#Scientists explore new technologies that remove atmospheric carbon dioxidein his Feb 12 State of the Union address President Obama singled out climate change as a top priority for his second administration.
We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy and the most severe drought in decades and the worst wildfires some states have seen ever were all just a freak coincidence he said.
Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science --and act before it's too late.
The first project was launched in 2009 by the Department of energy at a corn ethanol production facility in Decatur Ill. operated by the Archer daniel midlands Company.
We decided to work with Dr. Price's spectral analysis team to try using this new technology in our soybean breeding nursery Schapaugh said.
The goal was to find out how effective this technology might be in predicting yields stress tolerance
and disease resistance as a way to eliminate unpromising lines early in the process. To do this the K-State team including graduate students Nan An Brent Christenson
The study was designed to calculate the fiscal impact of California's large public health program on smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption.
UCSF has been at the forefront of tobacco research for decades disclosing how the tobacco industry manipulated its products and led the public into cigarette addiction.
and have grown over time reaching more than $25 billion a year in 2008 said first author James Lightwood Phd a UCSF associate professor of clinical pharmacy.
Every year an estimated 443000 people in the United states die from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC.
Another 8. 6 million people suffer from a serious smoking-related illness. Annually costs associated with smoking-related illness account billions in medical expenses
and lost productivity and 5. 1 million years of potential life lost in the United states the CDC reports.
The voter-funded state program centers on changing social norms around smoking to reduce smoking and tobacco-induced diseases.
but make an important contribution to health care cost containment said senior author Stanton A. Glantz Phd a UCSF professor of medicine and director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
and health costs in California with 38 other states that did not have substantial state tobacco control programs or cigarette tax increases prior to 2000.
Tobacco companies narrowly defeated Proposition 29 last year which would have increased the tobacco tax to reinvigorate the tobacco control program and to fund medical research.
The research was supported by TRDRP Grant 18st-0201 and National Cancer Institute Grant CA-61021.
#Masked mold toxins in food should be included in safety regulationsgovernment limits on mold toxins present naturally in grain crops should be expanded to include so-called masked mycotoxins that change from harmless to potentially harmful forms in the body a new
It appears in ACS'journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. Chiara Dall'Asta and colleagues explain that molds growing naturally on wheat corn
and other plants produce toxic substances termed mycotoxins. Some health experts regard mycotoxins as the most serious chronic dietary risk factor greater than the potential health threats from pesticides and insecticides.
Government regulations thus limit levels of mycotoxins that are permissible in food and animal feed.
Plants protect themselves by binding or conjugating glucose sulfur or other substances to the mycotoxin producing conjugated mycotoxins that are not harmful.
Dall'Asta explains that these masked mycotoxins are included not in current safety regulations because of uncertainty about
what happens when people and animals eat them. The new study focused on two of the most widespread mycotoxin contaminants of grain crops--deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEN.
The authors say their results show for the first time that bacteria present in the large intestine in people deconjugate
and ZEN releasing the original toxic forms. For this reason masked mycotoxins should be considered when evaluating population exposure the study concludes.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
which avoids the health environmental and pest-resistance concerns of traditional insecticides scientists are reporting.
The study led by Dr Vincent Gauci of The Open University and published in the journal New Phytologist may help to resolve an ongoing controversy about the origins of methane in the tropics.
In 2011 Sunitha Pangala a Phd student at The Open University who is supervised co by University of Bristol researcher Dr Ed Hornibrook spent several weeks in a forested peat swamp
Dr Gauci said: This work challenges current models of how forested wetlands exchange methane with the atmosphere.
Establishing whether tree-mediated emissions of methane are ubiquitous in tropical wetlands is now the focus of a new three-year Natural Environment Research Council grant to Dr Gauci
and Dr Hornibrook that begins later this year. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Bristol.
and Mexico according to a University of Michigan ecologist who studies the disease. The current outbreak of coffee rust is seen the worst in Central america
and Mexico since the fungal disease arrived in the region more than 40 years ago. Guatemala recently joined Honduras and Costa rica in declaring national emergencies over the disease.
The Guatemalan president said the outbreak could cut coffee production by 40 percent in his country for the 2013-2014 growing season.
