or brinjal, that is insect-resistant. But barely 24 hours later, Jairam Ramesh, India's minister of environment and forests, said that permission for its cultivation will be given only after consulting all stakeholders.
The GM brinjal variety was developed by Mahyco Monsanto Biotech, a joint venture between Jalna-based Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company and US seed giant Monsanto.
The decision to seek further input has angered some crop scientists. The minister has set a bad precedent by ignoring the recommendation of the GEAC a statutory body consisting of scientists,
The biosafety issue of Bt brinjal has been studied by more than 150 scientists and nothing new will come from fresh consultations.
who opposed the introduction of Bt brinjal citing what they called inadequate safety data provided by Mahyco.
since 2002 show that Bt brinjal is absolutely safe to eat. But Bhargava and activist groups argue that the GEAC did not get the company data independently analysed.
The only other study, by French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini of the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic engineering, branded Bt brinjal potentially unsafe for human consumption.
According to Seralini, eating Bt brinjal reduced appetite in goats, increased prothrombin time (the time it takes blood to clot) in goats and rabbits,
They have lost already the battle over Bt cotton the only GM crop grown in India
if they lose over Bt brinjal they lose the war, he says.
Argentina's forests dwindle: Nature Newsargentina, often perceived as a vast fertile territory, is losing its native forests.
2009) hosts and webstreams the'Quantum to cosmos'festival in Waterloo, Ontario. www. q2cfestival. com Sound bites That is one of the things that wakes me up in the middle of the night.
seed-planting will occur at different times from that of natural varieties, and farmers will be surveyed about the effect on native maize.
Jay Reichman, an authority on transgenic testing with the US Environmental protection agency in Corvallis, Oregon, says that overall the combined evidence suggests that at least two transgenes were present within the plant tissues in question.
indicating that they bore transgenes just like commercial seeds modified to be herbicide resistant. Fagan disputes the criticism.
That's because researchers can test seeds for DNA markers that flag up the presence of particular haplotypes,
Spraying the herbicide glyphosate on coca plants is a key tool in the war on cocaine.
and his colleagues that glyphosate is the lesser evil compared with the bigger impact of coca farming,
600 women from five different regions in Colombia, in a retrospective time-to-pregnancy study that did not establish a relationship between fertility problems and the coca eradication spraying4.
but from its use in sugar-cane plantations. The team also tracked the health of 274 agricultural workers who had been exposed to glyphosate,
Delaware) that coca cultivation was spreading and that the eradication programme was not working8. The GAO recommended that the US Congress should start pulling back funding for Colombia's military,
and should look for alternative solutions such as persuading farmers to grow crops other than coca. Despite this, a spokesman from the US state department says that the United states will support Colombia's government
Hwang's human stem cells were all fakes'.'In May 2006, Lee was charged with embezzlement
With their deep roots and tall canopies, trees absorb and transpire more water than do grasses,
Tree roots help to filter water into the soil, thus slowing the rate at which water levels rise after rain.
because their food shrubs and trees versus grasses carries out different types of photosynthesis. The team characterized the humans'isotope ratios by taking advantage of a fluke of history,
Preserved tree trunks are scattered across the now-deserted lower Ica valley, about 200 km south of Lima, indicating a significant landscape change.
like cotton and maize, indicating that the Nazca were cutting down woodland to make room for farms.
and were replaced by weeds; eventually the weeds died and the land became the lifeless desert it is today.
Beresford-Jones says that when the Nazca cut down the trees they destroyed the root system that had been anchoring the landscape.
There have been hints of vegetation changes all along, but this is the first time all these techniques have come ogether for southern Peru.
cassava and maize that were cultivated later in the year, says Hammond. The Liberian ministry of agriculture has contracted now Africare, a non-governmental organization,
Today, seeds from domesticated sorghum grass are used as flour for porridge, as a fermentation substrate for beer and as a dye for clothing.
000 years ago and ended around 50,000 years ago depended on foodstuffs such as underground tubers and meat.
as vegetation creeps northward, it will accelerate warming trends already in place. Higher surface temperatures in recent decades are already making it easier for trees to grow farther north.
But when the vegetation moves in, there will be an amplification of the warming, says Inez Fung, an atmospheric physicist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Because vegetation is darker than bare land, it has lower albedo or reflectiveness so absorbs more of the Sun's energy
as a result of new tree and shrub growth, the landscape warmed by at least 1 Â C. In another twist,
And transpiration in deciduous trees is greater than that in evergreens, which means that they release more moisture as water vapour,
vegetation and soils on a given patch of land rather than relying on rough averages that are calculated across a forest.
