#How plant communities endure stressthe Stress Gradient Hypothesis holds that as stress increases in an ecosystem mutually supportive interactions become more significant and negative interactions such as competition become less so.
and according to the Stress Gradient Hypothesis their positive interactions become measurably more influential when ecosystems become threatened by conditions such as drought.
of stress on six continents. Examining the data from each paper and contacting original authors when necessary He determined the overall trends across the many experiments.
Our results show that plant interactions generally change with increased environmental stress and always in the direction of an outright shift to facilitation (typical for survival responses) or a reduction in competition (typical from growth responses) the authors wrote in the paper published online.
We never observed an increase in competition at higher stress. These findings were consistent across fitness measures stress types growth forms life histories origins climatic zones ecosystems and methodologies.
Analyses of studies of grasses trees and shrubs for example found that despite the obvious differences among these plant types they all shifted toward less negative or more positive interactions.
or neutral effects at high stress whereas less competitive species e g. trees have strong facilitative effects at high stress the authors wrote.
Overall the researchers found studies with observations of greater degrees of stress increase--longer stress gradients--also observed greater degrees of shift toward positive interactions.
They could only persist in groups suggesting that with stress organisms were better off together--despite their competition--than apart.
Bertness published the Stress Gradient Hypothesis in Trends in Ecological Evolution with Ray Callaway then a graduate student at the University of California-Santa barbara. Callaway is now a professor at the University of Montana.
Hundreds of studies over two decades from sites around the world suggest that the Stress Gradient Hypothesis can be employed as a rule of thumb.
Nearly two decades later with so much evidence now assembled Bertness said ecologists should feel confident enough in the Stress Gradient Hypothesis to employ it as a rule of thumb.
With the ecosystem's foundation shored up the natural tendency among species toward greater positive interactions under stress should allow the fish to weather stress better.
Kochmanski is now a master's student at the U-M School of Public health focusing on toxicology.
I am currently working in a toxicology laboratory at the School of Public health doing research into the human health effects of environmental exposures he said.
But earlier work by Barbehenn and his students showed that the toxicity of maple leaves may prevent this strategy from working.
Dr Grischa Perino suggests that some recommendations made by government agencies and environmental NGOS about how individuals can reduce GHG emissions are inappropriate in the European union because of its Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)
But in a new discussion paper by UEA's Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social science Dr Perino says that once the EU ETS cap is in place installing energy efficient lightbulbs flying less
but it does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions said Dr Perino an environmental economist in the School of economics and member of the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) at UEA.
However Dr Perino says that while this scheme reduces greenhouse gas emissions it only does so
Dr Perino recommends that to reduce emissions in EU ETS sectors such as electricity production people should put pressure on politicians to reduce the cap of the EU ETS.
and established carbon footprint labels can increase total emissions said Dr Perino whose findings are based on a mathematical model of consumption choices.
cap and trade schemes limit green consumerism by Dr Grischa Perino will be published by the Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social science on January 30.
which plants would experience water stress and therefore drought conditions. The threshold was determined for each study site
#Upon calculating soil water deficits and stress thresholds for the study sites the research team compared their assessment of drought probability to assessments made using atmospheric data.
It's the proteins that directly alter the morphology anatomy and function of a plant cell Abraham said.
or delay the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The study published by Wiley in Annals of Neurology a journal of the American Neurological Association
and Child Neurology Society found that diets high in lycopene beta-cryptoxanthin and Vitamin c did not reduce ALS risk.
Prior studies report that oxidative stress plays a role in the development of ALS. Further studies have shown that individuals with high intake of antioxidants such as Vitamin e have reduced a ALS risk.
