and proliferate inhibiting the growth of ethanol-producing yeast. The result is slowed fermentation and a reduced biofuel yield of as much as 20 percent per pound of input material potentially shutting production.
Evidence for ancient forest fires predates the dinosaurs but the clues come from charcoal not from marks on fossilized trees.
That's because the scientists who study petrified wood rarely cross paths with forest fire researchers Byers suspects.
The healing curls of wood leave a unique pattern of growth rays as they stretch around the trunk.
Stress from forest fires can leave behind bands of narrow tree rings in some modern trees a result of the struggle to recover
However its microscopic tree cells called tracheids internal highways that transfer water and nutrients show signs of fire stress in a manner similar to tree rings.
Six to eight rows of tiny tracheids suggest suppressed growth immediately after the fire the researchers report.
The next rows are bigger than prefire tracheids likely because the forest fire's survivors had less competition for water
and nutrients Byers said. This post-fire growth spurt is seen also in modern trees. Rethinking the past
In the Cretaceous period between 120 million and 65 million years ago researchers now think wildfires helped trigger the development of the first flowering plants.
That's a classic fire adaptation (so ground fires can't climb up lower branches) Byers points out.
For example bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) is a highly nutritious drought-tolerant African food legume. However during Africa s colonial period it was displaced increasingly by the oil-rich peanut grown for its cash and export potential.
Eventually the acid and bacteria in plaque can eat through the other layers of your teeth as well from the softer layer of teeth under the enamel known as dentin to the third layer (the pulp)
Cavities affecting the pulp of a tooth as well as the bone supporting the tooth can cause severe toothaches sensitivity pain when eating and abscesses in the mouth.
The route includes the incomparable Craters of the moon national monument the Salmon river corridor Idaho's unique Camas Prairie (home to the some of the largest intact cold freshwater springs in North america) and Montana's Blackfoot River corridor.
and sleep together in protected tangles of vines or tree holes during the day and then climb into the forest canopy to find their favorite tree fruits at night.
Stars perform some of the most important work in the cosmos: They manufacture the elements heavier than hydrogen they create planets as part of their own formation
People in the middle East began experimenting with edible plants selecting seeds from the best plants and planting them in protected areas.
Wheat rye and barley and occasionally imported grape wine from southern Europe formed a base for the drink.
Herbs and spices such as bog myrtle yarrow juniper and birch resin added flavor and perhaps medicinal qualities.
Dogfish Head's grog is called Kvasir a name that hints at its roots. In Nordic legend Kvasir was created a wise man by gods spitting into a jar.
These map layers show characteristics like the vegetation soils bodies of water and climate of protected areas and this information is combined with Street view imagery videos photos
It will also allow consumers to make informed decisions on the products they buy as the map can show where a pulp
while kefir calls for both bacteria and yeast. In both yogurt and kefir bacteria ferments the lactose found in milk into lactic acid giving these products a tangy flavor.
Additionally the yeast in kefir transforms lactose into carbon dioxide (with a small amount of alcohol.
Scientists at La Trobe University published a study this week about a protein found in the flowers of ornamental tobacco plant that targets human cancer cells
Of blebbing and lysis In addition to testing the action of Nad1 against various fungi including yeast the researchers tested its action on human cell lines known to come from lymphoma cervical and prostate cancer.
Imagine fields of tobacco grown for their flowers instead of their leaves leading to an outburst of health conscious tobacco farming.
On the other hand I am beginning to feel kindly towards the Genus nicotiana (the tobacco plants) which seems to contain a molecule that bursts cancer cells.
Gluten is a protein found in many grains including wheat barley and rye. People who don't fall into either of these groups would probably not be advised to cut gluten out of their diet in pregnancy
Scavengers possibly Arctic foxes and ravens devoured Khroma's heart and lungs as well as parts of the trunk and skull between the time she was discovered in 2008
and tried to blow it out of her trunk. Because the nasal passages narrow in the trunk she only managed to get the mud stuck even more.