South america comes in with about 145 gigatonnes of carbon in vegetation and soils about 26%higher than what has been reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.
Nature Newspolicy Business Market watch Events Research The week ahead Number crunch Sound bites Policy Stem-cell lines:
On 2 december, the US National institutes of health (NIH) approved 13 human embryonic stem-cell lines for use by US government-funded researchers the first lines to be given the green light
Italian scientists have lost a final appeal against a government research call that explicitly excludes human embryonic stem cells,
The rocket ship, developed by aviation designer Burt Rutan and bankrolled by British billionaire Richard Branson,
and sugarcane, putting vehicles in competition with hungry mouths. In this week's Nature, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley,
That calculation is based on using Brazilian sugarcane, which is a much more efficient feedstock than maize;
In order to drive these large algal blooms you need iron says Costa. In fact, he says, the indirect benefits of iron fertilization from whale faeces might remove more carbon from the atmosphere by boosting algal growth than the growth of the whales themselves.
Nature Newspolicy Business Research Events People Business watch The week ahead Number crunch Sound bites Policy Stem-cell lines:
considering extending the definition of human embryonic stem-cell lines eligible for federal funding, to include those from earlier-stage embryos than currently allowed.
says Susan Fisher, a stem-cell biologist at the University of California, San francisco, who recently submitted ten lines derived from pre-blastocyst embryos to the NIH.
maize leaves and stalks, and municipal waste to sugars are getting cheaper. At a national US ethanol conference in Orlando, Florida, last week, biotech companies Novozymes and Genencor launched new generations of enzymes that they claim will cut the enzyme-related production costs of cellulosic ethanol
since its 14 december launch, including these colour-altered images of the comet Siding Spring (right) and the Andromeda galaxy.
stem-cell research. Research president: Austrian social scientist Helga Nowotny has been elected president of the European Research Council (ERC),
such as analysis tracing mailed Bacillus anthracis spores back to a single-spore batch in Ivins's lab at the US ARMY Medical Research Institute of Infectious diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Consequently, the country's numerous lakes, rivers and coastal waters have suffered from repeated outbreaks of algal blooms owing to the excess of nutrients polluting the water.
or brinjal, that is insect-resistant. The crop carries a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt),
and was developed by Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech, a joint venture between the Jalna-based Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company and the US seed giant Monsanto,
Bt brinjal was approved for cultivation by India's Genetic engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), a scientific regulatory body, in October 2009.
A 19-page statement issued by Ramesh said that his ministry had decided to impose a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal until independent scientific studies had established that it would not adversely affect the environment or human health.
negative public reaction to the prospect of growing Bt brinjal; and advice from Monkombu Swaminathan, the agricultural scientist known as the father of the green revolution in India.
preserving the control of seeds and food in the hands of our farmers and consumers instead of a few multinational corporations like Monsanto, says Gangula Ramanjaneyulu, director of the Centre for Sustainable agriculture in Hyderabad.
the founding director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular biology in Hyderabad and an active campaigner against Bt brinjal, added that he was pleased with the precedent-setting decision.
We have no less than ten GM products to get into the regulatory system for trials including brinjal, chickpea, sorghum, sugar cane, castor oil plant,
Ramesh insists that the moratorium is specific to Bt brinjal and should not discourage ongoing research.
Kameswara Rao points out that even if Bt brinjal cannot be grown legally farmers may start cultivating it anyway,
as has happened with Bt cotton (see'Illegal seeds overtake India's cotton fields').'Indeed, Chinese farmers had been growing Bt rice for five years before receiving official government approval just four months ago,
To prevent an unauthorized release of Bt brinjal in India, Ramanjaneyulu believes that the environment ministry should now confiscate the transgenic brinjal seeds held by Mahyco.
News briefing: 11 february 2010: Nature Newspolicy Business People Events Awards Research Business watch The week ahead Number crunch Sound bites Policy Climate service:
Business Stem-cell patents: Fate Therapeutics, a biotech company based in San diego, California, has been granted the first US patent for genetic reprogramming technology to create induced pluripotent stem (ips) cells.