According to the National Institutes of Neurological disorders and Stroke (NINDS) roughly 20000 to 30000 Americans have known ALS#lso as Lou gehrig s disease#nd another 5000 patients are diagnosed annually with the disease.
and waste away leading to paralysis.#oeals is a devastating degenerative disease that generally develops between the ages of 40 and 70
and affects more men than women#said senior author Dr. Alberto Ascherio Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard School of Public health in Boston Mass.#
the National institutes of health (NIH)# ARP Diet and Health Study the Cancer Prevention Study II-Nutrition Cohort the Multiethnic Cohort the Health professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses Health Study
Dr. Ascherio concludes#oeour findings suggest that consuming carotenoid-rich foods may help prevent or delay the onset of ALS.
which poison the fishers must also be considered when evaluating the population. We hope that we can continue to monitor the fisher
For instance the fibers can be wound to coat complex shapes. Because the fibers change color under strain the technology could lend itself to smart sports textiles that change color in areas of muscle tension
or that sense when an object is placed under strain as a result of heat. Additional coauthors included Alfred Lethbridge at the University of Exeter Moritz Kreysing at Ludwig Maximilians University (Germany) and Jeremy B. Baumberg Professor of Nanophotonics at the University of Cambridge (UK).
and doughnuts is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer and the effect appears to be slightly stronger with regard to more aggressive forms of the disease according to a study by investigators at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center.
Corresponding author Janet L. Stanford Ph d. and colleagues Marni Stott-Miller Ph d. a postdoctoral research fellow and Marian Neuhouser Ph d. all of the Hutchinson Center
's Public health Sciences Division have published their findings online in The Prostate. While previous studies have suggested that eating foods made with high-heat cooking methods such as grilled meats may increase the risk of prostate cancer this is the first study to examine the addition of deep frying to the equation.
From French fries to doughnuts: Eating more than once a week may raise risk Specifically Stanford co-director of the Hutchinson Center's Program in Prostate Cancer Research
and colleagues found that men who reported eating French fries fried chicken fried fish and/or doughnuts at least once a week were increased at an risk of prostate cancer as compared to men who said they ate such foods less than once a month.
In particular men who ate one or more of these foods at least weekly had increased an risk of prostate cancer that ranged from 30 to 37 percent.
Weekly consumption of these foods was associated also with a slightly greater risk of more aggressive prostate cancer.
The researchers controlled for factors such as age race family history of prostate cancer body-mass index
and PSA screening history when calculating the association between eating deep-fried foods and prostate cancer risk.
The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption--defined in our study as more than once a week--which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate
cancer Stanford said. Deep frying may trigger formation of carcinogens in food Possible mechanisms behind the increased cancer risk Stanford hypothesizes include the fact that
when oil is heated to temperatures suitable for deep frying potentially carcinogenic compounds can form in the fried food.
They include acrylamide (found in carbohydrate-rich foods such as French fries) heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (chemicals formed
These toxic compounds are increased with reuse of oil and increased length of frying time. Foods cooked with high heat also contain high levels of advanced glycation endproducts or AGES
which have been associated with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. Deep-fried foods are among the highest in AGE content.
For the study Stanford and colleagues analyzed data from two prior population-based case-control studies involving a total of 1549 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1492 age-matched
and risk of prostate cancer Stanford said. However deep-fried foods have previously been linked to cancers of the breast lung pancreas head and neck and esophagus.
Because deep-fried foods are eaten primarily outside the home it is possible that the link between these foods
and prostate cancer risk may be a sign of high consumption of fast foods in general the authors wrote citing the dramatic increase in fast-food restaurants and fast-food consumption in the U s. in the past several decades.
The project was supported by the National Cancer Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
but some health benefits of berries may not make it past your mouthresearch has suggested that compounds that give colorful fruits their rich hues especially berries promote health
and might even prevent cancer. But for the first time scientists have exposed extracts from numerous berries high in those pigments to human saliva to see just what kinds of health-promoting substances are likely to survive
and be produced in the mouth. It's too early to name the best berry for health promotion based on this initial work.
