and then they created synthetic leaf traps or biomimetic plastic surfaces. Traditionally in Bulgaria Serbia and other southeast European countries households with infestations of bed bugs have thwarted the evasive little bloodsuckers by strewing kidney bean leaves on the floor at night.
Entomologist Catherine Loudon and her colleagues at University of California Irvine with fellow researchers at the University of Kentucky used videography and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the possibility of creating synthetic leaf traps as a sustainable and nontoxic
When you put a bed bug on a bean leaf and it takes a few steps and this actually happens fairly rapidly I was astonished rather...
The leaf acts like a little tiny miniature fish hook she said. The scientists then fabricated surfaces out of plastic that are similar to the leaf surfaces geometrically indistinguishable Loudon said.
Unfortunately these biomimetic surfaces don't do the trick quite yet--they snag the bugs but don't trap them.
As yet we have not been able to replicate all of the necessary mechanical properties of the microscopic bean leaf trichomes in our synthetic surfaces Loudon said.
It is also more resistant to rot-inducing fungi. oeour goal is to see regional wood species being used to make a new class of high-performance engineered wood products that excel in demanding environmental conditions said Matt Aro NRRI
In addition to bunchgrass prairie it features aspen groves grasslands sagebrush shrublands and other wooded areas. The landmark falls within a preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy.
Though flattened the ancient fruit (scientific name Physalis) looks remarkably like a modern version of the popular salsa ingredient.
The fossil has a dark fruit enclosed by a ribbed calyx (a papery husk) just like modern Physalis Wilf said.
Both the fossil tomatillo and today's plants have husks with five major and five minor ribs he added.
Tomatillos are members of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family which includes tomatoes potatoes and eggplants. Both fossil and genetic evidence suggests that Solanaceae plants originated
and diversified in South america. But until now only fossil seeds attributed to Solanaceae plants have been discovered in South america most of the family's early fossil history comes from Europe.
The earliest South american tomato fossil larger than a seed is about 16 million years old.
Gallery of Fantastic Fossils This is the first fossil anybody has seen ever of the entire tomato-potato-eggplant family Wilf said.
This actually does match up pretty well with the idea that the Solanaceae family first diversified in South america.
Now thanks to the tomatillo find the Solanaceae molecular clock is too young Wilf said.
Acorns and leaves from Castanopsis the first oak ever found in South america and the first evidence of the African cycad called Encephalartos from South america.
since in India where peacocks are typically found thick vegetation could obscure everything except the top part of the males'display of feathers.
#NY Giant Pumpkin Carving Weekend Smashes Record The world s largest pumpkin and gourds are on display this weekend through Halloween at the New york Botanical garden where expert carvers are currently at work providing
and was grown Tim and Susan Mathison in Napa California. Master Carver Ray Villafane a former school teacher who became a professional pumpkin carver seven years ago told AFP that this year s giant pumpkin with its overlapping folds
and a team of carvers will transform into carnivorous plants and other unearthly creatures. Two pumpkins from New brunswick Canada won their regional weigh-off competitions with a hefty 1813 pounds and 1024.5 pounds.
and the world s largest long gourd a lengthy 139.25 inches grown in Nova scotia Canada.
and spiced with resin and herbs including juniper mint and myrtle. The closest modern analogue is a Greek wine flavored with pine resin called retsina study researcher Assaf Yasur-Landau of the University of Haifa told reporters.
If you take retsina and you pour a bit of cough syrup inside I guess you get something quite similar Yasur-Landau said.
Texts and inscriptions from the era describe herbal wines but this is the first true chemical evidence of their existence.
Resins would have helped preserve the wines. If the ancient wineswere anything like retsina the resins also would have lent a distinctive turpentine flavor to the beverage.
Honey sweetened the wine the researchers found and juniper mint cinnamon bark and other herbs flavored it.
The jars were remarkably consistent in their contents suggesting that winemakers were sticking to a recipe.
And yet despite continued success and the basic facts that given good soil sunlight and water a good seed will sprout he is still in awe every spring when his seedlings first pop up in his planters.
Well for the same reasons my friend is always in awe of his seedlings so much can go wrong.
