Shellfish could supplant tree-ring climate data: Nature Newsoxygen isotopes in clamshells may provide the most detailed record yet of global climate change,
But the report warns that the risks of genetic engineering may multiply as the technology is applied to more crops
It's clear that genetic progress in the past in France and other rich countries accounted for much of the increase in production,
so genetics is far from passã; it's still the number-one technique for increasing yields, for example.
engineered by either genetic modification or classic breeding techniques. For me, GMOS are not a magic bullet,
Pest resistance is a really promising and important application for genetic selection because there are a lot of health problems in developing countries that have been linked to the spraying of pesticides.
The discovery of the new forms marks the first time that the stem rust fungus with virulence against key genetic resistance has moved south of its origins in Uganda
The fungus and its variants are now able to overcome at least 32 of around 50 resistance genes, according to Ravi Singh, a plant geneticist and pathologist at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre.
a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company based in San diego, California. Shoppers would have to send their DNA sample to the company's laboratory for a customized genetic report costing $79-249.
The kit is already available to order online. Chinese solar: Jinko Solar, one of several Chinese firms hoping to dominate the crowded silicon photovoltaic market,
which owns plant-genetics firm Pioneer hi-bred International, based in Johnston, Iowa. Alexander worries that Monsanto will cut prices to protect its share,
an entomologist at the University of Minnesota in St paul. The finding reminds us yet again that genetic modified crops are not a magic bullet for pest control,
Along with genetically modified crops, says Andow, farmers need effective systems for responding to changes in pest abundance.
The impact of genetically modified crops must be assessed on the landscape level, taking into account the ecological input of different organisms,
and subjected to genetic analyses to identify any viruses. But this procedure does not distinguish between viruses that are confined safely to the mosquitoes'gut
The team then used a genetic test to analyse VIRAL RNA on the cards. They found that many mosquitoes had consumed the honey,
The plan has drawn fire from all sides of the intense debate over GM CROPS, with industry officials,
or even regions within countries, to restrict GM CROPS, regardless of whether the EFSA has determined they pose no risk to human health
although they welcomed the commission's efforts to unblock the approval process for GM CROPS, the plan undermines the science-based authorization process and the principles of the single market.
Meanwhile, environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are concerned that devolving decision-making on GM CROPS will make it more difficult to block their development.
but are known either to regulate gene expression directly or to carry out other functions in the cell.
how easy is it to infringe a European patent on genetic material? The court said that such a patent can be enforced only when the DNA is performing the function for
which set down policy on what kind of genetic material was patentable, and on what protection that patent enjoyed.
or consisting of genetic information shall extend to all material...in which the product in sic incorporated and in which the genetic information is contained
and performs its function. Patent lawyer Devanand Crease, who works at the London-based law partnership Keltie, says that most people would have interpreted this wording as narrowly as the European court has done.
Although lawyers will have to be careful about how they file patents for products containing genetic material,
However, most patents incorporate other legal claims that could be used to enforce protection on products containing genetic material without resorting solely to claims over DNA sequences as Monsanto had to do, notes Martin Maclean of intellectual-property lawyers
such as its hazy definition of'genetic material','and whether the DNA's'function'is the production of a particular protein (with all its uses),
The University of California, Berkeley, has been barred from providing incoming students with personal analyses of three common genetic variants.
and control of GM CROPS in the United states. US farmers have increased dramatically their use of GM CROPS
%GM CROPS have broken free from cultivated land in several countries, including Canada, the United kingdom and Japan, but they have not previously been found in uncultivated land in the United states. The extent of the escape is unprecedented,
In its phosphate form, phosphorus is a vital part of the cell's genetic material, and is also found in adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the main energy carrier in cells.
Plagiarism plagues India's genetically modified crops: Nature Newsindia's moratorium on genetically modified (GM) food crops is unlikely to be lifted after it emerged that key sections from a landmark report by six Indian science academies,
The anti-GM CROPS lobby has seized on the controversy, and Indian scientists fear that the episode has undermined the country's international scientific reputation.
a plant scientist who is director of the National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology and a known proponent of GM CROPS.
Devinder Sharma, chairman of the Delhi-based Forum for Biotechnology and Food security, a group of scientists that is against GM CROPS
In October 2009, India's Genetic engineering Approval Committee gave the go-ahead to commercial planting of Bt brinjal,
Kumar says that the report's conclusion that Bt brinjal is safe is based largely on data analysed by the Genetic engineering Approval Committee last year suggesting that a report commissioned to supplement the committee's scientific guidance is actually based on the committee's recommendations.
My idea of referring the GM CROPS to academics was to get a view of the larger scientific community but not the view of one Ananda Kumar which
and benefits of GM CROPS, says Monkombu Swaminathan, an agricultural scientist often referred to as the father of India's green revolution for his role in developing high-yield varieties of wheat.
Nature Newsarchaeologists interested in the genetics of ancient organisms have a new molecular tool at hand RNA.
says Robin Allaby, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Warwick, UK, whose team has sequenced small regulatory RNAS from ancient Egyptian barley seeds.
says Tom Gilbert, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen who works with Fordyce. He got the idea to sequence ancient RNA after seeing a paper that described the germination of a 2,
Terry Brown, a plant geneticist at the University of Manchester, UK, who is collaborating on the project,
is that the seeds also contain a gene mutation that normally produces six-row barley. He hopes that small RNAS
Greger Larson, a geneticist at Durham University, UK, who was involved not in either project, thinks that RNA molecules are the right place to look for the molecular changes that underlie domestication.
