While artificial leaf is the popular term for such a system the key to this success was an artificial forest.
To facilitate solar water-splitting in our system we synthesized treelike nanowire heterostructures consisting of silicon trunks and titanium oxide branches.
Co-authors are Chong Liu Jinyao Tang Hao Ming Chen and Bin Liu. Solar technologies are the ideal solutions for carbon-neutral renewable energy--there's enough energy in one hour's worth of global sunlight to meet all human needs for a year.
In Switzerland the Federal office for Agriculture (FOAG) has followed suit suspending the authorizations of three insecticides used on oilseed rape and maize fields.
Generally Gray said forest managers should consider using seed from more southern climates or lower elevation environments.
The seed should still be of the same tree species rather than introducing a new species into a foreign environment she added.
Foresters in British columbia have started using the study's results as one of the tools to aid assisted seed migration strategies Gray noted.
#Untangling the tree of lifethese days phylogeneticists--experts who painstakingly map the complex branches of the tree of life--suffer from an embarrassment of riches.
and provide greater accuracy in deciphering the deep branches of life's tree. The study by Salichos and Rokas comes at a critical time
and analyzed more than 1000 genes--approximately 20 percent of the entire yeast genome--from each of 23 yeast species. He quickly realized that the histories of the 1000-plus genes were all slightly different from each other as well as different from the genealogy constructed from a simultaneous analysis of all the
A lot of the debate on the differences in the trees has been between studies concerning the'bushy'branches that took place in these'radiations'Rokas said.
#Do potatoes grow on vines? A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plantsthe Solanaceae also called the potato
or nightshade family includes a wide range of flowering plants some of which are important agricultural crops.
Tomatoes potatoes aubergines peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world.
Solanum is the largest genus of the family and with 1500 species is one of the largest genera of flowering plants.
Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groupsor clades. This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid clade including the description of a new species endemic to the forests of Ecuador.
The species-rich Genus solanum has remained remarkably underexplored until relatively recently despite the economic importance of some of its members such as potato (Solanum tuberosum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum.
A project funded by the United states National Science Foundation's Planetary Biodiversity Inventory program begun in 2004 sought to redress this situation by attempting to accelerate species-level taxonomy
This research is a part of this effort providing a revision of all the species of an entire clade of Solanum.
Work by participants of the'PBI Solanum'project will result in a modern monographic treatment of the entire genus available on-line.
Members of the Dulcamaroid clade are all woody plants and vary in appearance from shrubs to vines.
Some are large canopy lianas while other vining species are woody only at the base.
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
Species in the group are native to both the New and Old worlds--with the highest species diversity in Argentina and Peru.
Among the species included in this revision is the common European woody nightshade Solanum dulcamara distributed all over the northern hemisphere
The new species described in this revision Solanum agnoston discovered by Dr. Sandra Knapp Department of Life sciences The Natural history Museum UK comes from the inter Andean valleys of Southern Ecuador
Two of the most well-known decorative representatives of the group featured in the study are S. crispum also known as Chilean potato vine or Chilean nightshade and S. laxum commonly called potato climber or jasmine nightshade.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
They found that plantings of sweet alyssum attracted a host of spiders and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
They chose sweet alyssum because it attracted the greatest number of hoverflies or syrphids which have larvae that often feed on aphids.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
A syrphid hovers over alyssum. Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers.
While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo and colleagues found few hoverfly larvae showing that the hoverflies had only a marginal effect on the aphid population.
The mystery of the disappearing aphids seemed solved when the researchers found a diverse community of spiders and predatory insects in the plots with sweet alyssum.
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper. These aphids also secrete a sticky liquid called honeydew
which can coat the apples causing much annoyance during harvest. The aphids were kept previously at bay
when orchardists sprayed pesticides to control codling moths. Since the phase out of organophosphate insecticides though the woolly apple aphid has been making a comeback in central Washington and elsewhere.
The researchers state that the use of sweet alyssum for biological control can be integrated easily with standard orchard-management practices
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
#Untangling the tree of lifethese days phylogeneticists--experts who painstakingly map the complex branches of the tree of life--suffer from an embarrassment of riches.
and provide greater accuracy in deciphering the deep branches of life's tree. The study by Salichos and Rokas comes at a critical time
and analyzed more than 1000 genes--approximately 20 percent of the entire yeast genome--from each of 23 yeast species. He quickly realized that the histories of the 1000-plus genes were all slightly different from each other as well as different from the genealogy constructed from a simultaneous analysis of all the
A lot of the debate on the differences in the trees has been between studies concerning the'bushy'branches that took place in these'radiations'Rokas said.