It's also like those seedlings a small miracle. This article was adapted from Farming Fishing and Small Miracles in Mozambique for the WWF blog Science Driven.
Tallest rocket: The tallest rocket ever constructed is NASA's massive Saturn V a three-stage booster used to launch American astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The towering Saturn V launched from the Kennedy space center in Florida. It stood 363 feet (110 m) high
and remains the most powerful rocket ever built even though the last one flew in 1973.
First it removes foreign objects such as stems leaves and insects such as beetles from the grapes a capability that some wineries already possess in other optical approaches.
The Better Cotton Initiative (a partnership that included WWF) worked with cotton farmers to improve management practices on their farms.
That's great for farmers and for the planet because cotton accounts for 24 percent of the world's insecticide market
and 11 percent of global pesticide sales and 73 percent of the world's cotton crop grows on irrigated land.
whose smells were said to overpower visitors oethe tuberoses drive us away from Trianon every evening wrote Madame de Maintenon in a letter dated Aug 8 1689. oethe excess of fragrance causes men
which Marie Antoinette had constructed for herself with a moss bed which she could lie On it had two entrances prompting much speculation as to
Ferns appeared as did the first trees. At the same time the first vertebrates were colonizing the land.
Scientist Snaps Shot of Colorful Urine From red to blue to violet all the colors of the rainbow appear regularly in urine tests conducted at hospital labs. The prismatic pee collection seen in this stunning photo took only a week
Heather West the laboratory scientist who snapped the picture at the hospital said she and her colleagues collected the urine colors to highlight their fascinating behind-the-scenes work.
Indigo and Violet In this photo the deep purple urine comes from a patient with kidney failure. The dark black one is something that you usually see in kidney failure West said.
Fisher cats nibble on everything from acorns to deer carcasses. The scientists found rat poison in 85 percent of fisher cat carcasses collected on public and tribal lands according to a study published in June in the journal Conservation Letters.
and is largely responsible for the devastating algae bloomsâ describedâ by the New york times. Why Lake erie is Under attack from Algae Blooms The key question is:
so that algal blooms and dead zones whether in Lake erie or the Gulf of mexico become a thing of the past?
But the payoff the size of the environmental win in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing algal blooms linked to agriculture is huge.
As for vegetation it was limited fairly in many areas. There were some scattered conifers including pines cypress and yews along with some broadleaf trees such as beeches and oaks.
On the ground there were prairie grasses as well as members of the lilly orchid and rose families. About 13000 years ago more than three-fourths of the large Ice age animals including woolly mammoths mastodons saber-toothed tigers
See Photos of 7 Potent Plants in the Exhibition Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) beloved by gardeners for its drooping bell-shaped blooms may be one of the most famous examples.
and friend of Erasmus Darwin used infusions of foxglove with surprising success to treat dropsy a disease now known as edema that can cause swelling bad enough to rip open the skin.
More recently scientists have harnessed chemicals from the plant to create digitalis medications such as digoxin which is administered often to patients with congestive heart failure.
Rosy periwinkle too is toxic to eat but has been used to treat ailments from diabetes to constipation in traditional Indian and Chinese medicines.
Sometimes called Madagascar periwinkle it's adorned with pink flowers and is endangered in the wild. More than four decades ago scientists isolated vincristine and vinblastine from the plant and showed that these alkaloids could be used in chemotherapy treatments.
What heals can be a hazard For foxglove rosy periwinkle and other potent medicinal plants the line between poison and panacea is often thin.
Opium poppy gave rise to morphine which revolutionized pain treatment. But the plant is also the source of the highly addictive body-wasting drug heroin.
But hunters in the Amazon also extracted the chemical from the plant's woody vines to make paralyzing blow darts.
and pot marigold to treat wounds of the skin. Though there is evidence to support the effectiveness of many herbs these plants aren't regulated by the Food
That said the botanist does believe there is some unnecessary fear about herbal medicine. Like all remedies herbs must be taken in the larger context of a person's overall health.
and they're at risk of losing their herbal history. Today Balick partners with people in far-flung locales like Vanuatu
and other underwater life burrowing between the roots of dislodged stumps. Images: Mysterious Underwater Stone Structure Some of the trees were truly massive and many logs had fallen over before being covered by ocean sediment.