But the researchers have discovered that two families of pigments that provide berries with their colors called anthocyanins are more susceptible to degradation in the mouth than are the other four classes of these pigments.
or instead the products of their degradation that actually promote health. Scientists say that these early findings will contribute to the further development of confectionaries gums and other delivery devices for the prevention and possibly the treatment of conditions such as periodontal disease and oral cancers.
The researchers exposed extracts of anthocyanin pigments from blueberries chokeberries black raspberries red grapes and strawberries to the saliva collected from 14 people.
Black raspberries in particular have been shown in numerous previous studies to have chemopreventive effects on tumors in the mouth esophagus and colon mostly in animal studies.
Some might be better for providing health-promoting effects within the oral cavity whereas others may be more beneficial for colonic health.
We simply do not know at this time. Increased intake of fruits and vegetables is associated with decreased risk of some chronic diseases.
An understanding of the metabolism of these compounds and the relative activities of the compounds in the consumed fruit and their metabolic products is needed to make scientifically sound dietary recommendations
and after they had rinsed their mouths with an antibacterial liquid. The five fruits selected for study allowed the scientists to test the six distinct families of the anthocyanin pigments.
The extent of the pigment degradation in saliva was primarily a function of the chemical structure of a given anthocyanin said Failla also an investigator in Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center and Food Innovation Center.
whether the health-promoting benefits associated with eating anthocyanin-rich fruits like berries are provided by the pigment itself the natural combinations of the pigments in the fruit
If anthocyanins are the actual health-promoting compound you would want to design food products confectionaries and gels containing mixtures of anthocyanins that are stable in the mouth.
If on the other hand the metabolites produced by the metabolism of anthocyanins are the actual health-promoting compounds there will be greater interest in fruits that contain anthocyanins that are less stable in the oral cavity Failla said.
#Genome sequence of 90 chickpea lines decodedin a scientific breakthrough that promises improved grain yields and quality greater drought tolerance and disease resistance and enhanced genetic diversity
and low diversity genome regions that may be used in the development of superior varieties with enhanced drought tolerance and disease resistance.
ICRISAT and its partners have demonstrated once again the power of productive partnerships by achieving this breakthrough in legume genomics says Dr William Dar Director General ICRISAT.
whom ICRISAT and our partners are working Dr Dar adds. Genetic diversity an important prerequisite for crop improvement is limited very
or wild species to breeding lines explains Dr Rajeev Varshney coordinator of ICGSC and Director--Center of Excellence in Genomics ICRISAT.
and bacterial contamination of these popular items made from the uncooked dried penis of a bull or steer.
All 26 treats were tested for bacterial contaminants. One (4 percent) of the sticks was contaminated with Clostridium difficile;
one (four percent) was contaminated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics;
and seven (27 percent) were contaminated with Escherichia coli including one tetracycline-resistant sample. The number of treats sampled was small
and not all of these bacterial strains have been shown to infect humans. However the researchers advise all pet owners to wash their hands after touching such treats as they would with any raw meat or raw meat diets.
whether the calorie content and contamination rate found in this study is representative of all bully sticks or other types of pet treats according to the authors.
and cause heart disease while those rich in omega-3 and other polyunsaturated fatty acids may reduce the risk of heart disease studies have shown.
and juice processors address the threat posed by Huanglongbing (HLB) a disease that is costing the citrus industry millions of dollars each year.
In another study they investigated how HLB infection affects juice quality in the same three varieties of orange with respect to cultivar maturity and processing methods.
The program was probably not very effective at controlling mosquito-borne disease Coverdale says but it did put a lot of people to work
The Cape cod Mosquito Control Project continues ditch-dredging under the Barnstable County Department of health and the Environment.
These results are truly sensational says Dr Leck. If confirmed by other studies this could have far-reaching impacts on efforts to achieve the political targets for climate.
which is somewhat higher than the IPCC prognosis. But the researchers were surprised when they entered temperatures and other data from the decade 2000-2010 into the model;
#Magnetic levitation tissues could speed toxicity testsin a development that could lead to faster and more effective toxicity tests for airborne chemicals scientists from Rice university and the Rice spinoff company Nano3d Biosciences have used magnetic levitation to grow some of the most realistic lung tissue ever produced in a laboratory.