They all say that it's the worst explosion of this disease they've ever seen said Vandermeer a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and at SNRE.
And this year it seems to have hit a tipping point where the various things that are antagonistic to the roya in a complex ecosystem have declined to the point where the disease can escape from them
It could be that this disease is just going to run itself out this year and will then return to previous levels he said.
The path this disease takes will have huge implications for the region's coffee producers. Coffee rust is the most important disease of coffee worldwide.
It was discovered first in the vicinity of Lake victoria in East Africa in 1861 and was identified later
The disease soon spread to much of Southeast asia and eventually throughout the southern central and western coffee-growing regions of Africa.
Since 1970 the disease has spread to every coffee-growing country in the world according to the Coffee Research Institute.
Coffee rust spores are spread by the wind and the rain from lesions on the underside of leaves.
#Low-arsenic rice discovered in Bangladesh could have major health benefitsscientists identify aromatic rice with very low arsenic content and higher concentrations of essential nutrients selenium
and zinc#published in Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imagingmillions of people worldwide are exposed regularly to arsenic through drinking water
Long-term exposure can lead to the development of different types of cancer as well as serious cardiovascular neurological and other health problems.
The discovery is reported in Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imaging. Rice is the staple food of over three billion people.
A team of scientists led by Dr. Parvez Haris from De Montfort University Leicester UK is carrying out research to remove arsenic from water
Haris and his team have demonstrated already that exposure to the more toxic inorganic arsenic species is greater in people who eat more rice.
In this latest work published in Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imaging the De Montfort University team#along with Dr Michael Watts from The british Geological Survey Keyworth Nottingham UK#has identified varieties that are low in arsenic but high in essential trace elements such as
selenium and zinc. Earlier studies showed high concentrations of arsenic in Bangladeshi rice but the rice samples were mainly from regions where the irrigation water contains higher levels of arsenic.
and selenium#says Dr Haris. This is very good news for millions of Bangladeshis who are exposed to high concentration of arsenic through drinking water
Although the yield of aromatic rice is lower the farmers will not need to spend much money on applying chemicals that could pollute the environment and harm their own health.#
It could also benefit people suffering from celiac disease who consume rice-based foods on a regular basis. Therefore it is essential that further research on aromatic rice from different parts of Bangladesh
and other regions of the world are conducted#concludes Dr. Haris. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by IOS Press BV.
#Lack of energy an enemy to antibiotic-resistant microbesrice University researchers cured a strain of bacteria of its ability to resist an antibiotic in an experiment that has implications for a longstanding public health crisis. Rice environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez
and his team managed to remove the ability of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa microorganism to resist the antibiotic medication tetracycline by limiting its access to food and oxygen.
and often transmissible DNA element--that allows it to resist tetracycline. The researchers'results reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental science
and Technology are the latest in a long effort to understand the environmental aspects of antibiotic resistance which threatens decades of progress in fighting disease.
The propagation of antibiotic resistance has been perceived as a medical or microbiology-related problem Alvarez said.
A lot of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria originate in animal agriculture where there is overuse misuse and abuse of antibiotics.
Alvarez contended that confined animal feeding operations (CAFOS) are potential sources of environmental contamination by antibiotics
and the associated antibiotic-resistant genes that find their way into the ground water and ultimately the food supply.
We started with the hypothesis that microbes don't like to carry excess baggage he said. That means they will drop genes they're not using
The Rice researchers tested their theory on two strains of bacteria P. aeruginosa which is found in soil
and/or oxygen through successive generations they found that in the absence of tetracycline both microbes dumped the resistance plasmid though not entirely in the case of E coli.
which made it susceptible once again to antibiotics. When a high level of tetracycline was present both microbes retained a level of resistance One long-recognized problem with antibiotics is that they tend to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If any antibiotic-resistant bacteria are part of a biological mix whether in a person an animal or in the environment the weak microbes will die
and the resistant will survive and propagate; this process is known by biologists as selective pressure.
If we can put an anaerobic barrier at the point where a lagoon drains into the environment we will essentially exert selective pressure for the loss of antibiotic-resistant genes
but it's enough to have bacteria notice a deficiency in their ability to obtain energy from the environment and feel the stress to dump resistant genes.