It moved straight into her trachea and bronchi and by that time she was exhausted too
While Feeding Like an herbivorous Count Dracula a snakelike vine coils around its leafy victim punctures its stem
The parasitic plant Cuscuta pentagona commonly known as strangleweed or dodder preys on many common crop plants.
and the study may help scientists understand how to combat parasitic plants that destroy food crops around the world the researchers said.
so it doesn t rapidly kill its host said study co-author James Westwood who has the awesome title of professor of plant pathology physiology and weed science at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia.
Once the weed coils around its host plant it uses sharp appendages called haustoria to penetrate the host's tissue and suck out sugars and other nutrients.
along with these nutrients the weed also transports RNA the genetic material cells use to translate instructions in the organism's DNA into cellular machinery or proteins.
A much smaller amount of mrna flowed between the weed and the tomato plant the researchers found.
At the same time the weed is also sending messages to the host plant which may be operating like a genetic Trojan horse making the host more susceptible to the invading plant Westwood said.
Old Trees Grow Fastest Like a fairytale beanstalk a tree can grow and grow until it scrapes the sky.
Trees store carbon in their tissues such as wood bark and leaves. So scientists assumed the older trees were growing more slowly
but the biggest oldest trees can swell their wood bark and leaf mass by 1300 lbs.
about 600 kilograms) in one year the researchers report. I think one of the reasons the idea that older trees grew more slowly had such staying power is
#The divers had told us that groups of juvenile cod flit in and out of cracks in a nearby ice wall.
On this trip the dive team gathered about 200 juvenile emerald rock cod primarily using little green fishing nets the kind you d use in a child s aquarium.
This time of year green seems to be everywhere from the warmer weather that encourages spring blooms to St patrick's day to Earth Day.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) boys and girls in this age group should be eating a minimum of one cup of fruits and a cup of vegetables per day.
The beginning of the year (and the starting of the calendar) signaled that farmers should trellis vines prune trees and sow spring wheat.
#and moon#having the same roots. Like many civilizations the Romans transitioned away from a lunar calendar to one that better reflected the seasons:
and insects along with some very primitive mammals and some of the earliest flowering plants he said.
Recent research shows that the impact of the invasive species in question kudzu is more troublesome than had been thought previously.
Kudzu is one of the most impressive invasive species in the world. Introduced to the US as a handful of plants in 1876 this invader now occupies over 3m hectares of land in the US largely in the southeast of the country.
If anything could be said to grow like a weed it is kudzu. It grows at an impressive rate of up to a metre every three days.
It is a member of the legume family of plants like beans and grows in a vine-like manner laying down roots
whenever it comes into contact with the ground. Originally introduced as an ornamental plant and then for livestock feed and erosion control it has
In addition to the damage it inflicts by overwhelming other plants kudzu has indirect effects as well. Most notably it carries the kudzu bug#.
#This foul-smelling insect is also an invasive species. Unfortunately the kudzu bugs'taste extends beyond its namesake plant
and includes other legumes such as beans grown for human consumption. This means kudzu s impact is not only native ecosystems but agricultural productivity as well.
Kudzu s direct and indirect cost to the US economy is estimated to be in excess of US$500M annually.
That cost may be set to increase. Rising temperatures and lengthened growing seasons in the northernmost front of the kudzu s range are creating a welcoming environment for further invasion.
Where it was restricted once to southeastern states Kudzu is now found in more northerly states including New jersey and Ohio.
New research suggests that kudzu s negative impact may extend beyond that already documented. Its invasion may also be contributing to the rise in global greenhouse gases by altering soil composition.
Soil holds a phenomenal amount of carbon. In fact there is more carbon stored in soil than in the atmosphere and in terrestrial plants combined.
Soil carbon comprises roots from plants dead matter and waste from plants and animals and a vast population of microbes.
but also from dead roots as well as stems branches and tree trunks that have fallen to the ground. The carbon in the organic matter largely stays locked away in the soil like an enormous reservoir.
Over time carbon is released as greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane when the matter is degraded by soil microbes.
The problem with kudzu is that it changes the rate at which carbon remains locked away in the soil.
and graduate student Mioko Tamura of Clemson University show that kudzu invasion results in an increase of carbon released from the soil organic matter into the atmosphere.