The 4 february licence came shortly after a rival Californian company, ipierian of San francisco, was awarded Britain's first patent for ips cell reprogramming (see Nature 463,592-593;
Seeds of progress: German chemicals company BASF has received its first approval to market genetically modified seeds.
Its herbicide-tolerant soya bean'Cultivance, 'which was developed with Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Cooperation, can now be sold in Brazil.
Farmers will start planting the seed next year, the company expects if China, the United states and Europe approve the variety for import.
%and include ethanol made from sugarcane) must cover the remainder. But the EPA has scaled also back the 2010 requirement for cellulosic biofuels,
in plants such as sugar cane and maize (corn), which use a different type of photosynthesis, 110 out of 10,000 atoms are carbon-13.
Because sweeteners from sugar cane and maize have a higher proportion of carbon-13, the carbon isotope ratio of the final product will be skewed.
Proposals to focus research on maize (corn), rice and wheat would be broadened to include other crops such as beans and cassava.
and elusive lifestyle of this fungus, offering clues that could help a truffle industry that is fraught with unpredictable yields and a counterfeit market.
The genome of the black truffle (Tuber melanosporum) includes genes encoding flavour-related sulphur metabolites
in that the microflora and yeast living on the truffles played a vital role in releasing volatile compounds,
the truffle's spores are scattered around the forest floor. Other scents beckon the truffle fly,
which visits the fungus in search of a mate but carries off fungal spores instead, spreading them between truffles.
Truffle cultivation is notoriously difficult, in part because of its clandestine life cycle as an underground symbiont, in
which the fungus trades nutrients with oak-tree roots. The T. melanosporum genome also reveals that the fungus reproduces sexually more often than researchers thought.
Many growers rely on asexual truffle propagation, in which two haploid cells from a single fungus each with one copy of the genome fuse to form the diploid fruiting body (the truffle),
which has two copies. Yet Martin and his team found two different sets of mating genes in the black truffle,
In 2008, Martin and his colleagues reported the genome of Laccaria bicolor, another symbiotic fungus that is dependent on woody plants for nutrients2.
and four times larger than that of many fungi but it contains far fewer protein-coding genes.
Mycologist David Hibbett of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, says that he is amazed to learn that the two species of fungi share any genes involved in symbiosis at all.
Because the truffle lineage separated from the lineage carrying L. bicolor before woody plants were around,
Although the sequenced genome opens up the possibility of genetically engineering other fungi to pack the same aromatic punch as the PÃ rigord
Nature Newsthe brilliant career of a diminutive weed may have hit a snag. Arabidopsis thaliana has been the darling of plant biologists for some 30 years because of its small genome and rapid growth,
Even crop researchers have a good word for the little weed. It's very important for the entire plant
and then treat the transgenic seedlings with antibiotics, which kills those plants that haven't taken up the foreign genes.
the firm has engineered strains of yeast to produce hydrocarbon fuels and other chemicals from sugarcane feedstocks.
maize (corn) and cotton grown in the United states or about half the nation's cropland.
and calls for further research including on the growing resistance of weeds to glyphosate. See go. nature. com/ddcpba for more.
although one crop, a Chinese GMO cotton that is resistant to bollworm, has proved extremely useful to the population,
The total number of venture-capital deals rose to an all-time high of 180, but early-stage investment rounds showed little increase suggesting that venture-capital investors are interested in maintaining existing portfolios rather than striking out with new companies,
Research Stem-cell therapy: Twenty-two clinics around the world that offer patients experimental adult stem-cell treatments have been surveyed by the International Cellular Medicine Society based in Salem, Oregon.
The study, released on 2 april, provides information about working clinics such as their cell processing and implantation techniques although it does not rank them.
The Cerling group contends that the abundance of small-mammal fossils at the site which White's group says supports a woodland environment could be due to predators hiding in vegetation growing around water
Virulent wheat fungus invades South africa: Nature Newstwo new forms of a devastating wheat fungus, known as Ug99 stem rust,
have shown up in South africa, a study has found. The two South african forms are able to overcome the effects of two resistance genes in wheat that normally prevent stem rust from taking hold.
The genes cause plant cells around the infection site to die, stopping the fungus from further infecting the plant.
They are two of the most important genes in wheat because they are selected for in crop-breeding programmes across the world.