The research is part of an international trend in biomedical engineering to create laboratory techniques for growing tissues that are virtually identical to those found in people's bodies.
Killian and fellow scientists from Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center co-founded Nano3d Biosciences in 2009 after creating a technology that uses magnetism to levitate
because there's a large potential payoff in terms of reducing costs for pharmaceutical and toxicological testing. Nano3d Biosciences won a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to create a four-layered lung tissue from endothelial cells smooth muscle cells
which is important for toxicological testing because primary cells provide the closest possible match to native cells.
Souza said bronchiole tissue could solve another problem that's frequently encountered in testing the toxicity of airborne agents.
which is what you'd prefer for toxicity testing he said. With our technology we can easily levitate the bronchiole tissue to the air-liquid interface
so that airborne toxins are exposed to the epithelial layer of the tissue just as it would occur in the lungs.
Dr. Robert Moore a pediatric pulmonologist at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM; and former BCM scientist Jacob Gage now with Nano3d Biosciences.
and vegetable intake and risk of overall breast cancer but vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of estrogen receptor-negative (ER-)breast cancer according to a study published January 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer
The intake of fruits and vegetables has been hypothesized to lower breast cancer risk however the existing evidence is inconclusive.
There are many subtypes of breast cancer including ER -and ER positive (ER+)tumors and each may have distinct etiologies.
Since ER-tumors which have lower survival rates and are less dependent on estrogen levels than ER+tumors account for only 15-20%of breast cancers large pooled analyses are needed to determine the suspected link to lower ER-breast cancer risk and the consumption of fruits and vegetables.
In order to determine if there is a link between the lowered risk of ER-breast cancers and the intake of fruits and vegetables Seungyoun Jung Sc.
D. formerly from the Department of Nutrition Harvard School of Public health and currently at the Channing Division of Network Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and colleagues analyzed data from 20 cohort studies of women
who were followed for a maximum of 11-20 years. They investigated the association of high compared to low intake of fruit
and vegetables and risk of developing breast cancer in each study and then combined the study-specific estimates to generate summary estimates for all studies combined.
The researchers found that total fruit and vegetable intake was linked statistically significantly to a lower risk of ER-breast cancer but not with risk of overall breast cancer or risk of ER+breast tumors.
The results showed that the lower risk was associated mostly with higher vegetable consumption. These findings support the value of examining etiologic factors in relation to breast cancer characterized by hormone receptor status in large pooled analyses
because modest associations with less common breast cancer subtypes may have been missed in smaller studies the authors write.
In an accompanying editorial Cynthia A. Thomson Ph d. and Patricia A. Thompson Ph d. both of the University of Arizona Cancer Center write that the findings of the study support the emphasis on greater intake for vegetables
(and to a lesser extent fruit) to lower the risk of ER-breast cancer. However they also write that interpretation of these findings may also be challenged by the known effects of other potential confounders including the aggregation of health behaviors.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Scarecrow gene: Key to efficient crops, could lead to staple crops with much higher yieldswith projections of 9. 5 billion people by 2050 humankind faces the challenge of feeding modern diets
to additional mouths while using the same amounts of water fertilizer and arable land as today.
The gene called Scarecrow is discovered the first to control a special leaf structure known as Kranz anatomy
Researchers have been trying to find the underlying genetics of Kranz anatomy so we can engineer it into C3 crops said Thomas Slewinski lead author of a paper that appeared online in November in the journal Plant and Cell Physiology.
The finding provides a clue as to how this whole anatomical key is regulated said Turgeon. There's still a lot to be learned
The C4 adaptation involves Kranz anatomy in the leaves which includes a layer of special bundle sheath cells surrounding the veins and an outer layer of cells called mesophyll.
and anatomy Slewinski recognized that the bundle sheath cells in leaves of C4 plants were similar to endodermal cells that surrounded vascular tissue in roots and stems.