#Do potatoes grow on vines? A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plantsthe Solanaceae also called the potato
or nightshade family includes a wide range of flowering plants some of which are important agricultural crops.
Tomatoes potatoes aubergines peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world.
Solanum is the largest genus of the family and with 1500 species is one of the largest genera of flowering plants.
Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groupsor clades. This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid clade including the description of a new species endemic to the forests of Ecuador.
The species-rich Genus solanum has remained remarkably underexplored until relatively recently despite the economic importance of some of its members such as potato (Solanum tuberosum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum.
A project funded by the United states National Science Foundation's Planetary Biodiversity Inventory program begun in 2004 sought to redress this situation by attempting to accelerate species-level taxonomy
This research is a part of this effort providing a revision of all the species of an entire clade of Solanum.
Work by participants of the'PBI Solanum'project will result in a modern monographic treatment of the entire genus available on-line.
Members of the Dulcamaroid clade are all woody plants and vary in appearance from shrubs to vines.
Some are large canopy lianas while other vining species are woody only at the base.
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
Species in the group are native to both the New and Old worlds--with the highest species diversity in Argentina and Peru.
Among the species included in this revision is the common European woody nightshade Solanum dulcamara distributed all over the northern hemisphere
The new species described in this revision Solanum agnoston discovered by Dr. Sandra Knapp Department of Life sciences The Natural history Museum UK comes from the inter Andean valleys of Southern Ecuador
Two of the most well-known decorative representatives of the group featured in the study are S. crispum also known as Chilean potato vine or Chilean nightshade and S. laxum commonly called potato climber or jasmine nightshade.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
They found that plantings of sweet alyssum attracted a host of spiders and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
They chose sweet alyssum because it attracted the greatest number of hoverflies or syrphids which have larvae that often feed on aphids.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
A syrphid hovers over alyssum. Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers.
While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo and colleagues found few hoverfly larvae showing that the hoverflies had only a marginal effect on the aphid population.
The mystery of the disappearing aphids seemed solved when the researchers found a diverse community of spiders and predatory insects in the plots with sweet alyssum.
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper. These aphids also secrete a sticky liquid called honeydew
which can coat the apples causing much annoyance during harvest. The aphids were kept previously at bay
when orchardists sprayed pesticides to control codling moths. Since the phase out of organophosphate insecticides though the woolly apple aphid has been making a comeback in central Washington and elsewhere.
The researchers state that the use of sweet alyssum for biological control can be integrated easily with standard orchard-management practices
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
#New non-GM technology platform for genetic improvement of sunflower oilseed cropscientists have developed techniques for the genetic improvement of sunflowers using a non-GMO based approach.
The new technology platform can harness the plant's own genes to improve characteristics of sunflower develop genetic traits
which will improve its role as an important oilseed crop. The work was led by Dr Manash Chatterjee an Adjunct Faculty member of Botany
Among oilseed crops sunflowers are one of the most important sources of edible vegetable oil for human consumption worldwide.
Sunflower and other oilseed crops are the source of the vast majority of vegetable oil used for cooking and food processing.
Over the centuries the sunflower has been cultivated for traits such as yield. However along the way many useful genetic variations have been lost.
This new technology allows us to pinpoint key genetic information relating to various useful traits in the sunflower including wild sunflower species. It gives us a method to quickly create variability for further breeding to enhance the quantity quality and natural
Seeds Argentina. NUI Galway Phd student Anish PK Kumar has been working on the technology platform development as a component of his Phd research studies.
In this process a molecule precursor binds to the Faeo enzyme (Fragaria x ananassa enone oxidoreductase) which converts it into the final product namely HDMF.
The latest research results provide valuable insight into the development of taste in widespread cultivated plants as Skerra explains:
and other factors increase the severity of cheatgrass invasion in sagebrush steppe one of North america's most endangered ecosystems.
and land managers to promote a diverse sagebrush and bunchgrass ecosystem Doescher said. That type of community will protect the native plant
which were carpeted once by millions of acres of native sagebrush perennial bunchgrasses and associated wildlife that had evolved with little herbivore pressure.
and ultimately cause an irreversible loss of these native shrub-steppe communities. This also has grazing implications:
After you cross that threshold a major rangeland fire will come through that takes out the sagebrush
#Carnivorous plant throws out junk DNAGENES make up about 2 percent of the human genome. The rest consists of a genetic material known as noncoding DNA
The clues lie in the genome of the carnivorous bladderwort plant Utricularia gibba. The U. gibba genome is the smallest ever to be sequenced from a complex multicellular plant.
This may explain the difference between bladderworts and junk-heavy species like corn and tobacco--and humans.