His study of the Haihe River in China funded by the Chinese government and published last year found tetracycline resistance genes are common in the environment there as well.
In 2002 the drought subjected the trees to the most extreme growing season water stress of the past century.
The scientists examined the isotopes in the aspen sap during natural and experimental drought in an area in Colorado that had heavy tree casualties.
#Dark chocolate and red wine the food of love and healthif you want to keep your true love's heart beating strong Susan Ofria clinical nutrition manager at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital said the real
In moderation red wine and dark chocolate are good health choices not just on Valentine's day but for any occasion.
and dark chocolate have positive components that are actually good for your heart said Ofria a registered dietitian at the Loyola University Health System's Melrose Park campus. Red wine
Ofria who is also a nutrition educator recommends the following list of heart-healthy ingredients for February which is national heart month and for good heart health all year.
The above story is provided based on materials by Loyola University Health System. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
Organic matter is important for soil health and crop productivity. While an indicator of soil quality a lot of organic matter is in extremely stable forms
In 2008 while watching a supercolony of Argentine ants in an urban environment former NC State Ph d. student Dr. Eleanor Spicer Rice noticed that Asian needle ants (Pachycondyla chinensis) were living
--and it is--then it could be the next major invasive ant species says Dr. Jules Silverman a professor of entomology at NC State
which can cause allergic reactions in some humans. Asian needle ants also appear to be driving out native ant populations in forests--including native species that play important roles in ecosystem processes such as dispersing seeds.
Dr Helen Wickstead spotted an opportunity to delve below the surface of an area of land at the University's Seething Wells hall of residence after looking at historic maps and images of the area alongside the River Thames.
and opened in 1852 were pivotal in improving the health of Londoners. They provided clean filtered water
when cholera had been ravaging the capital Dr Wickstead explained. A garden on a site like this might tell us more about the people who lived
and the parched grass visible on modern satellite images also suggested its presence Dr Wickstead said.
That showed us it was a functional feature rather than decorative Dr Wickstead who lectures in heritage said.
We were excited very to find a fragment of flint that we believe is a chipping from the making of Neolithic tools Dr Wickstead who is also a pre-historian said.
I like to imagine one of those people could even be the engineer James Simpson who invented the capital's water filtration system Dr Wickstead said.
On closer inspection two had names of people on them Dr Wickstead said. We'd love to find out more about Derek Ellis
Students studying historic building conservation joined Dr Wickstead on the dig. Third year Crispin Thomas who is interested particularly in Medieval carpentry helped survey the ground with an auger--a drilling device that tests resistance to see how deep top soil is.
Dr Wickstead said that small green patches of land like that at Seething Wells were scattered all over London
and vegetables to the diet may help protect the kidneys of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) with too much acid build up according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN).
This is particularly common in patients with CKD because the kidneys are responsible for removing acid through the urine.
Alkali supplementation therapy such as bicarbonate is used to treat CKD patients with severe metabolic acidosis but simply adding more fruits and vegetables
Nimrit Goraya MD Donald Wesson MD (Texas A&m College of Medicine) and their colleagues tested this by randomizing 71 patients with hypertensive stage 4 CKD to receive added fruits and vegetables
or an oral alkaline medication for one year. The treatments were dosed to decrease dietary acid by half.
PTCO2 was higher in patients receiving bicarbonate than in those receiving added fruits and vegetables.#¢
#¢Urine measurements of kidney injury were lower after one year in both groups.#¢#¢Although fruits and vegetables are rich in potassium
and vegetables patients had a favorable response by reduction of urinary kidney injury markers said Dr. Wesson.
Our study suggests that these interventions will help maintain kidney health in those with kidney disease added Dr. Goraya.
In an accompanying editorial Muhammad Yaqoob MD (Bartshealth NHS Trust and William Harvey Research Institute in London) noted that the study is likely to have limited a impact on clinical practice.
A small group of highly motivated patients wishing to reduce their pill burden through dietary modification may benefit from the results of this study.
