At least 90 percent of the soy cotton canola corn and sugar beets sold in the United states have been engineered genetically.
Gluten is a protein in wheat and some other grains such as rye and barley. A gluten experiment in food science at the University of Maryland left a lasting impression on me about the function and importance of gluten.
These include barley bulgur cereal binding couscous durum einkorn emmer filler farro graham flour kamut malt malt extract malt flavoring malt syrup rye
These include brown rice whole corn gluten-free oats millet teff sorghum wild rice buckwheat amaranth and quinoa.
Read on for five quirky facts about this holiday including its odd roots. 1. The origins of Arbor day
Morton rose to become the state secretary and helped establish the first Arbor day on April 10 1872.
Consider the eye-opening case of the agribusiness firm Syngenta and its product atrazine a widely used agricultural pesticide on corn sorghum and sugar cane crops.
which kill trees in the process of laying their eggs under the bark. Climate change has made the high-elevation whitebark pines more accessible to the destructive beetles.
When female bears in particular eat more pine seeds they give birth to more cubs and they die at a lesser rate Mattson said.
People have to be invested in growing their own food saving seeds and growing organic to keep soil healthy.
Given the right tools they have started businesses and sold canned salsa and honey and squash and eggs at farmer's markets.
Cranberries and pumpkins which are northern crops likewise highlight this holiday's Yankee roots. In fact Thanksgiving was associated initially so with the North that Southerners embittered by the Civil war took some time to warm to the proceedings Smith said.
In some ways Thanksgiving sends modern Americans back to those roots: Everyone eats certain dishes like whole roast turkey considered too troublesome for everyday cooking today.
When you look at a picture of a red flower on paper there is a pigment chemical that absorbs each color--green and blue for instance
all goodly fragrant woods of God s-land heaps of myrrh-resin with fresh myrrh trees with ebony and pure ivory with green gold of Emu.
The large colony of 30 million bats in Bracken Cave in Texas consumes about 250 tons of insects every night.
Just 150 big brown bats can eat 33 million root worm pests. Without bats there would be more pests
Other bat species feed on flowers and fruits acting act as pollinators and seed dispersers especially in deserts and rain forests.
Bats pollinate wild bananas the famous saguaro cactus and durian the world's most expensive fruit.
Without bats rain forests would recover more slowly from disturbances. There also would be no tequila the agave plant from which tequila is made depends on the Mexican long-tongued bat to pollinate it.
Bats are threatened by loss of habitat especially their roosting sites. You can help bats by protecting their roost sites
Bat-Killing Fungus Likely Invaded from Europe For more on the challenges facing bats see a video with Hoekstra here.
#Herbal Supplements Often Contain Unlisted Ingredients People who consume herbal products such as supplements may be getting more or less than they bargained for.
In the study nearly 60 percent of herbal products tested contained plant substances not listed on the label.
Overall out of the 12 companies that produce herbal supplements included in the study just two had products with no substitutions fillers
For example one produced was labeled as St john's wort but actually contained the laxative plant Senna alexandrina. The laxative is recommended not for long turn use
and can cause serious side effects such as chronic diarrhea and liver damage. Other products contaminated with walnut leaves wheat soybeans
A consumer has a right to see all of the plant species used in producing a natural product on the list of ingredients Newmaster said The researchers analyzed 44 herbal products sold in the United states
In the United states herbal products are considered dietary supplements and unlike drugs they do need not approval by the Food
because the study tested products from just 12 out of the 1000 companies that make herbal products.
But between 1999 and 2010 these forest fires burned more than 33000 square miles (85500 square kilometers) an area larger than the state of South carolina according to a NASA release.
NASA scientists are using an instrument on the Terra satellite to detect these signs of damage which include slight alterations in the amount and condition of foliage present.
Translation by Gloria Ferrari from Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta University of Chicago Press 2008) A key event on Sparta s road to becoming a more militaristic society was its conquest of the land of Messenia
Some evangelical Christians have expressed concern that Halloween is somehow Satanic because of its roots in pagan ritual.
Sweet potatoes were one of the many root crops that were a staple in the West indies where enslaved Africans were pressed into service on sugarcane plantations Twitty told Livescience.
Slaves were given small plots of land unfit for sugarcane production on which to grow food to feed themselves Twitty said.