Root vegetables and tubers such as carrots potatoes and turnips usually have the highest lead concentrations. Leafy greens such as spinach also have high concentrations according to Langley-Turnbaugh.
Planting produce in raised beds with store-bought soil will keep plant roots from coming into contact with contaminated earth.
Because lead travels more readily into the roots of plants when soil conditions are acidic increasing the alkalinity of the soil may halt the plant's absorption of lead.
especially midges mosquitoes flies beetles and spiders as well as grass seeds and berries. On the wintering grounds
and clover with tropical bananas in a high-speed blender to make the foods more palatable and digestible.
Even around the tropics where vegetation is plentiful humans have been cooking as long as humans have been human at least 200000 years and likely longer in our hominid form.
and microbes adjacent to rice roots can be used to block the arsenic uptake. Bais first identified the bacterial species in soil samples taken from California rice fields.
and slow arsenic uptake in rice roots but the researchers have not yet determined exactly how this process works
if creating an iron shield around the rice roots will slow arsenic movement into other parts of the plant Bais said.
Sherrier and Bais who received a 2012 seed grant from the National Science Foundation-funded Delaware Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research ultimately want to determine how UD1023 slows arsenic movement into rice roots
Coating seeds with bacteria is very easy. With this bacteria you could implement easy low-cost strategies that farmers could use that would reduce arsenic in the human food chain.
Starches are found in root vegetables tubers winter squashes grains and legumes. Your body starts digesting these starches from the moment you start chewing extracting nutrients and energy.
Other species disappeared before scientists had a chance to study their remarkable biological abilities like the gastric brooding frog which vanished from Australia in the mid-1980s likely due to timber harvesting and the chytrid fungus.
'Nuked'California's enormous Rim Fire had a devastating effect on soils and vegetation according to Forest Service ecologists.
A full 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) burned so severely that all vegetation died a senior wildland ecologist told the Associated press. In other words it's nuked ecologist Jay Miller said.
Intense flames can create a layer of plant oils that keep soil from absorbing water as well as destroying plant roots
Located in the central Sierra nevada near Pinecrest Calif. the experimental forest has been the home base for forest fire research since the 1920s.
Scrubs and grasses were mapped also extensively so well in fact that researchers today know how dense the vegetation on the forest floor used to be.
In fire-prone areas the big trees that survived the fire have thick bark and high branches that protected them Skinner said.
Despite the thinning process the research site still contains a fair amount of ground shrubbery that would aid in fueling the Rim fire
but for giant container ships the drag created by microorganisms in particular single-celled silica-shelled organisms called diatoms results in a significant amount of fuel loss every year.
Diatoms are one of the most common types of phytoplankton and a major group of algae.
One species Didymosphenia geminata is responsible for creating thick blooms in mountain streams and ponds. It is colloquially known as didymo or rock snot.
and promote bacteria by secreting mucilage that supports all types of growth. For researchers in the lab of Edward Theriot at The University of Texas at Austin diatoms (and their snot) are rich objects of biological research.
There are hundreds of thousands of species out there in every body of water you can think of in the world said Matt Ashworth a researcher in the lab. They're a very successful group a relatively young group
For decades diatoms resisted study. Their genome is notoriously difficult to analyze. Morphological studies based on the shape of a species'shell or other features often contradicted the results of molecular testing.
and powerful supercomputers are helping researchers better understand the biology evolution and dispersion of the diatom.
Using these new tools researchers are trying to answer a number of basic questions about diatom evolution:
What were the earliest diatoms like? How has moved the organism from a single site to every body of water in the world?
The Search for the Ur-Diatom Researchers have sought to understand what the diatom's original ancestor might have looked like.
Though Theriot and his team are still in the early stages of their analysis some of their results are consistent enough that they can start to paint a picture of how the so-called ur-diatom may have appeared.
There's this idea that the early diatom was a small flagellate but what we're finding at the base of the diatom tree are things that are long and tubular much like the tube inside of a paper towel roll said Edward Theriot professor of molecular evolution at The University of Texas at Austin and director of its Texas Natural science
Center. In the diatom world this is a radical view but it's exactly what the tree is telling us.