However many patients find it difficult to follow a diet high in fruits and vegetables and might
and without dietary intervention in patients with chronic kidney disease is needed urgently. Study co-authors include Jan Simoni Phd and Chan-Hee Jo Phd.
snusresearchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy have received a $2. 3 million federal grant to study how young adults use hookahs snus electronic cigarettes and other
and alternatives to traditional combustible tobacco says Robin Mermelstein director of the UIC institute and principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute-funded study.
They do not carry FDA health warning labels. The researchers will follow approximately 230 young adults ages 18 to 30 who regularly use non-cigarette forms of tobacco.
or if they are using the products simultaneously with alcohol or drugs. Young adults are a big market for tobacco companies as they are often willing to try new products
The project is supported by the National Cancer Institute one of the National institutes of health under award number P01ca098262.
UF researchers led the team that analyzed the anatomy of living and fossil primates including lemurs monkeys and humans as well as their closest living relatives flying lemurs and tree shrews.
Phenomic data includes observational traits such as anatomy and behavior while genomic data is encoded by DNA.
Discovering the tree of life is like piecing together a crime scene--it is a story that happened in the past that you can't repeat said lead author Maureen O'Leary an associate professor in the department of anatomical sciences in the School of medicine at Stony Brook University
but so do other physical clues like a body or in the scientific realm fossils and anatomy.
It was a great way to learn anatomy in a nutshell said co-author Zachary Randall a UF biology graduate student
While coding for humans I could clearly see which anatomical features are shared unique or not shared with other groups of mammals.
The team reconstructed the anatomy of the placental common ancestor by mapping traits most strongly supported by the data to determine it had horned a two uterus a brain with a convoluted cerebral cortex and a placenta in
#Zinc helps against infection by tapping brakes in immune responsenew research suggests that zinc helps control infections by gently tapping the brakes on the immune response in a way that prevents out-of-control inflammation that can be damaging and even deadly.
and animal studies that a protein lures zinc into key cells that are first-responders against infection.
The zinc then interacts with a process that is vital to the fight against infection and by doing
so helps balance the immune response. This study revealed for the first time that zinc homes in on this pathway
and helps shut it down effectively ensuring that the immune response does not spiral out of control.
if there is not enough zinc available at the time of infection the consequences include excessive inflammation.
In this research zinc's activity was studied in the context of sepsis a devastating systemic response to infection that is a common cause of death in intensive care-unit unit patients.
But scientists say these findings might also help explain why taking zinc tablets at the start of a common cold appears to help stem the effects of the illness.
We do believe that to some extent these findings are going to be applicable to other important areas of disease beyond sepsis said Daren Knoell senior author of the study and a professor of pharmacy and internal medicine at Ohio State.
Without zinc on board to begin with it could increase vulnerability to infection. But our work is focused on
what happens once you get an infection --if you are deficient in zinc you are at a disadvantage
The benefit to health is explicit: Zinc is beneficial because it stops the action of a protein ultimately preventing excess inflammation.
While this study and previous work linking zinc deficiency to inflammation might suggest that supplementation could help very sick ICU patients it's still too early to make that leap.
We predict that not everybody in the ICU with sepsis needs zinc but I anticipate that a proportion of them would Knoell said.
Usually if there is zinc deficiency we would expect to see other nutrient deficiencies too. Zinc deficiency affects about 2 billion people worldwide including an estimated 40 percent of the elderly in the United states--who are also among the most likely Americans to end up in an ICU.
The research is published in the journal Cell Reports. Knoell's lab previously showed that zinc-deficient mice developed overwhelming inflammation in response to sepsis compared to mice on a normal diet.
Zinc supplementation improved outcomes in the zinc-deficient mice. Until now the beneficial effects of zinc in combating infection have not been understood fully at the molecular level.
This is because zinc has numerous complex jobs in the body and interacts with thousands of proteins to sustain human life.
Of all the zinc contained in our bodies only about 10 percent of it is readily accessible to help fight off an infection said Knoell also an investigator in Ohio State's Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute.
We believe that our findings help to narrow an important gap that has existed in our understanding of how this relatively simple metal helps us defend ourselves from infection he said.
In experiments using human monocytes--cells involved in the first line of defense against an invading pathogen--the researchers examined
what happens when the immune response is launched. When a pathogen is recognized a series of molecules wake up from dormancy to create a process that activates the innate immune response.