Some of these slaves worked as sugar-boiling men who took harvested sugarcane and boiled it down into molasses to make rum.
and pecan pie has Southern roots as well. Norwegian Americans make a potato flatbread called lefse which they serve with meatballs Bertelsen said.
Kistner's most recent Op-Ed was Arkansans Still Suffering Effects from Seeping Oil Months After Mayflower Spill.
but from 2009 through 2011 fire departments across the United states responded to an average of 200 blazes yearly that started with the evergreen.
In Central and South america the most commonly domesticated plants were maize bottle gourds squash and beans.
A sample of honey for example can be matched to the flowers of a specific geographic region through the laser analysis. You will know in the case of olive oil
but you can create a counterfeit product that looks very similar using sugar instead of bees David Bell director of Protium (manufacturer of the isotope ratio-meter) told Wired UK.
Fungicides are used to control things like fungus on apples and weren't expected to have an impact on healthy bees.
To make things even more complicated in the recent study the researchers found that healthy bees they sampled had foraged mostly from weeds
and wildflowers not crops meaning that bees across North america are likely much more exposed to pesticides than previously thought.
or weeds might also have unintended consequences when combined and later spread outside crops. The solution could be as simple as labeling the harmful fungicides.
but those regulations don't apply to the chemicals used to kill fungus on the crops as those substances were thought to be harmless to bees.
but also spray programs near those fields that may contribute to pesticide drift onto weeds the authors wrote.
In his work Gogarten has shown that horizontal gene transfer turns the tree of life into a thick bush of branches that interweave with each other.
Many of these branches terminated long ago due to extinction but some of their genes live on in us thanks to horizontal gene transfer.
I like to think of early life as being more like an undifferentiated slime mold Goldenfeld said. Such a communal form of life would have no meaningful family tree
He is remembered perhaps best for classifying life into the now-well-accepted domains of bacteria eukaryotes (plants animals fungi and protists) and archaea.
since 1932 and the largest forest fire ever recorded in the Sierra nevada the granite mountains that run from north to south along the state's eastern fringe.
or conduct controlled burns instead of letting forest fires run their course. But in recent years reduced funding for preventive firefighting has hampered both thinning and prescribed burns.
which meant there was less underbrush and fewer small trees to fuel the fire once it reached Yosemite so the blaze slowed.
The fire will provide scientists with a trove of data on forest fires. The flames raced through experimental forests studied for more than a century
#How Cherry Blossoms Came into Budding US Popularity The pink cherry blossoms that explode into bloom every spring in Washington D c. are famous around the country flowering due to a courtesy gift from Japan
But one of the first attempts to send the flowers over to the capital didn't go so well.
A few seeds did make their way into the United states before the Japanese sent thousands in the 1900s.
Stages of Cherry Blossom Blooms Three years later the Japanese sent more than 2000 young trees to be planted near the Potomac river as a symbol of the growing friendship between the two nations.
The island nation renewed its vow to send seeds over shipping more than 3000 in 1912.
He was awed by the tree's unique beauty according to the city's cherry blossom festival website.
Cherry blossom (sakura in Japanese) festivals are held now every spring in these cities as well as other locations in the United states. The trees stand as not only a symbol of friendship but also as a glimmer of the fragility of spring.
continuation of resilient life and the fragile and momentary aspect of natural beauty because sakura flowers do not stand well against harsh natural elements like rain
The researchers'most recent study appearing in June in the Canadian Journal of Microbiology was on P. mirabilis.
because P. mirabilis is the main bacterium behind UTIS caused by catheters in hospitals. Scientists think that P. mirabilis can migrate up the catheter into the urinary tract.
So a catheter dusted or infused with cranberry might prevent infection. Indeed a second paper by Tufenkji's group posted online in advance of publication in the journal Colloids
and cedars in southern Europe Central asia and North africa devouring the foliage of these trees. These social caterpillars spin large communal white silk nests
whose symptoms are identifiable from the road including the horse chestnut leaf miner or ash dieback fungus.
and provides a whimsical space for kids to sit in thrones carved out of large stumps climb through tunnels sawed into downed trunks
I think it's great that they have been able to do something good out of something that was said so tragic Brooklyn resident Annmarie Anderson as her 3-year-old son looked at her giggling completely soaked by a water pump attached to an overturned trunk.
and then pressurizing the wood in a closed container to force preservatives into all crevices protecting against degradation by burrowing insects and fungus.