To come to this conclusion the researchers analyzed ribosomal and chloroplast genes of more than 200 diatoms and Bolidomonas (a closely related genus). They wanted to test the prevailing understanding of where certain diatoms fall on the evolutionary tree
and included species used as models in genomic studies and diatoms whose placement in the diatom phylogeny has been problematic or controversial.
After generating massive amounts of data using next-generation gene sequencers they used the Ranger supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to align organize
and analyze the DNA data and to run phylogenetic programs that sketched out the evolution of diatoms as a whole.
There are a number of programs that compare DNA sequences and estimate how those DNA sequences evolved from each other
what scholars thought about diatom evolution say 100 years ago. Using a statistical comparative approach the researchers arrived at a different tree of diatom evolution than traditionally conceived and a different point of origin.
They reported some of their early findings at the XXII International Diatom Colloquium in August 2012
and they continue to investigate the sequencing results in light of previous research. So how does the didymo make all that mucus?
for the molecular production of the mucilage. People have been trying to characterize that mucilage chemically for 20 years
and haven't come up with much information Ashworth said. Taking a transcriptome approach I can generate a lot of data very quickly
Four of the taxa they sequenced produce visible mucilage and the other three taxa do not
but are closely related to the mucilage producers. They believe that closely related diatoms should share similar transcriptomes except for the mucilage-related genes.
There are hundreds of genes involved in the assembly packaging and secretion of these products Ashworth said.
and information about all the diatoms that they're working on. They also use it to manage information from their collaboration with researchers in Guam on the diatom flora of the coral reefs of the Pacific.
Want to explore the beautiful and microscopic world of diatoms? Check out the image gallery Diatoms of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Editor's Note: The researchers depicted in Behind the Scenes articles have been supported by the National Science Foundation the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
Any opinions findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author
#Roses, Wine or Chocolate: Weather Controls it All This article was provided by Accuweather. com. With Valentine's day right around the corner everyone is searching for the perfect gift for their loved one.
From roses to chocolate and wine weather plays an important role in production. Roses The biggest weather-related factor in the production of beautiful roses is the temperature.
A rose bush can suffer damage if the temperature falls below 55.4 degrees F (13 degrees C) or if it exceeds 86 degrees F (30 degrees C). Ideally the roses grow best with a daytime temperature between 68 degrees
F (20 degrees C) and 82.4 degrees F (28 degrees C a variation of only a few degrees too warm can spell tragedy for rose growers To control the temperature the rose bushes are exposed to many commercial rose growers
opt to grow the roses in a greenhouse. Wine How romantic it is to share a bottle of fine wine during a candlelit Valentine's dinner.
It takes just the right combination of weather events to take the grape from the vine to the bottle.
To produce grapes that will transform into a delicious bottle of wine the grapevines need to grow at a site with good soil drainage full sunlight and soil that is nutrient-poor.
Too much water around the roots of a grapevine will kill the plant or cause it to produce poor quality fruit.
This is why you see grapevines at the top of a small mound Their location allows water that is not needed by the plant to run off.
Full sunlight is another important factor to growth of good wine grapes. Sunlight is the biggest part of a plant's photosynthesis process.
Plants absorb energy from the sunlight. That energy then is converted into glucose in the plant by photosynthesis. Glucose is the sugar in the grape that ferments to become alcohol.
To concentrate the flavor the vine is grown in nutrient-poor soil so that the plant becomes stressed.
A stressed grapevine will produce smaller grapes perfect for making wine according to motherearthnews. com. http://www. motherearthnews. com/Real-Food/2003-04-01/Growing-Grapes
Different types of vegetation reflect different wavelengths of light often in ways that the naked eye can't detect.
#School Gardening Programs Plant Seeds of Healthy Eating Involving children in a school gardening program may do more than cultivate a green thumb.
and vegetable intake at home but feedback from teacher surveys and principal interviews suggested it had begun to plant seeds of change.
