#Clinical trial studies vaccine targeting cancer stem cells in brain cancersan early-phase clinical trial of an experimental vaccine that targets cancer stem cells in patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme
Like normal stem cells cancer stem cells have the ability to self-renew and generate new cells
In theory if the cancer stem cells can be destroyed a tumor may not be able to sustain itself
The drug targets a protein CD133 found on cancer stem cells of some brain tumors and other cancers.
The cancer stem cell study is the latest evolution in Cedars-Sinai's history of dendritic cell vaccine research
Cedars-Sinai's brain cancer stem cell study is open to patients whose glioblastoma multiforme has returned following surgical removal.
It's a long slow descent into mortal danger from the safety of home among the upper branches of the forest.
and cover the pile with leaf litter. Then it's back up the tree in an achingly sluggish climb.
and nitrogen released by fungi breaking down dead pyralid moths. More moths more nitrogen more algae (which may also provide camouflage to the treed sloths protecting them from flying predators.
#Integrating vegetation into sustainable transportation planning may benefit public healthstrategic placement of trees and plants near busy roadways may enhance air quality and positively impact public health.
A multidisciplinary group of researchers planners and policymakers recently gathered in Sacramento Calif. to discuss roadside vegetation as a viable option for mitigating these adverse health impacts from air pollution.
The group agreed that vegetation barriers are a form of green infrastructure that can provide environmental economic and social benefits to their surrounding areas.
Properly designed and managed roadside vegetation can help us breathe a little easier said Dr. Greg Mcpherson research forester at the U s. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station.
and itch it may be a symptom of ragweed allergy. But more help might be on the way for some of the 23 million hay fever sufferers.
and efficacy of oral tablets used to treat ragweed allergy symptoms. The committee is likely to approve these tablets which will mark great improvement in the fight against allergy said allergist Michael Foggs MD president of the American College of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI.
Assuming the committee also approves the ragweed allergy tablets the FDA will then have to approve both the grass
and ragweed tablets before they can be made available to allergy sufferers. Currently the best treatment for those with moderate-to-severe allergy symptoms is allergy shots also known as immunotherapy.
Allergy shots can be customized to provide relief to multiple allergens including tree grass weed mold house dust dander and mold while offering the assurance of more than 100 years of experience in causing remission not just symptom
whether the new allergy tablets will allow sufferers to eat ragweed relatives like avocado melons and some fruits like allergy shots permit.
#Sequence of water buffalo completedlal Teer Livestock Limited an associate of Lalteer Seed Ltd. the largest seed company in Bangladesh with strong hybrid research program
A major analysis of vegetation histories across the three islands and the SE Asian mainland has revealed a pattern of repeated disturbance of vegetation since the end of the last ice age approximately 11000 years ago.
Our findings however indicate a history of disturbances to vegetation. While it could be tempting to blame these disturbances on climate change that is not the case as they do not coincide with any known periods of climate change.
Rather these vegetation changes have been brought about by the actions of people. There is evidence that humans in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo burned fires to clear the land for planting food-bearing plants.
or accidental fires would usually be followed by specific weeds and trees that flourish in charred ground we found evidence that this particular fire was followed by the growth of fruit trees.
This indicates that the people who inhabited the land intentionally cleared it of forest vegetation and planted sources of food in its place.
One of the major indicators of human action in the rainforest is the sheer prevalence of fast-growing'weed'trees such as Macaranga Celtis and Trema.
or rainforests as the historical role of people in managing the forest vegetation has rarely been considered.
#Exploring the roots of the problem: How a South american tree adapts to volcanic soilssoils of southern South america including Patagonia have endured a high frequency of disturbances from volcanic eruptions earthquakes landslides and erosion.
As a result the Chilean fire bush (Proteaceae Embothrium coccineum) a tree endemic to Chile and Argentina could have an important role in the reforestation of Patagonia.
Proteaceae species common in the southern hemisphere are known for a root structure adaptation that increases phosphorus acquisition from weathered phosphorus-poor soils.
The greater surface area of cluster roots increases root exudates of organic acids and phosphatases. These exudates enhance plant phosphorus acquisition from unavailable forms in the soil.
