its intrusion.
The two receptor systems have different classes of plant receptor proteins to detect different types of pathogen molecules.
Pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) is the first line of defense operating soon after the pathogen has landed on the plant surface.
Before the pathogen has entered the plant its presence of specific pathogen molecules or patterns is recognised by the host plant's immune systems.
This then activates immune responses to stop the pathogen and so protect the plant from infection. The second line of defense is referred to as effector-triggered immunity (ETI) this is based on the detection of disease pathogens by the plant's genes--there is a relationship between the gene in the host plant and the gene in the pathogen.
The concept of ETI was developed to describe defense against pathogens that enter into plant cells (e g. wheat rusts
and mildews potato late blight pathogens) and fits their defense mechanisms well. The presence of the pathogen in the cell activates specific proteins that cause death of both the plant cell and the invading pathogen.
Dr Stotz continued: This concept of plant ETI does not really explain the second line of defense in the interaction of plant hosts protecting themselves against extracellular fungal pathogens
--i e. those foliar fungal pathogens that get into the leaf of the plant to exploit the space between its cells known as the apoplast to retrieve nutrients from the plant.
These include the damaging pathogens that cause septoria leaf blotch on wheat barley leaf blotch apple scab and light leaf spot on oilseed rape.
The ETI concept does not hold for defense against those pathogens that go into the leaf but not into the cells.
Through our research we discovered that defense against extracellular pathogens (ETD) involves different plant genes from those involved in the defense against intracellular pathogens.
We identified some specific resistance genes that code for receptor-like proteis (RLPS) and described how they operated against the pathogens.
We feel immunity is too strong a term for this new defense mechanism because these extracellular pathogens can survive
and even sexually reproduce on resistant hosts and so we refer to it as'defense'.'Professor Bruce Fitt professor of plant pathology at the University of Hertfordshire added:
This new understanding of plant defense through ETD suggests different operations of specific resistance genes
which will help us to be more successful in breeding new strains of crops for resistance.
This is essential in the battle for global food security to protect the world's future food sources.
The paper Effector-triggered defense against apoplastic fungal pathogens is published online at Trends in Plant science.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Hertfordshire. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
help dairy producersconsumers may have more palatable low-fat products and milk producers a solution to an industry-wide problem through use of a unique strain of lactic acid bacteria according to Ashraf Hassan
After examining bacteria from the dairy environment for more than 15 years Hassan found a strain that mimics fat.
The strain Hassan discovered produces polysaccharides with high water binding capacity that then improve the quality of low-fat dairy products.
The polysaccharide produced by this strain also improves the functionality of proteins recovered from the cheese by product whey Hassan explained.
Furthermore the polysaccharide produced by this strain minimizes the negative impact of heat on milk protein during pasteurization according to Hassan.
To explore this possibility Hassan is collaborating with a researcher from University of Iowa's School of dentistry to apply for funding from the National institutes of health.
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