The big story is that only 3 percent of the bladderwort's genetic material is so-called'junk'DNA Albert said.
and flowers and you can do it without the junk. Junk is needed not. Noncoding DNA is DNA that doesn't code for any proteins.
The bladderwort is an eccentric and complicated plant. It lives in aquatic habitats like freshwater wetlands
That is at three distinct times in the course of its evolution the bladderwort's genome doubled in size with offspring receiving two full copies of the species'entire genome.
This surprisingly rich history of duplication paired with the current small size of the bladderwort genome is further evidence that the plant has been prolific at deleting nonessential DNA
#Sacred lotus genome sequence enlightens scientiststhe sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is a symbol of spiritual purity and longevity. Its seeds can survive up to 1300 years its petals
and leaves repel grime and water and its flowers generate heat to attract pollinators. Now researchers report in the journal Genome Biology that they have sequenced the lotus genome
and the results offer insight into the heart of some of its mysteries. The sequence reveals that of all the plants sequenced so far
--and there are dozens--sacred lotus bears the closest resemblance to the ancestor of all eudicots a broad category of flowering plants that includes apple cabbage cactus coffee cotton grape melon peanut poplar
soybean sunflower tobacco and tomato. The plant lineage that includes the sacred lotus forms a separate branch of the eudicot family tree
and so lacks a signature triplication of the genome seen in most other members of this family said University of Illinois plant biology
and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Ray Ming who led the analysis with Jane Shen-Miller a plant
and biology professor at the University of California at Los angeles (who germinated a 1300-year-old sacred lotus seed);
Many agricultural crops benefit from genome duplications including banana papaya strawberry sugarcane watermelon and wheat said Robert Vanburen a graduate student in Ming's lab and collaborator on the study.
Although it lacks the 100 million-year-old triplication of its genome seen in most other eudicots sacred lotus experienced a separate whole-genome duplication about 65 million years ago the researchers found.
By looking at changes in the duplicated genes the researchers found that lotus has a slow mutation rate relative to other plants Ming said.
These traits make lotus an ideal reference plant for the study of other eudicots the researchers said.
Because of its dense evergreen foliage and dominance in riparian and cove habitats eastern hemlock plays an important role in the area's water cycle regulating stream flow year round.
which became functionally extinct after the introduction of an exotic fungus in the early 20th century.
Rhododendron a woody evergreen shrub common in southern Appalachian forests is one of the species replacing eastern hemlock trees.
Although rhododendron is evergreen it has lower leaf area than hemlock and thus transpiration in rhododendron-dominated forest stands is lower than in previously-healthy hemlock forests.
Most of the other species replacing eastern hemlock trees are deciduous such as sweet birch which unlike the evergreen rhododendron and eastern hemlock do not transpire during the Winter sweet birch trees also have a much higher transpiration rate than eastern hemlock trees during the growing season.
The cumulative effect of these species changes will probably mean permanent changes in seasonal transpiration patterns says Brantley.
Dietary nicotine may hold protective keynew research reveals that Solanaceae--a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine--may provide a protective effect against Parkinson's disease.
Previous studies have found that cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco also a Solanaceae plant reduced relative risk of Parkinson's disease.
but as consumption of edible Solanaceae increased Parkinson's disease risk decreased with peppers displaying the strongest association.
and other products in the United states use dried cassia bark or cassia cinnamon. Ceylon cinnamon contains very little coumarin a naturally occurring substance that has been linked to liver damage in people sensitive to the substance.
The original article was written by Heather Buschman. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference
Even when other known means of communication such as contact chemical and light-mediated signals are blocked chilli seeds grow better when grown with basil plants.
Monica Gagliano and Michael Renton from the University of Western australia attempted to grow chilli seeds (Capsicum annuum) in the presence or absence of other chilli plants or basil (Ocimum basilicum.
but when the plants were able to openly communicate with the seeds more seedlings grew.
However when the seeds were separated from the basil plants with black plastic so that they could not be influenced by either light
though they could still communicate with the basil. A partial response was seen for fully grown chilli plants blocked from known communication with the seeds.
Dr Gagliano explained Our results show that plants are able to positively influence growth of seeds by some as yet unknown mechanism.
Bad neighbors such as fennel prevent chilli seed germination in the same way. We believe that the answer may involve acoustic signals generated using nanomechanical oscillations from inside the cell
and the increased spread of Cassava Brown Streak Disease or CBSD warning that the rapidly proliferating plant virus could cause a 50 percent drop in production of a crop that provides a significant source of food and income for 300 million Africans.
because agriculture experts have been looking to the otherwise resilient cassava plant --which is used also to produce starch flour biofuel
Cassava is already incredibly important for Africa and is poised to play an even bigger role in the future
and eliminate this plague said Claude Fauquet a scientist at the International Center for Tropical agriculture (known by its Spanish acronym CIAT) who heads the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century (GCP21).
and particularly Nigeria--the world's largest producer and consumer of cassava--because Nigeria would provide a gateway for an invasion of West Africa where about 150 million people depend on the crop.