If you drive at speed down a tree-lined road the trunks move quickly past your eyes
But bees often need to land on vertical surfaces such as flower petals in order to obtain pollen or nectar.
Take the gum arabic and gum karaya trees of southern Mali. For generations villagers cleared the trees for cattle land.
and tap the trees for their high-value resins which the company exports to Europe to meet the rising need for such materials in products from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics to baked goods.
when you talk to the villagers says Diaka Sall Root Capital's Dakar-based credit manager for West Africa.
Though the conflict that ripped apart Mali earlier this year had deep political and ethnic roots it was fueled by decades of drought food insecurity and poverty.
Other enterprises producing agroforestry crops from the Sahel like the baobab shea nut and cashew trees other such truffula-like trees offer similar potential.
Overharvesting limits the supply of pine nuts and acorns a main food source for Amur tigers prey.
Stem Cell Advance Reignites Ethics Debate A new stem cell discovery has reawakened controversy about human cloning though technical challenges mean scientists are far from being able to create human babies as in Michael
which is the same one used to create the cloned sheep Dolly in 1996.5 Wild Stem Cell Discoveries
But in clones the trophoblast cells frequently fail perhaps a domino effect from just a few genes going wrong said Jose Cibelli a stem cell researcher at Michigan State university.
These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (ips cells) and their use is supported generally by anti-abortion groups such as the USCCB
and insert it in the place of the egg's original nucleus. Now that adult cell's genome can hum along in its new home creating stem cells without the mitochondrial defects present in its original form.
How Stem Cell Cloning Works (Infographic) That's neat because in one step you can technically get rid of that mitochondrial mutation Penn's Gearhart told Livescience.
The resulting embryonic stem cells could then theoretically be grown into adult cells to replace the ailing person's mutated cells.
My feeling is that it's sort of an unintentional step in that direction said Paul Knoepfler a stem cell researcher at the University of California Davis School of medicine.
and more broadly to enter STEM professions. And it stands out because of the social and environmental ramifications of human-powered vehicles which offer very tangible benefits to people in both developed and undeveloped nations.
and 24 percent happened in areas of thick vegetation cover. Although trees and shrubs may offer cheetahs better means to stalk prey the researchers did not find significant differences in the speed
or distances run across the various terrains. The five cheetahs studied predominantly hunted impala a type of African antelope
but one male cheetah who frequently hunted in areas with thicker vegetation occasionally hunted warthogs Wilson said.
Understanding the vegetation in the area during that time helped the scientists piece together more clues about the precipitation and climate.
Some of the changes we see going on now sea ice melting tree lines migrating and glaciers with tremendous ablation rate suggest that we're heading back to the Pliocene.
#Iceland Volcano Eruption Fueled Ocean Blooms The explosive volcanic eruption Iceland saw in 2010 may have disrupted life in the air above Europe
Iceland Volcano's Fiery Sunsets Ocean bloom Iron is key to ocean life helping spur the growth of single-celled organisms known as phytoplankton.
when volcanic iron fertilized the waters the resulting phytoplankton bloom sucked up other nutrients as well.
It's a nice step toward getting a direct view of this important process in woody plants said Stroock who did not take part in this research.
Those tortoises kept Madagascar's unique ecosystem in check by munching on low-lying foliage trampling vegetation and dispersing large seeds from native trees like the baobab.
With their demise the composition of Madagascar's ecosystems changed shrubs and vegetation clogged the forest floor
and leaf litter biomass builds up on the forest floor and frequently causes wildfires. In addition many of Madagascar's plants have evolved defenses against large herbivores such as spines
Replacement tortoises on the Mascarene Island of Rodrigues are restoring seed dispersal and grazing patterns after only seven years on the island.
The net result is a loss of understory plants the young trees ferns and wildflowers that grow in the spaces between big trees.
And without the duff layer some animals lack a place to live. It's like they've been pushed out of their homes Resner said.
and fungi the DNA is stored. In bacteria the DNA just floats around in the cell.
if any DNA but hair roots do and in mammals red blood cells (but not white blood cells) push out their DNA as they mature so they can squeeze along tiny blood vessels.