I was particularly curious of the ecological role of this root adaptation explained Frida Piper a terrestrial ecosystem ecologist at the remote research center Centro de Investigaciã n en Ecosistemas de la
Patagonia (CIEP) in Coyhaique Chile. Piper designed a field study to better understand the role of cluster roots of E. coccineum across a natural precipitation and phosphorus gradient in its native habitat.
How does the production of cluster roots in this Proteaceae enable successful establishment in young volcanic soils of South america?
Small and large E. coccineum seedlings and topsoil were collected at four sites in the Aysã n Region of Patagonia Chile in 2010-2013.
Seedlings were assessed for number and biomass of cluster roots plant size and growth and foliar phosphorus levels.
Soil samples were analyzed for ph total nitrogen (N) available phosphorus (P) and organic matter. Based on biomass and chemical analyses four dominant factors were identified:
soil P soil N foliar P and seedling age. A suite of generalized linear mixed-effect model regressions were fitted to the data.
In contrast to previous studies of Proteaceae in Australia and South africa the best-fit model for predicting the number of cluster roots in this study did not contain any soil P factor;
The number of cluster roots was significantly higher in large seedlings yet biomass investment in cluster roots was greater for small seedlings.
Piper found that cluster roots mediate a decoupling of foliar P from soil P concentrations for small seedlings.
This enabled small seedlings to maintain adequate foliar P levels critical to their ontogenetic growth.
The relative investment in cluster roots was linked directly to both low soil N and leaf P. Seedlings from sites with lower total soil N had more cluster roots regardless of other soil characteristics.
The cluster root adaptation is very sensitive and highly expressed at low total soil N levels
The investment in cluster roots declines after seedling establishment most likely as aerial growth is increasingly important for light competition.
Embothrium coccineum may have an important role in reforestation of Patagonia as an early successional species. Cluster roots have been identified in other plant species including some agronomic crops in the Cucurbitaceae.
The biotechnology potential of these traits is being studied now Piper says. Piper's research clarifying the mechanism of seedling establishment success for E. coccineum in conditions with limited availability of N
and P may lead to advantageous root adaptation in other plants. Piper is already exploring further research to understand how E. coccineum benefits neighbors by providing increased nutrient availability from root exudates
or leaf litter decomposition. As a result of this study nitrogen status of soil and plants in addition to phosphorus will always be included in Proteaceae studies by Piper.
Proteaceae can do something no other plant can do Piper explains. They are accessing nutrients that no other plants can access.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Journal of Botany. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference r
#A thousand years ago, Central Europeans digested milk as well as us todayback in the middle Ages Central Europeans were already capable of digesting milk yoghurt
and cheese just as well as most people of European descent are today. Researchers at the University of Zurich's Centre for Evolutionary Medicine have discovered that the population of the medieval town of Dalheim had a similar genetic predisposition for milk digestion to present-day Germans and Austrians.
which is a trade-off for having long narrow snouts that fit into the flowers in
because trees and the fungi associated with their roots break down rocks and minerals in the soil to get nutrients for growth.
and fungi were far less effective at breaking down silicate minerals which could have reduced the rate of CO2Â removal from the atmosphere. â#oewe recreated past environmental conditions by growing trees at low present-day and high levels of CO2Â in controlled-environment growth chambersâ#says Quirk
and assess how they were broken down and weathered by the fungi associated with the roots of the trees. â#As reported in Biogeosciences the researchers found that low atmospheric CO2Â acts as a â#carbon starvationâ##brake.
and fungi drop because low CO2Â reduces plantsâ##ability to perform photosynthesis meaning less carbon-energy is supplied to the roots and their fungi.
This in turn means there is less nutrient uptake from minerals in the soil which slows down weathering rates over millions of years. â#oethe last 24 million years saw significant mountain building in the Andes and Himalayas
because trees and fungi broke down minerals at low rates at those concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. â#oeit is important that we understand the processes that affect
They were divided then into groups where all except a control group were fed a type of berry--lingonberry bilberry raspberry crowberry blackberry prune blackcurrant or aã§ai berry.
Tracking an alien invader of conker trees using people poweran army of citizen scientists has helped the professionals understand how a tiny'alien'moth is attacking the UK's conker (horse-chestnut trees
No bigger than a grain of rice the horse-chestnut leaf-mining moth has spread rapidly through England and Wales since its arrival in London in 2002.