Fauquet and his colleagues in the GCP21--an alliance of scientists developers donors and industry representatives--are gathering at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy this week for a conference dedicated to declaring war on cassava viruses in Africa.
and little-known until about ten years ago CBSD has emerged as the most serious threat among the various cassava viruses.
The leaves of infected plants can look healthy even as the roots cassava's most prized asset are being ravaged underground.
The telltale signs of the disease are brown streaks in the root's flesh that
There have been recent reports of new outbreaks in the Democratic republic of the congo--the world's third largest cassava producer
because the country now produces 50 million tons of cassava each year and has made a big bet on cassava for its agricultural and industrial development in the near future.
Nigeria is the first African country to massively invest in the potential of cassava to meet the rapidly growing global demand for industrial starches
which are used in everything from food products to textiles plywood and paper. Nigeria hopes to mimic the success of countries in Southeast asia where a cassava-driven starch industry now generates US$5 billion per year
and employs millions of smallholder farmers and numerous small-scale processors CMD--a Scourge for Cassava on the African Continentscientists at the conference will also consider options for dealing with another devastating virus--the Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD).
CMD has plagued the whole African continent for over a century each year removing a minimum of 50 million tons of cassava from the harvest.
The disease is caused by several viruses and the African continent witnessed several major CMD epidemics over the past decades the most recent and devastating
In fact by the mid-2000s half of all cassava farmers were benefiting from these varieties in large parts of East and Central africa.
Whiteflies Ambush a Climate-Resilient Cropinterest in cassava has intensified across Africa as rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns caused by climate change threaten the future viability of food staples such as maize and wheat.
Cassava has been called the Rambo root for its extraordinary ability to survive high temperatures and tolerate poor soils.
But rising temperatures now pose a threat to cassava because they appear to be one of several factors causing an explosion in whiteflies
now we're seeing thousands said James Legg a leading cassava expert at the International Institute of Tropical agriculture (IITA.
Farmers also help spread the disease by planting new fields with infected stem cuttings. Scientists note that
while it would take several years for the disease to spread across the continent via whiteflies alone infected stem cuttings could spark outbreaks in new areas overnight.
Efforts to breed high-yielding disease-resistant plants suitable for Africa's various growing regions will involve going to South america where cassava originated
and working with scientists to mine the cassava gene bank at CIAT in Colombia--the biggest repository of cassava cultivars in the world.
how to eradicate cassava viruses altogether. The aim will be to develop a bold regional strategy that will gradually step-by-step village-by-village replace farmers'existing infested cassava plants with virus-free planting material of the best and most resistant available cultivars.
Approaches will include new molecular breeding and genetic engineering technologies to speed up the selection and production of CMD and CBSD resistant cassava cultivars more appealing to farmers.
There also will be discussions about cost-effective and environmentally sustainable ways to control whiteflies as well as proposals for new surveillance systems that can better track
Scientists will also discuss new research into the potential threat African cassava producers face from the introduction of new diseases currently found outside the continent.
More than any other crop cassava has the greatest potential to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa but CBSD and other viruses are crippling yields.
and other destructive viruses like the smallpox of cassava--formidable diseases but threats we can eradicate
Wetlands and buffers of trees grasses and shrubs help to keep runoff from fields out of the waterways slowing erosion of soil and blooms of algae downstream.
What will happen to the area's vegetation? New Berkeley Lab research offers a way to envision a warmer future.
Along the way the vegetation will relinquish more trapped carbon than most current climate models predict.
This vegetation stores vast amounts of carbon keeping it out of the atmosphere where it can contribute to climate change.
Most Earth system models don't predict this which means they overestimate the amount of carbon that high-latitude vegetation will store in the future he adds.
He also investigated how this shift will transport the carbon stored in the vegetation that grows in the gridcell's climate.
In addition Earth system models predict carbon loss by placing vegetation at a given point and then changing various climate properties above it.
In addition to being a food source the bark and roots from fig trees are used for manufacturing items such as barkcloth handicrafts shields and buildings.
The authors provide examples of barkcloth manufacture from Mexico Uganda and Sulawesi. Despite the different fig species involved the same method for making barkcloth has evolved three times--a remarkable demonstration of cultural convergent evolution.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011