They could also identify a lettuce or a strawberry from a leaf or from the fruit.
and cotton Sneller said At least 95 percent of GM soybeans contain this gene and they're exported around the world
The new rule also says that gluten-free foods cannot contain any wheat rye or barley or any of their crossbreeds.
People with the intestinal condition celiac disease have to avoid eating foods that contain gluten proteins that occur naturally in wheat rye and barley.
The first gymnosperm genome the common Christmas tree (i e. Norwegian wood) has been sequenced. The coniferous Norway spruce (Picea abies) is one of the most widespread and important plants in Europe.
The gymnosperms belong to a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers cycads Ginkoplants and woody plants called gnetophytes.
The chemicals are sprayed also directly on locusts instead of on vegetation or the ground are used only in small quantities
Such specialists increasingly rely on a new family of bio-pesticides such as a chemical called Green Muscle that comes from a naturally occurring fungus that only attacks locusts.
Old tires junk piles building eaves cement blocks upturned flower pots and even empty soda cans have been occupied by the bees according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
Tea bushes blueberries Brazil nuts azaleas and persimmons are all members of the plant order Ericales along with kiwifruit.
#Kudzu-Eating Stinkbug May Attack US Soybeans Pesky vines of kudzu native to Asia have crept throughout the southeastern United states in recent decades
Worse new research shows that the kudzu bugs'taste for soybeans threatens crops outside of the South.
Kudzu (Pueraria montana) was introduced first to the United states as an ornamental plant in the 19th century
and shrubs often sealing their death by blocking out sunlight. Kudzu bugs (Megacopta cribraria) meanwhile which are also native to Asia were detected only for the first time in the United states in Georgia in 2009.
Because of their diet and life cycle the pungent-smelling insects were thought to be limited largely to areas where they could find the invading vine their favorite meal.
Based on observations in the wild researchers believed the eggs of kudzu bugs that hatched during the spring were part of a first generation Generation A
which would eat only kudzu during their immature phase before graduating to soybeans during adulthood.
It was thought that their offspring Generation B posed a greater threat as they hatched during the summer
The Peskiest Alien Mammals But in a greenhouse laboratory researchers at North carolina State university found that baby Generation A kudzu bugs did not have restricted a kudzu diet.
and the field observations indicate that kudzu bugs are potentially capable of spreading into any part of the United states where soybeans are grown.
It also means that both annual generations of kudzu bugs could attack soybean crops in areas where the bug is established already
The above photo of Aster Lake by Scott Toste was one of the contest favorites.
Aster Lake is a high alpine lake popular with backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts for its remote setting perfect spot to commune with giants.
If people become convinced that a gold-laden city is hiding in the Honduran rain forest it could encourage looting he said damaging the real archaeological sites that no doubt lurk among the tropical vegetation.
In areas where lemurs sleep in trees the branches are high off the ground and form a safe canopy.
While an individual leaf may see less light the forest on average as an ecosystem sees quite a bit Reinhardt said.
The team also measured how easily air bubbles form in the xylem the water-transporting vascular system of trees.
The emergence of flowering plants several million years earlier probably allowed mega-herbivores such as the imposing Triceratops to evolve from smaller herbivores that were about the size of a house cat Loewen said.
Even so dense vegetation now veils much of the complex impenetrable to conventional remote-sensing techniques the researchers noted.
Lidar provides an unparalleled ability to penetrate dense vegetation cover and map archaeological remains on the forest floor the researchers wrote in an accepted manuscript submitted to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When the Lidar data revealed the elevation beneath Phnom Kulen's dense vegetation the researchers knew they had found something big.
After spring mating female blue tits collect moss and grass to construct the base of their nests inside the hollows of trees
Fit females can also search for hard-to-find plants like mint lavender and rosemary to spruce up the homes for their future nestlings.
and moss to others to make some larger. The team also added or removed odorous plants from different nests.
The bandaging around the mummy contained remnants of an elaborate balm made of fat or oil and resin from a Pistacia tree a shrubby desert plant.
This resin was a luxury item in ancient Egypt Evershed and his colleagues report today (Nov 18) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
but it was used not as a human mummification resin for at least 600 years after the deaths of Tjuiu and Yuya.
The roots of placentals Much remains controversial about the origins of placentals such as when they arose
To uncover the roots of the placental family tree and help resolve the decades-old debate as to
when it came to exploring more ancient branches of the mammal family tree. Discovering the tree of life is like piecing together a crime scene it is a story that happened in the past that you can't repeat O'Leary said.
and leaves and branches withered away especially among the forest's older more vulnerable canopy trees researchers say.