Tharayil and Tamura investigated the impact of a kudzu invasion in native pine forests. They found that the invasion actually increased the amount of leaf material contributed to the soil
but despite this soil carbon decreased by nearly a third in those forests. Tharayil and Tamura attribute the release of carbon from kudzu-invaded forests to the fact that kudzu adds material to the soil that is susceptible to degradation relative to that produced by pine.
Simply put kudzu leaves and stems are easy for microbes to degrade pine needles and stems are not.
This means that carbon is locked in with waste from pines; whereas it gets released by kudzu.
When kudzu invades its leaves stems and roots become the major plant contributors to the soil organic matter replacing pines'contribution.
This has a threefold effect. First over time the hard-to-degrade pine matter decreases in abundance.
Second the easy-to-degrade kudzu matter actually encourages the degradation of the pine matter.
That is kudzu material primes#the soil microbes to be more effective at degrading the plant material in the soil including that previously contributed by pines.
Finally after invasion the kudzu matter is simply more rapidly degraded itself. The net result of these three effects is that plant material is degraded more rapidly it doesn t persist like it did in the pine forests.
The impact of kudzu invasions on the release of former pine forests could be substantial.
Tharayil has estimated that kudzu invasion might cause the release of 4. 8 tonnes of carbon per year.
This is the equivalent of the amount of carbon stored almost 5m hectares of forest or the amount of carbon released by burning 2. 3m tonnes of coal annually.
That is approximately the same as the annual carbon footprint for a city of 1m in that part of the world.
This could create a snowball effect as elevated temperature would enable kudzu to extend its range to more northern latitudes.
They also looked at the impact of the invasion of another noxious weed knotweed on old fields.
This is not to say that allowing knotweed to run rampant is the solution to kudzu s carbon-releasing menace.
the conjunction of comet Pan STARRS (C/2011 L4) and the great galaxy Andromeda (M-31.
The Andromeda Galaxy can be seen many nights out of the year but those special times when this galaxy is adorned by a comet just about as bright as itself makes the effort well worth it and
but most B vitamins have a role in helping your body's cells to produce energy said Heather Mangieri a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and owner of Nutrition Checkup in Pittsburgh.
Nutritional yeast is the best vegetarian source of Vitamin b12 Sheth said. Just 2 teaspoons (6 grams) a day of nutritional yeast should cover an adult's Vitamin b12 needs.
Additionally most multivitamins contain the daily recommended amount of Vitamin b12 and fortified cereals typically provide ample Vitamin b12.
It didn t take that long to find the decaying bridge now being overtaken by blackberry and multiflora rose.
That is where I had marked a spot for some moist leaf litter. I crouched and dug around in the litter to find an inch-long creature chestnut-brown with pink highlights curled up on top of the dirt.
They power through the undergrowth with their many legs two pairs on most segments but not quite the 1000 implied by their common name bulldozing through the dirt
Murals in Teotihuacan depict agave plants which are also known as maguey plants and physically resemble aloe.
A number of these paintings may also depict scenes of people drinking a milky alcoholic potion known as pulque
which is made from maguey sap. Tequila is made also from agave plants but these liquors are made from the baked hearts of these crops not the sap.)
Prior studies hinted that pulque might have helped keep people in Teotihuacan alive. Maguey withstands frost
and drought better than maize and pulque could have provided vital calories most essential nutrients and probiotic bacteria.
Researchers found that this fermented maguey sap may have been stored in distinctive vaselike pottery vessels that were sealed with pine resin as well as in other less-specialized vessels.
because they contain potatoes said study researcher Samara Joy Nielsen a nutritional epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The harsh conditions after the impact favored fast-growing flowering plants nudging forests toward a new pecking order a new study reports.
Most of the slow-growing trees and shrubs munched by dinosaurs are minor players in modern forests
When you look at forests around the world today you don't see many forests dominated by evergreen flowering plants lead study author Benjamin Blonder said in a statement.