The caterpillars of the moth'tunnel'through the leaves of conker trees causing them to turn brown and autumnal in appearance even in the height of summer.
In 2010 thousands of'citizen scientists'were asked by two professional ecologists to collect records of leaf damage from across the country as part of a project called'Conker Tree Science'.
and other people to put a damaged leaf in a plastic bag wait two weeks and then see insects--the adult moths
Unlike some other citizen science projects that use biological records submitted by members of the public for long-term monitoring the Conker Tree Science project set out to test two specific hypotheses over the course of a year.
Conker Tree Science was run with funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and begun when the two authors were at the University of Bristol.
Leaf research needs photos, lab analysisevery picture tells a story but the story digital photos tell about how forests respond to climate change could be incomplete according to new research.
During that same period Yang and his colleagues took weekly leaf samples from the forest
The study showed that peak leaf senescence--the increase in red pigments in the fall--was captured quite well by the cameras.
but could also be useful for tourism officials in places like Vermont where leaf peepers plan trips to take in the fall colors.
Mustard and Jianwu Tang at MBL are Yang's Ph d. advisers and authors on the paper.
We found that it's going to these no-till fields where the herbaceous cover early in the year is not that thick
A pilot program in Indiana is testing this approach compensating farmers for losses that stem from the planting delay he said.
#Meet the rainforest diversity policea new study has revealed that fungi often seen as pests play a crucial role policing biodiversity in rainforests.
The Oxford university-led research found that fungi regulate diversity in rainforests by making dominant species victims of their own success. Fungi spread quickly between closely-packed plants of the same species preventing them from dominating
'Seedlings growing near plants of the same species are more likely to die and we now know why.
and we've now shown that fungi play a crucial role. It's astonishing to see microscopic fungi having such a profound effect on entire rainforests.'
'Fungi prevent any single species from dominating rainforests as they spread more easily between plants
and seedlings of the same species . If lots of plants from one species grow in the same place fungi quickly cut their population down to size levelling the playing field to give rarer species a fighting chance.
Plots sprayed with fungicide soon become dominated by a few species at the expense of many others leading to a marked drop in diversity.'
'The study published in Nature looked at seedling plots across 36 sampling stations in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve Belize.
'We expected that removal of both fungi and insects would have an effect on the tree species'said Professor Rob Freckleton of Sheffield University who co-led the study.'
'However what was unexpected was that removal of the fungi affected diversity but eliminating insects didn't. Ours is the first study to unpick the effects of the different natural enemies.'
'Scientists had suspected that funguslike microorganisms called oomycetes might also play a part in policing rainforest diversity
'Oomycetes are potent pathogens that can cause seeds and seedlings to rot and were responsible for the 1840s potato famine'said Professor Sarah Gurr formerly of Oxford university and now at the University of Exeter.'
which protects plants against oomycetes. Ridomil Goldâ had no significant effect on the number of surviving species suggesting that true fungi
and not oomycetes are driving rainforest diversity.''The findings show that fungi play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of rainforests preventing a few highly competitive species from dominating.
It helps to explain why tropical rainforests are so much more diverse than forests in temperate countries.'
'We suspect that the effect of fungi will be strongest in wetter hotter areas because this is where they thrive'said lead author Dr Robert Bagchi who began the study at Oxford university
and completed it at ETH Zurich.''This has important implications for how rainforests will respond to climate change which is predicted often to reduce overall rainfall making it harder for fungi to spread.
Without fungi to keep species in check we could see a significant knock-on effect and lose a lot of the diversity that makes rainforests so special.'
'Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Oxford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length
Instead management practices focused on maintaining the complex web of ecological interactions among coffee plantation organisms--including insects fungi plants birds
Coffee rust is a fungus but spraying fungicides to kill it may inadvertently destroy natural fungal enemies of coffee rust that help to keep it in check.
and abundance of beneficial insects and opens the plantations to winds that help disperse coffee rust spores according to U-M ecologist John Vandermeer
Last year more than 60 percent of the coffee plants there experienced more than 80 percent defoliation due to coffee rust fungus
But generalized fungicides can also kill the white halo fungus which is known to attack coffee rust.