The discovery of the new forms marks the first time that the stem rust fungus with virulence against key genetic resistance has moved south of its origins in Uganda
and south Asia vulnerable as the fungus can now migrate using different wind trajectories, says Zacharias Pretorius, a wheat pathologist at the University of the Free state in Bloemfontein, South africa,
Pretorius and his colleagues will present their research in early June at a conference on wheat rust in St petersburg, Russia, organized by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative,
resistant varieties to ensure crops are protected against the fungus. The reddish-brown, wind-borne fungus was discovered first in Uganda in 1999
and has since spread to five countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Iran. It attacks the stems of wheat plants by destroying vascular tissue
so that plants can no longer stand upright. Infected plants produce fewer seeds and may die. The fungus can devastate harvests:
for example, farmers in the Narok region of Kenya lost up to 80%of their wheat crop due to Ug99 in 2007.
In total, seven mutant strains of the fungus are known now, including the latest forms, originally identified in South africa in 2007 and 2009.
These strains pose an even greater threat to wheat than other types of Ug99 because they are more virulent
Pretorius and his team analysed the genomes of the new stem rust variants and compared them to the genome of a common
and less dangerous form of the fungus found in South africa in 2000. The team found that the variant detected in 2007 is likely to have arisen through a single mutation of the more common form,
The fungus and its variants are now able to overcome at least 32 of around 50 resistance genes, according to Ravi Singh, a plant geneticist and pathologist at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre.
An international project that is researching resistance to wheat rust led by Cornell University, is developing new tools to help defeat the pathogen.
the only cereal that is not damaged by the rust, is immune.
News briefing: 20 may 2010: Nature Newspolicy Research Business Business watch People The week ahead News maker Number crunch Policy Oil spill:
and maize market by the world's number-two seed company Dupont, which owns plant-genetics firm Pioneer hi-bred International,
harvesting old-growth trees and replacing them with seeds obtained from warmer climes can produce trees that will better withstand temperature increases,
Nature Newsgrowing cotton that has been modified genetically to poison its main pest can lead to a boom in the numbers of other insects,
In 1997, the Chinese government approved the commercial cultivation of cotton plants genetically modified to produce a toxin from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is deadly to the bollworm Helicoverpa armigera.
More than 4 million hectares of Bt cotton are grown now in China. Since the crop was approved
covering 3 million hectares of cotton and 26 million hectares of various other crops. Numbers of mirid bugs (insects of the Miridae family), previously only minor pests in northern China, have increased 12-fold since 1997,
Their rise in abundance is associated with the scale of Bt cotton cultivation. Wu and his colleagues suspect that mirid populations increased
because less broad-spectrum pesticide was used following the introduction of Bt cotton. Mirids are not susceptible to the Bt toxin
Mirids can reduce cotton yields just as much as bollworms, up to 50%when not controlled, Wu adds.
The rise of mirids has driven Chinese farmers back to pesticides they are currently using about two-thirds as much as they did before Bt cotton was introduced.
New york, concluded that the economic benefits of Bt cotton in China have eroded2. The team attributed this to increased pesticide use to deal with secondary pests.
For example, the boll weevil was once the main worldwide threat to cotton. As farmers sprayed pesticides against the weevils,
bollworms developed resistance and rose to become the primary pest. Similarly, stink bugs have replaced bollworms as the primary pest in southeastern United states
since Bt cotton was introduced. Along with genetically modified crops, says Andow, farmers need effective systems for responding to changes in pest abundance.
and trying to reduce mirid damage to cotton by growing crops the pests prefer nearby.
Meanwhile, Chinese researchers are trying to develop cotton plants that kill both bollworms and mirids. Wu stresses,
and NASA is planning to launch a second version of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory by 2013 (a rocket failure sent the first one hurtling into the Pacific ocean in February 2009).
or whether there is an equal distribution of numbers between species. The team looked at the bugs, nematodes and fungi that attack the hated Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata).
Research Wheat fungus: Two new forms of a devastating wheat fungus known as Ug99 stem rust have arisen in South africa.
Researchers at the University of the Free state in Bloemfontein found that the new variants can overcome the effects of two resistance genes in wheat that normally prevent stem rust from taking hold.
There is concern that winds will help the fungus to migrate further, threatening crops in areas including the Middle east and south Asia.