When the researchers grew those plants they first identified problems in the roots then checked for abnormalities in the bundle sheath.
Department of psychology researcher Dr Tamlin Conner and Dr Caroline Horwath and Bonnie White from Otago's Department of Human Nutrition investigated the relationship between day-to-day emotions and food consumption.
The study is published in The british Journal of Health Psychology on January 24. A total of 281 young adults (with a mean age of 20 years) completed an internet-based daily food diary for 21 consecutive days.
Those with a history of an eating disorder were excluded. On each of the 21 days participants logged into their diary each evening
and more energetic than they normally did says Dr Conner. To understand which comes first--feeling positive
or eating healthier foods--Dr Conner and her team ran additional analyses and found that eating fruits
and snacking on whole fruit like apples says Dr Conner. She adds that while this research shows a promising connection between healthy foods
and the diseases they carry. By combining data on six parasite species from ongoing surveys of lemur health with weather data and other environmental information for Madagascar as a whole a team of Duke university researchers has created probability
maps of likely parasite distributions throughout the island today. Then using climate projections for the year 2080 they estimate what parasite distributions might look like in the future.
We can use these models to figure out where the risk of lemur-human disease transmission might be highest
and human health said lead author Meredith Barrett who conducted the study while working as a graduate student at Duke.
what these changes could mean for lemur health by taking a cue from the parasites they carry.
Some species--such as pinworms whipworms and tapeworms--cause diarrhea dehydration and weight loss in human hosts.
Others particularly mites and ticks can transmit diseases such as plague typhus or scabies. When the researchers compared their present-day maps with parasite distributions predicted for the future they found that lemur parasites could expand their range by as much as 60 percent.
As lemur parasites become more prevalent the diseases they carry could show up in new places.
and lack resistance to the diseases they carry. Shifting parasite distributions could have ripple effects on people too.
As human population growth in Madagascar drives people and their livestock into previously uninhabited areas wildlife-human disease transmission becomes increasingly likely.
The authors hope their results will help researchers predict where disease hotspots are likely to occur
Meredith Barrett is now a postdoctoral scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of California at San francisco and Berkeley.
and tastes sometimes described as resembling smoked meat disinfectant or a dirty ashtray. In an effort to manage
and activates a stress hormone which stops root growth. The study published in the current issue of The Plant Cell is a boon for understanding the stress response and for developing salt-resistant crops.
Salt accumulates in irrigated soils due to the evaporation of water which leaves salt behind. The United nations estimates that salinity affects crops on about 200 million acres (80 million hectares) of arable land
It turns out that Abscisic acid a stress hormone produced in the plant when it is exposed to drought
%*The Cambridge research was published recently in the journal BMC Public health. Because Australia the first country to implement plain packaging only did so in December of last year there is no quantifiable evidence as of yet.
Professor Theresa Marteau Director of the University of Cambridge's Behaviour and Health Research Unit who led the study said:
A one percentage point decline--from 21%of the population to 20%--would equate to 500000 people who will not suffer the health effects of smoking.
Dr Rachel Pechey first author of the study from the University of Cambridge's Behaviour and Health Research Unit said:
This ties in with previous research that has described three ways in which plain packaging may reduce smoking rates particularly among youth--by reducing the appeal of packs by increasing the salience of health warnings
It is estimated that treating diseases caused by smoking costs the NHS £2. 7 billion a year.
By providing an alternative energy source the pigs are most likely going to be able to fight off infections more efficiently.
He said weanling pigs are more susceptible to pathogens and stress because they have to adjust to a new diet and a new environment.
To add to the risk weaning comes at a time when a pig's immune system is immature. The stress of weaning can lead to reduced feed intake less available energy and an increased risk of infection.
With an oral supplement of live R. opacus weanling pigs would have an alternative source of energy.