Seeds of change School-based kitchen and gardening programs are a great way to help children understand where their food comes from
Take DNA from seeds like raw nuts or peas. Use about 2 cups of plant material and about half a cup of water and a tablespoon of salt instead of Gatorade.
and lightly tap the coat hanger against objects made of different materials such as a metal swing set and a tree trunk or wooden fence post.
For example a flower for the garden dirt or a wavy line for the creek. Stick the label on the plastic bag.
Normal tobacco plants grow for only about four months then flower and die. The researchers discovered a genetic switch
Heather Mangieri a nutrition consultant and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics agreed that ideally people should get protein from food.
The main sources of fat in the traditional Mediterranean dietdiet come from olive oil nuts and fish and these foods are eaten in moderation said Heather Mangieri a nutrition consultant and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.
In the new study people ate a handful of nuts each day Mangieri said. Because Americans today eat a relatively poor diet nutrition-wise even just incorporating a few aspects of the Mediterranean diet into their current way of eating would be a massive improvement over
While nuts and seeds are a source of omega-3 fatty acids a type of healthy fat it's not clear how much of this healthy fat we actually get by eating them Mangieri said.
and seeds may not be very much. Because of this the best sources of omega-3s are fatty fish such as salmon sardines and trout.
Further analysis revealed the presence of tree roots at the center. The team then dated the structure using levels of radioactivity in minerals and the ratio of carbon isotopes or molecules of carbon with different numbers of neutrons from charcoal and grains of sand.
With the Rim Fire nearly out and major roads reopened visitors were finally returning to Yosemite for camping and the park's fall foliage display.
Corpse Flower in its Death Throes WASHINGTON A corpse flower in its death throes doesn't smell like a corpse at all.
A titan arum (or corpse flower) housed here at the U s. Botanic Garden Conservatory has been smelling up its exhibition hall to the delight of thousands of visitors
since the tropical flower finally went into full bloom on Sunday (July 21) but its time in bloom is quickly coming to a close.
A corpse flower's rare malodorous bloom only lasts for 24 to 48 hours after
which time it closes up and collapses. We've already reached that stage where the plant is showing signs of beginning to pack it in Ari Novy a plant scientist
A Corpse Flower Blooms'Really really unpleasant'Although the line to get in to see the blooming corpse flower stretched around the block
when the building opened at 10 a m. EDT (1400 GMT) the corpse flower did not live up to its smelly moniker.
Instead of the rotting flesh odor that is typical of a blooming corpse flower visitors were greeted with the smells emitted by other fans of the stinky plant.
Body odor and perfume were the prevailing aromas dominating the corpse flower's hall today (July 23.
Why the Corpse Flower Reeks The foul smell given off by the corpse flower scientifically named Amorphophallus titanium has a very specific purpose.
and flies that will carry its pollen to potentially cross pollinate other corpse flowers. The titan arum stretches to an impressive 8 feet (2. 4 meters) in height
and the plants have been known to grow to be as much as 12 feet (3. 7 m) tall.
The titan arum is native to the rain forests of central Sumatra in western Indonesia. The D c. plant was about 4 feet (1. 2 m) tall
and a half Novy said A titan arum can bloom more than once however these are fickle plants.
This is the first time this particular corpse flower has bloomed and it is the first to bloom in Washington D c. since 2007.
The 2007 flower was part of a Smithsonian collection. These plants can be long-lived and there are absolutely records in botanic gardens
or other horticultural institutions of these plants blooming multiple times in their life spans but it's unpredictable Novy said.
or so years between blooms and there are recordings of them taking as many as 20 years between blooms.'
'Freak of nature'Despite the fact that the corpse flower's famous stench has dissipated the bloom was still a sight to behold for many visitors.
Cormac Jensen a 10-year-old visiting the gardens with his father wasn't disappointed that the flower had stopped already giving off its odor.
I'm a big fan of making candy haunted houses said Heather Mangieri a nutrition consultant and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
In the new study the FDA analyzed dietary supplements that were labeled as containing Acacia rigidula a shrub native to Texas. Products
Cohen said that it's important to note that Acacia rigidula has never been used in herbal medicine or herbal remedies.
or herbal remedy manufacturers must submit an application to the FDA for approval before using it in products.
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