We had expected the forest canopy to bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth
They grew corn squash and beans supplementing these crops by hunting game and collecting wild plants.
Mexico is known for its tequila which is made from agave cactus that is well suited to the climate of central Mexico.
Mexican art and literature Clay pottery embroidered cotton garments wool shawls and outer garments with angular designs and colorful baskets and rugs are some of the common items associated with Mexican folk art.
because any rust or soil left on the tool will contaminate your sample. Thoroughly clean and dry your tools before collecting a new sample.
so the plants can take them in through their roots. One way to judge whether these materials are easily available for use by the plants is to measure the electrical conductivity of the soil.
Forest fires alone destroyed more than 33000 square miles (85500 square km) of forest between 1999 and 2010 according to a recent NASA release.
And a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that forest fires in the Amazon are only going to get worse as the region's annual dry season also known as fire season continues to extend every year.
Gluten is a protein found in many grains including wheat rye and barley. It's found in most breads cereals pastas and many processed foods according to Webmd.
Heather Mangieri a nutrition consultant and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics agreed.
Gluten is a protein found in many grains including wheat rye and barley. It's found in most breads cereals pastas and many processed foods according to Webmd.
Heather Mangieri a nutrition consultant and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics agreed.
all the trunks neatly aligned to the north. Beyond this oetree down zone the forest remained standing but was seared lifeless.
The culprit turned out to be Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans a contagious fungus that eats the salamander's skin.
Whatever killed the New mexico elk was apparently neither a chemical spill nor a flesh-eating fungus though the deaths remain a genuine mystery at least so far.
The vegetation gap expands as the competition ensues and the grass-free zone becomes a reservoir for nutrients and water.
He reasoned that the termites feed on the grasses'roots killing the plants which usually use up the soil's water
Scientists have proposed also previously that fairy circles are an example of a self-organizing vegetation pattern
In 2008 researchers developed a mathematical model showing the vegetation patterning of fairy circles could depend on water availability.
and fertilizing the circles should cause them to close up with vegetation Tschinkel said. Follow Joseph Castro on Twitter.
 The shaman who once used these rocks probably belonged to an indigenous culture that lived off maize manioc and wild tubers.
and approximately 1 million deaths in the mid-19th century was triggered by a newly identified strain of potato blight that has been christened HERB-1 according to a new study.
An international team of molecular biologists studied the historical spread of Phytophthora infestans a funguslike organism that devastated potato crops and led to the famine in Ireland.
Fascinating Fungi Previously a Phytophthora strain called US-1 was thought to have triggered the potato famine
In fact the DNA quality was so good the researchers were able to sequence the entire genome of Phytophthora infestans and its host the potato within just a few weeks.
The decoded genomes of these historical samples were compared then with modern Phytophthora strains from Europe Africa and The americas.
According to the study Phytophthora infestans originated in Mexico's Toluca Valley. When Europeans and Americans first came to Mexico in the 16th century the pathogen experienced increased genetic diversity
and in the early 1800s the HERB-1 Phytophthora strain emerged and was brought out of Mexico the researchers said.
In the 20th century as new varieties of potatoes were introduced the HERB-1 strain was replaced eventually by the US-1 Phytophthora strain the researchers said.
but Still Plenty of Leaf Peeping Spots Leaf-peeping season is in full swing but the federal government shutdown has shuttered the country's national parks closing off some of the prime areas for checking out autumn's riotous colors.
Plenty of state parks around the country whose foliage is sight to behold are open for visitors.
Let's start in the part of the country perhaps most synonymous with fall foliage: New england. This region is awash in fall colors at this time of year the hues are even clear from space!
Leaf Peeper Paradise: Autumn's Best Colors The area is currently at 80 percent of its peak fall color according to New hampshire's tourism website with the best bets for amazing views in upland areas where sugar maples are a riot of yellow and orange.
and sun-bleached terrain but about 70 miles (about 110 kilometers) west of San antonio sits a leaf-peeping paradise:
http://oregonlakesandrivers. com/content/leaf-peeping-king-castle-trail) For more prime leaf peeping spots check out the websites of state parks in your region i
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