This could potentially be carried over to human health as well Donaldson said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Society of Animal Science.
which the body converts to a close cousin of Vitamin a may lower the risk for the most common form of diabetes
while gamma tocopherol the major form of Vitamin e in the American diet may increase risk for the disease.
The scientists used a big data approach to hunt down interactions between gene variants previously associated with increased risk for type-2 diabetes
and blood levels of substances previously implicated in type-2 diabetes risk. In people carrying a double dose of one such predisposing gene variant the researchers pinpointed a highly statistically significant inverse association of beta carotene blood levels with type-2 diabetes risk along with a suspiciously high positive association of gamma
tocopherol with risk for the disease. Type-2 diabetes affects about 15 percent of the world's population
and the numbers are increasing said Atul Butte MD Phd associate professor of systems medicine in pediatrics.
Government health authorities estimate that one-third of all children born in the United states since the year 2000 will get this disease at some point in their lives possibly knocking decades off their life expectancies.
Butte is the senior author of the new study published online Jan 22 in Human genetics. The first author Chirag Patel Phd is a former graduate student in Butte's lab and now a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research center.
The findings point the way to further experiments that could establish whether beta carotene and gamma tocopherol are respectively protective and harmful themselves or merely markers
whose blood levels dovetail with the presence or absence of some other substance process or defect that is a true causal factor.
Moreover the fact that both beta carotene and gamma tocopherol interact with the same gene variant to influence diabetes risk
albeit in opposite directions suggests that the protein the gene called SLC30A4 codes for may play a crucial role in the disease.
Indeed that protein is relatively abundant in insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas where it aids the transport of zinc into those cells.
This in turn triggers the release of insulin whose adequate secretion by the pancreas and efficient uptake in muscle liver and fat tissue counters the dangerous buildup of glucose in the blood and in the long run the onset of type-2 diabetes.
The genomes of some 50 to 60 percent of the U s. population carry two copies of that very gene variant which previous studies have shown to confer a slightly increased risk of contracting type-2 diabetes.
This variant was one of 18 each found by other researchers to have a mild association with type-2 diabetes risk that the Butte team incorporated into its analysis. These gene/disease connections had been identified via so-called genome-wide association studies
In such analyses the genomes of large numbers of people with a disease are compared with those of people without it to see
so advanced statistical techniques must be employed to screen out frequency differences between the diseased and healthy groups that are at bottom the mere results of blind chance.
While plenty of genetic risk factors for type-2 diabetes have been found said Butte none of them taken alone
and not even all of them taken together comes close to accounting for the prevalence of type-2 diabetes.
But increasing numbers of exposures are being cataloged by investigators--including for example scientists at the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention who conduct massive biennial screenings to collect data that can guide public-health policy decisions.
This ongoing endeavor called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey involves a detailed analysis of substances in blood drawn from thousands of volunteers
and other indicators of their medical status In 2010 Patel Butte and their colleagues published the results of the first-ever EWAS in
or without high blood-glucose levels--a defining marker of type-2 diabetes--in pursuit of differences between the two groups'exposures to myriad environmental substances.
This enabled the researchers to perform a novel study pairing each of the 18 type-2-diabetes-implicated gene variants with each of the five suspect environmental substances to see how for individuals carrying a particular gene variant
None of the genetic factors studied in isolation had shown a particularly impressive impact on type-2 diabetes risk.
This vitamin was already known as being'good'with respect to type-2 diabetes so it was no surprise that we saw it too said Butte
High blood levels of gamma tocopherol appeared to be associated with increased risk for the disease.
or accelerating the onset of type-2 diabetes. It also may throw light on precisely how these substances affect the production or performance of the protein for which the implicated gene codes.
Other co-authors were John Ioannidis MD Phd professor of medicine and of health research and policy;
The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health National Library of Medicine National Institute of General Medical sciences and other National institutes of health agencies funded the study.
The above story is provided based on materials by Stanford university Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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