A major part of this process involves the NF-Î B pathway named for a highly active protein that is known to play an important role in the immune response to infection.
Once NF-Î B is activated and enters the nucleus a gene is expressed that produces a zinc transporter called ZIP8.
not only attacks the pathogen but can also cause much more collateral damage. The researchers knew from previously published experiments that
When researchers allowed this protein to function unchecked in mice with zinc deficiency the animals developed excessive inflammation in response to sepsis--confirmation that IKKB was zinc's target to turn off the inflammatory pathway.
Red meat and poultry provide the majority of zinc in the American diet according to the National institutes of health.
but relatively uncommon to take in too much zinc to reach toxic levels. His lab is continuing to study the NF-Î B pathway inflammation and zinc deficiency in other disease processes.
And though zinc would be inexpensive and easy to take as a supplement Knoell said many questions remain about
whether zinc should be considered as an intervention for specific disorders. There might be therapeutic implications about giving supplemental zinc in a strategic manner to help improve some people with certain conditions.
But also could we learn from this so someday we can be more diagnostic about who it is that needs zinc?
This work was supported by the National institutes of health and the Lifeline of Ohio Tissue Procurement Agency. Co-authors include Ming-Jie Liu Shengying Bao Charlie Pyle Andrew Rudawsky and Mark Wewers of the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute;
lvez-Peralta and Daniel Nebert of the University of Cincinnati Medical center; Ryan Pavlovicz and Chenglong Li of Ohio State's Biophysics Program (Li is also in the College of Pharmacy;
and David Killilea of Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Ohio State university.
#Scientists identify genetic mechanism that contributed to Irish Faminewhen a pathogen attacks a plant infection usually follows after the plant's immune system is compromised.
A team of researchers at the University of California Riverside focused on Phytophthora the pathogen that triggered The irish Famine of the 19th century
The Genus phytophthora contains many notorious pathogens of crops. Phytophthora pathogens cause worldwide losses of more than $6 billion each year on potato (Phytophthora infestans) and about $2 billion each year on soybean (Phytophthora sojae.
The researchers led by Wenbo Ma an associate professor of plant pathology and microbiology focused their attention on a class of essential virulence proteins produced by a broad range of pathogens including Phytophthora called effectors.
The effectors are delivered to and function only in the cells of the host plants the pathogens attack.
The researchers found that Phytophthora effectors blocked the RNA silencing pathways in their host plants (such as potato tomato
and soybean) resulting first in a suppression of host immunity and thereafter in an increase in the plants'susceptibility to disease.
Its effectors are the first example of proteins produced by eukaryotic pathogens--nucleated single -or multicellular organisms--that promote infection by suppressing the host RNA silencing process.
Our work shows that RNA silencing suppression is a common strategy used by a variety of pathogens--viruses bacteria
and Phytophthora--to cause disease and shows too that RNA silencing is an important battleground during infection by pathogens across kingdoms.
Study results appeared online Feb 3 in Nature Genetics. What is RNA silencing and what is its significance?
RNA is made from DNA. Many RNAS are used to make proteins. However these RNAS can be regulated by small RNA (snippets of RNA) that bind to them.
When RNA silencing is impaired by effectors the plant is more susceptible to disease. Basic RNA silencing processes are conserved in plant and mammalian systems.
RNA silencing has also been implicated in antibacterial plant defense. The discovery by Ma's lab is the first to show that RNA silencing regulates plant defense against eukaryotic pathogens.
Phytophthora effectors have a motif or signature--a specific protein code--that allows the proteins to be delivered into host cells Ma said.
A similar motif is found in effectors of animal parasites such as the malaria pathogen Plasmodium suggesting an evolutionarily conserved means for delivering effectors that affect host immunity.
Next her lab will work on extensively screening other pathogens and identifying their effectors'direct targets
so that novel control strategies can be developed to manage the diseases the pathogens cause. Ma was joined in the study by UC Riverside's Yongli Qiao Lin Liu Cristina Flores James Wong Jinxia Shi Xianbing Wang Xigang Liu Qijun Xiang
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011