Dinosaurs stomped through forests ruled by evergreen angiosperms which never drop leaves. Angiosperms are flowering plants grasses
and trees excluding conifers like spruce and pine. The dinosaur-era angiosperms included ancient relatives of holly rhododendrons and sandalwood.
Other plants in the ancient forests included beeches cycads gingkoes ferns and palm trees. See Photos of a Fossilized Forest in the Canadian Arctic Fossil records show that angiosperms of all kinds thrived before a meteorite
or asteroid crashed into Earth 66 million years ago. That stupendous blast charred vast woodlands that had grown from Canada to New mexico.
In North america about 60 percent of plant species went extinct according to earlier studies After the blaze deciduous angiosperms
which drop their leaves seasonally bounced back much better than the evergreens. Blonder an ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson wanted to know why the deciduous angiosperms outcompeted their evergreen cousins during the cold dark years after the impact (called an impact winter.
The researchers pored through thousands of prehistoric leaves from Wyoming's Hell Creek Formation. The fossilized leaves spanned the impact from the last 1. 4 million years of the Cretaceous period through the first 800000 years of the Tertiary period.
Based on their analysis the researchers said the properties of the plant leaves likely helped them withstand the bleak climate.
The researchers analyzed leaf mass per area which indicates how much carbon a plant invests in growing a leaf.
whether the leaf was a chunky expensive one to make for the plant or whether it was a more flimsy cheap one Blonder said.
The scientists also looked at leaf vein density a measure of how fast a plant takes up carbon.
which can be subject to existing methods of genetic testing to verify their origins cacao has been a tougher nut to crack.
#Zhang who worked at a cacao research center in Peru for a decade decided to use the seed coat of the cacao bean to extract the DNA needed to make a positive identification of the plant's origins.
Sundrop Farms now has a 0. 2 hectare greenhouse area producing 150 tonnes of tomatoes cucumbers and capsicums a year.
Instead it is most likely to work for growing fresh vegetables then flowers and possibly in the longer-run for some kinds of fish farming.
The crispy carcasses of muskrats alligators and snakehead fish populated the other carving boards and fried tarantulas were served on sticks.
Bezos was accepting a Citation of Merit for the seafaring expedition he funded last year to recover fragments of the F-1 engines that launched giant Saturn V rockets to the moon during the Apollo era.
Farmers would freely exchange their seed with others in order to identify characteristics that could be beneficial in their particular soil or climate conditions.
and free exchange of seeds and the freedom to use them for the breeding of additional varieties has been a key component of agricultural progress.
Taking inspiration from this we have created a similar organisation the Open source Seed Initiative (OSSI) whose aim is to free the seed that is to make sure that the genes in at least some plant seeds can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights.
OSSI kicked off its outreach activities on the University of Wisconsin campus on April 17 this year with members plant breeders seed companies
and sustainability advocates rallying to share seeds with each other and with the community. They then took a pledge to keep that seed freely available to anyone who wants to use it.
We chose April 17 as it had been designated as the International Day of Struggles in Defence of Peasants
and Farmers Seeds announced by landless and peasant farmers groups worldwide in response to the growing struggles they face with commercialised agriculture
and the increased patenting of seeds. OSSI s Open source Seed Pledge commits anyone who receives
and uses OSSI seed to keep that seed and any seed derivatives that are bred from that seed freely available for use by others:
By opening this packet you pledge that you will not restrict others'use of these seeds and their derivatives by patents licenses or any other means.
You pledge that if you transfer these seeds or their derivatives you will acknowledge the source of these seeds
and accompany your transfer with this pledge. This pledge is OSSI s equivalent of the idea that underpins the open source software movement in the form of the General Public Licence or GPL.
The GPL states that the software is free to use but any modifications to it or other software derived from it must be licensed under the GPL too ensuring the benefits accrue to the public
and continue to be free. Importantly that s free#as in freedom not free#as in you don t have to pay for it.