See go. nature. com/flsdmx for more. Bird blues: As many as 1, 240 bird species are threatened with extinction,
Nature Newsa decision by the European Court of Justice on a DNA patent held by global seed company Monsanto has caused a stir in the biotechnology industry,
says Gareth Morgan of London legal firm DLA Piper. He thinks that diagnostic firms and other agribusiness companies might be affected
Consulting with village elders, she helped identify the proper plant roots for natural dyes, which improved the weavers'business.
respectively, sued the USDA in 2008 for approving the sugar beet without adequately assessing the effects that it could have on weeds and nearby conventional crops.
cotton and rice 墉 and stored planting seeds, including the major staple food crop wheat.
More than 300,000 hectares of forest, vegetation and peat land have burned since the fires began in June.
and in places populated by trees that are not fire tolerant, such as birch (Betula). They are also reaching gardens
Most of the radioactive particles are in the soil rather than in the flammable leaf litter and trees,
with temperatures of 40 °C drying out vegetation and peat bogs, and making them a fire hazard.
who led the research team that found the canola (Brassica napus, also known as rapeseed). Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild one modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate),
But those that have evolved resistance to both herbicides could become a weed problem for farmers,
Sagers agrees that feral populations could have become established after trucks carrying cultivated GM seeds spilled some of their load during transportation.
and breed with related weed species, then that advantage could be eroded, and different and more herbicides might have to be used.
Zhang and his colleagues are trying to crank that up by manipulating the chemistry and biology of the rhizosphere, the narrow layer of soil surrounding roots.
%Excess phosphorus in many of China's lakes, coastal waters and rivers has caused repeated occurrences of harmful algal blooms known as eutrophication.
The blooms consume much of the oxygen dissolved in the water, killing fish and other plant life,
In October 2009, India's Genetic engineering Approval Committee gave the go-ahead to commercial planting of Bt brinjal,
Bt Brinjal: A Pioneering Push, written by Kumar for the magazine Biotech News, and The Development and Regulation of Bt Brinjal in India by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a lobby group based in Ithaca, New york,
and funded by biotechnology corporation Monsanto, headquartered in St louis, Missouri. Kumar had contributed also to this second report.
Bt brinjal...has been subjected to a rigorous biosafety regulatory process encompassing all aspects of toxicity, allergenicity, environmental safety, socioeconomic assessment etc.
Kumar says that the report's conclusion that Bt brinjal is safe is based largely on data analysed by the Genetic engineering Approval Committee last year suggesting that a report commissioned to supplement the committee's scientific guidance is actually based on the committee's recommendations.
I knew even before the moratorium was put on Bt brinjal, he told the Times of India this week.
It finds that gymnosperms or seed-bearing plants including conifers and cycads, are the most at-risk group of plants,
with more than 75%of cycad species currently threatened with extinction. Habitat loss, resulting from the conversion of natural habitats for agriculture and livestock grazing
000 plants species including bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) and legumes (peas and beans) from the five major plant groups.
The evolution of vascular plants completely changed history, allowing a high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere to be sustained.
and that it was not until the rise of vascular plants those with a circulatory system to transport nutrients in the Devonian that oxygen levels rose to near-modern values.
The rise of vascular plants led to the oxygenation of the atmosphere, because their photosynthesis pumped out oxygen while large amounts of organic matter,
mainly plant tissues such as lignin, were buried both on land and at sea. Without the burial of organic matter, any excess oxygen created by photosynthesis is used up as it degrades.
In cages placed on naturally growing vegetation, Hawlena added grasshoppers and, in some cases, spiders with their mouthparts glued shut,
Grasshoppers that were exposed to spiders switched from eating protein-rich grasses to munching on several species of sugary goldenrod plants.
Initially, this diet shift was thought to be related to how easy it is for grasshoppers to hide from spiders in the branched and flowering goldenrod.
First, they eat more goldenrod and less grass, changing the ratio of these species in the landscape.
who presented the RNA transcriptomes (the whole set of RNA molecules present) of 700-850-year-old maize (corn) seeds at a conference there last week.
whose team has sequenced small regulatory RNAS from ancient Egyptian barley seeds. Increasingly, biologists are discovering that the differences between organisms are due not to mutations that change the sequence of protein-coding genes
Oliver Smith and their colleagues examined small regulatory RNA molecules in 500-year-old barley seeds from Egypt.
along with the seeds showed that the seeds produced plants whose grains grow in rows of two, instead of the usual rows of six an adaptation to dry conditions.
is that the seeds also contain a gene mutation that normally produces six-row barley. He hopes that small RNAS
What's more, plant seeds are the ideal tissue in which to study ancient RNA
you are getting a very different picture than you will be getting with seeds, he says.
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