It's even possible that coffee rust will maintain its epidemic status indefinitely in the region though additional research would be required to determine
vegetation in half. Such land transformations while necessary to ensure future crop productivity can themselves have large ecological impacts
when they move from flower to flower likely spreading the virus from one plant to another Chen adds.
and pollen from flowers says researcher Gemma Baron from Royal Holloway. The study is the first to examine the impact of pyrethroid pesticides across the entire lifecycle of bumblebees.
Promising future for cotton in Cameroon? While climate change threatens most crops in Africa its impact could be less on cotton cultivation in Cameroon.
A new study by researchers from IRD and its partners shows that the expected climate change over the coming decades should not have a negative effect on Cameroonian plantations.
whom cotton is the leading cash crop and often the only alternative. Improved yieldfrom observations made in stations
and plots from 2001 to 2005 and in 2010 in North Cameroon the research team simulated the impact of climate forecasts for the next 40 years on the growth of cotton plants.
Firstly how the cotton is grown is crucial. Field productivity is highly dependent on local farming practices.
Cotton belongs to a type of plant for which CO2 in the atmosphere stimulates photosynthesis (like soya peanuts
The annual yield from cotton fields in Cameroon could increase by around 30 kg per hectare.
The importance of a season of regular rainthe effect of rainfall change on cotton yield also differs from that of crops such as maize sorghum and millet.
In particular excess water threatens cotton with increased runoff leaching of soil and inputs needed for cotton cultivation.
In addition more than the total rainfall the start date and duration of the rainy season are paramount.
A previous study has shown that these two parameters can be used to predict annual cotton yields.
An insurance system with a compensation level based on these rain indices could consolidate the positive outlook for the Cameroon cotton sector by limiting the debt of the poorest producers.
and to the pollination of a range of agricultural crops--from carrots to almonds to oilseed rape--that is valued at â billion.
but this time with many new kinds of flowering plants that are familiar to us today such as birches maples and many others.
stronger cotton fiberan international collaboration with strong Aggie ties has figured out how to make a longer cotton fiber â#information that a Texas A&m University biologist believes could potentially have a multi-billion
-dollar impact on the global cotton industry and help cotton farmers fend off increasing competition from synthetic fibers.
The research funded primarily by the U s. Department of agriculture Office of International Research Programs is published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Communications. â#oethis technology allows improvement of fiber quality in upland cotton
which is grown widely everywhereâ#said Alan Pepper an associate professor in the Texas A&m Department of biology and senior author of the paper that was led by a former Texas A&m graduate student now in Uzbekistan. â#oethis will increase the competitiveness of natural cotton fibers versus synthetic fibers
which have been snagging an increasing amount of the market share every year. â#The overwhelming majority of cotton harvested in the U s
. and worldwide is upland cotton or Gossypium hirsutum with more than 6. 5 million acres planted in 2012 in Texas alone according to the USDA.
A higher-end cotton called Gossypium barbadense is more desirable because of greater fiber length and strength but is late-maturing low-yielding
and more difficult to grow because it requires dry climates with significant irrigation and is less resistant to pathogens
and pests. â#oefor a long time cotton breeders have been trying to develop upland cotton with the fiber qualities of barbadense cottonâ#Pepper said. â#oeglobally everybodyâ##s trying to do it.
Economically itâ##s a huge deal because every millimeter you add to fiber length adds that much to the price of cotton
when the farmer sells it. â#The researchersâ##method increased the length of the fiber by at least 5 millimeters
since 1995 acknowledges that the cotton plants developed in the project technically are modified genetically organisms (GMOS) a controversial subject.
For instance the agricultural giant Monsanto adds a gene to cotton that makes it resistant to Roundupâ
and then sells both the seeds and the weed killer to farmers. â#oewhat weâ##re doing is a little differentâ#Pepper said. â#oeweâ##re not actually adding in a gene from another species. Rather weâ##re knocking down the effect of one
The researchers found literature from the 1990s that suggested the amount of red light also influenced fiber length in cotton plants.
The landlocked agricultural nation that borders Afghanistan historically has relied heavily on cotton to strengthen its rapidly diversifying economy.