Because just as we need free speech to be able to say what needs to be said we also need free seed to be breed able to
what needs to be bred. This OSSI pledge to freely share is essential. A patented seed cannot be saved
or replanted or shared by farmers and gardeners. There is no standard research exemption for patented material
so plant breeders at universities and small seed companies usually cannot use patented seed to breed the new crop varieties that should be sustainable alternatives to the conventional cultivars of the big commercial firms.
The fruits of their research the seed were freely available to all. Today much research work is being done by major agro-tech businesses
But increasingly that access is being limited due to seed patenting and licensing. OSSI creates a pool of genetic resources that are freely available for all to use share save replant
which seeds can be widely distributed. These seeds can never be owned wholly or their use restricted.
In addition OSSI serves an educational mission to promote awareness of germplasm access for farmers gardeners
#Among the 36 varieties of 14 species shared on April 17 Were wrinkled Crinkled Crumpled cress from Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed in Oregon Full Pint malting barley from Pat Hayes of Oregon
State university Midnight Lightning zucchini from Vermont s High Mowing Organic Seeds and Sovereign carrots from the University of Wisconsin s Irwin Goldman.
Most of the OSSI varieties are available as organic seed and were bred with organic growers and gardeners in mind.
Clearly there is a hunger for seed that is not just agronomically good but also fair. In the future OSSI hopes to offer a certified brand that can be used in seed catalogues to identify free seed#to those who agree that what the world needs is more free
and open source seeds not patented and indentured seeds. OSSI is seed itself a that we have planted
and we wait with hope to see how it grows. Irwin Goldman is on the board of the Open source Seed Initiative
which is in the process of obtaining not-for-profit status in the US. Jack Kloppenburg does not work for consult to own shares in
Mycologists scientists who study fungi estimate there are up to five million species of fungi On earth. Of these only about 2%or 100000 species have been described formally.
So where are the other 98%of fungi hiding? At least three it seems were hiding in a supermarket packet of dried porcini mushrooms from China.
The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) is a DNA region commonly used to identify fungi. In fact it s been called the universal DNA barcode marker for fungi#.
#In their Peerj paper Dentinger and Suz compared previously published ITS sequences for porcini and discovered significant differences in three of their packet of dried mushrooms enough to mark them as new species. Their work also highlighted the use of modern DNA sequencing technologies for identifying species in food and for monitoring foods
Like an apple a mushroom is the fruit of the fungus. It s not the apple tree.
Most of the fungus grows below the ground in a vast network of root-like tubes called hyphae.
Well in a case known as the humongous fungus#a single clone (individual) of the honey mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) has been shown to cover more than 900 hectares in Malheur National Forest in Oregon USA.
In Australia some of our fungi are a little more modest in size though perhaps bigger than you might guess.
Nicole Sawyer and John Cairney at the University of Western Sydney have estimated the size of individuals of the Australian Elegant Blue Webcap (Cortinarius rotundisporus) at more than 30m in diameter about the size of tennis court.
Despite the impressive size of some species new species of fungi don t get the same recognition as a new species of mammal bird or reptile.
It s very important to better understand fungi as they underpin the terrestrial biology of Earth.
Other fungi are vital decomposers and return nutrients stored in organic matter to the soil. While the most fungi are beneficial some fungi are devastating plant pathogens
while a small number of fungi can cause disease in humans such as ringworm trichosporonosis or aspergillosis.
Humans have recruited also an array of fungi to their cause. Products produced by fungi are used in medicine many antibiotics come from fungi
and the production of a range of food products including soy sauce blue cheese bread beer and wine.
Numerous new fungi related to Malassezia (a yeast that causes dandruff in humans) have been found in marine subsurface sediments in the South china sea by Chinese researchers from Zhongshan (Sun Yatsen) University
while scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US found the same Malassezia-like species from the Peru Trench in the Pacific ocean.
which means they eat both vegetation and meat Although they prefer plants especially roots seeds
and leaves they also eat locusts lizards snakes and rodents according to the San diego Zoo. They also eat sand
10 Iconic Hairstyles That Took Root Those skulls with brown hair often had rings or coils around their ears a style that was popular at Amarna she found.
It appears that that she dyed her hair possibly with henna (a flowering plant. We are still not completely sure if and
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