Once used by the former Soviet union as a base for its cotton production Uzbekistan currently accounts for around 10 percent of world cotton fiber exports. â#oesustainability
and biosecurity of cotton production is pivotal for the Uzbekistan economy because agriculture accounts for 24-to-28 percent of the countryâ##s gross domestic productâ#said Abdurakhmonov who also serves as director of the Center of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan
new cultivar using this technology. New markets for longer finer stronger and more uniform cotton lint fiber as well as early maturity and increased yield potential could further increase estimated economic value.
Our anticipation of possible improvement of resistance to abiotic stresses via phytochrome RNA interference further adds to its commercial potential. â#Story Source:
and accommodation in the form of food bodies and nectar as well as hollow thorns which can be used as nests.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany have now found that ants also keep harmful leaf pathogens in check.
The acacia also provides shelter the so-called domatia in the hollows of its swollen thorns.
Intriguingly the leaves of acacia colonized by parasitic ants showed more leaf damage from herbivores
Analysis of the surfaces of the leaves revealed that the number of plant pathogens as well as of necrotic plant tissues increased considerably
or extreme hybrid beverage rich in local ingredients including honey bog cranberry lingonberry bog myrtle yarrow juniper birch tree resin
and/or rye--and sometimes grape wine imported from southern or Central europe. New research published in the Danish Journal of Archaeology examines evidencederived from samples inside pottery and bronze drinking vessels and strainers from four sites in Demark and Sweden.
#Ramularia and the 4 Rsthe gene that has provided spring barley with resistance to powdery mildew for over 30 years increases susceptibility to newly-important disease Ramularia leaf spot.
Since 1980 the mlo gene has transformed mildew from the most important disease of barley to an occasional nuisance in wetter areas of the UK.
Many insects are able to detect small electrical disturbances including bees that can sense the electric fields of different flowers and other bees.'
Bees already use e-sensors to sense flowers and other bees so it now remains to be seen
corn switchgrass and mixes of native prairie grasses and flowering plants. They measured the diversity of plants pest
when fields were located near other perennial grass habitats. This suggests that in order to enhance pest suppression
#Walden Pond trees leafing out far earlier than in Thoreaus timeclimate-change studies by Boston University biologists show leaf-out times of trees and shrubs
and lose competitive advantage to more resilient invasive shrubs such as Japanese barberry according to a study published in the new edition of New Phytologist.
and if plants leaf out early in warm years they risk having their leaves damaged by a surprise frost.
But if plants wait to leaf out until after all chance of frost is lost they may lose their competitive advantage.
when Caroline Polgar a graduate student with Primack examined Thoreau's unpublished observations of leaf-out times for common trees
and shrubs in Concord in the 1850s then repeated his observations over the past five springs.
if all trees and shrubs in Concord are equally responsive to warming temperatures in the spring Polgar said.
On average woody plants in Concord leaf out 18 days earlier now. In New england plants have to be cautious about leafing out in the early spring.
If they leaf out too early their young leaves could suffer from subsequent late frost.
Since leafing-out requirements are thought to be species-specific the group designed a lab experiment to test the responsiveness of 50 tree and shrub species in Concord to warming temperatures in the late winter and early spring.
and collected leafless dormant twigs from each species and placed them in cups of water in their lab. Over the following weeks they observed how quickly each species was be able produce their leaves in these unseasonably warm lab conditions.
We found compelling evidence that invasive shrubs such as Japanese barberry are ready to leaf out quickly once they are exposed to warm temperatures in the lab even in the middle of winter
whereas native shrubs like highbush bluberry and native trees like red maple need to go through a longer winter chilling period before they can leaf out
However the experiments show that as spring weather continues to warm it will be the invasive shrubs that will be best able to take advantage of the changing conditions.
and in coming decades nonnative invasive shrubs are positioned to win the gamble on warming temperature Primack said.
and hearsay surrounding the ancient Battle of Raphia the only known battle between Asian and African elephants.
In the Battle of Raphia Ptolemy had 73 African war elephants and Antiochus had 102 Asian war elephants according to Polybius a Greek historian who described the battle at least 70 years later.
Did Ptolemy employ African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) or African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in the Battle or Raphia?
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