Ian Barnes, a geneticist at Royal Holloway, University of London thinks ancient RNA analysis has a lot of potential,
Fedoroff is getting back to her roots in plant genetics by heading up a new centre for desert agriculture in Saudi arabia.
You believe that genetically modified (GM CROPS are needed to help to feed the world. Were you able to help speed their progress?
which uses quantitative methods borrowed from genetics, supports a popular model of political evolution which suggests that societies show a gradual increase in complexity.
just as two species with the most genetic divergence would sit at opposite ends of a phylogenetic tree.
Some anthropologists might also lack familiarity with these heavily statistical methods taken from genetics. Even supposing I knew these statistical techniques,
This form of personalized medicine tailors treatments on the basis of the molecular and genetic characteristics of a patient's cancer cells
Plans were unveiled this week to deploy broad genetic testing for selected cancer patients in Britain's government-run health-care provider, the National Health Service (NHS.
This form of'stratified medicine'uses genetic information to group patients according to their likely response to a particular treatment.
unprecedented numbers of suitable patients could be enrolled in the genetic-profiling programme. The idea is to scale this up to every patient in the NHS,
a geneticist who helps lead the hospital's cancer testing programme. For example, its broad genetic test detects a mutation in a gene called BRAF that is already known to be mutated commonly in metastatic melanoma.
Finding such mutations in people with lung and colon cancer made it possible to put them in a trial of an experimental treatment targeting that gene,
Researchers will have access to consenting patients'genetic data as well as to medical records of the outcomes of the treatment.
says Andy Futreal, a cancer geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK,
Peach hopes that the first phase of the cancer programme will pave the way for expanding genetic testing to more patients and other conditions, such as diabetes, AIDS and even psychiatric disorders.
Nature Newsgenetically modified (GM CROPS can save farmers using conventional seeds even more money than those using the transgenic varieties,
And ensuring that some fields are kept free of the GM CROPS seems to be key to the overall success of the transgenic variety.
As a result, farmers planting non-GM CROPS benefit from fewer pests, but don't have to pay the higher prices for the GM seeds.
Three African countries South africa, Egypt and Burkina faso are growing GM CROPS commercially, and Kenya expects to start doing so in 2012.
that would allow controlled commercial releases of GM CROPS. But with general elections expected to be held in February next year,
Urban Ugandans are opposed more to GM CROPS than their rural counterparts are, according to a Phd thesis published earlier this year2.
Scientists at the conference also identified a need for basic research into bumblebee genetic diversity.
Current evidence suggests that the declining species exhibit low genetic diversity and tests could determine additional species at risk of a future die off.
GRISP will study the genetic diversity of rice, by sequencing and analysing more than 1, 000 rice strains to identify genes for desirable traits such as improved yield and climate tolerance.
Wayne Powell, a crop geneticist at Aberystwyth University in Wales, says the partnership is creating a new kind of scientific environment that puts translation at the heart of the science.
Scientists identified the culprit gene some two decades ago (see'Human genetics: One gene, twenty years'.
the genome, published in Nature Genetics, looks at the Belizean Criollo variety of the crop.
says Claire Lanaud, a geneticist at CIRAD and last author on the paper. We chose this variety also
Consequently, it is very important to try to have a better knowledge of the genetic determinants of the quality traits of the cocoa.
and introduced lengthy bureaucratic approval procedures for each experiment that involved genetic manipulation. Turkey's president did not intervene
Now a group of scientists have taken a deeper look at the African elephants'genetic ancestry. The researchers sequenced the nuclear genomes of both types of African elephant
says David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical school in Boston, Massachusetts, and a lead author on the study.
says Thomas Gilbert, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen. But this study really hammers the coffin shut on any arguments that the forest
as this genetic material is inherited solely from the mother. Examining the nuclear genome which is around 200,000 times larger than that contained in mitochondria,
aims to increase food security by finding genetic traits that might be suited to future climates. Samples of wild plants will now be conserved alongside existing stores of domesticated seeds (such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen.
Nature Newsresearchers have traced the key genetic changes that enabled the plant pathogen responsible for the 1845 Irish potato famine (Phytophthora infestans) to jump from wild plant hosts to cultivated potatoes.
These genetic clues could aid the development of fungicides and disease-resistant varieties of potato that the pathogen will find much more difficult to adapt to and overcome.
The researchers identified the key genes by comparing the genetic make-up of the potato blight pathogen and several of its sister species. To do so,
which describes the genetic make-up of an unrelated powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis) that affects barley. Pietro Spanu
there is a big risk that we will run out of options for natural genetic resistance, says Spanu.
leading scientists to wonder how left-coiling individuals arising from random genetic mutation would be able to find sexual partners.
leading to reproductive isolation and the evolution of entirely new species. This could change the general view of evolutionary genetics,
Nature Newspolicy Business People Research Trend watch Coming up Policy German GM CROPS The highest court in Germany has upheld a law that makes planters of genetically modified (GM CROPS liable
The birds carry a genetic tweak that diverts an enzyme crucial for transmitting the H5n1 strain.
His team is now working on further genetic tweaks that would inhibit the virus in different ways.
They carry a genetic'cassette'dubbed a short-hairpin RNA, which includes genetic sequences that match up with an enzyme that influenza viruses use for replication and packaging.
These sequences can bind with the enzyme, somehow stopping it from working with the virus. The enzyme could mutate to evade this decoy,
The chickens were modified by a team led by Helen Sang, a geneticist at the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Both companies used conventional breeding rather than genetic engineering to produce their seeds. Pioneer says that field studies show its new hybrids will increase maize yields by 5%in water-limited environments
Coming up 22 23 february In La jolla, California, leading genetics researchers gather to discuss the promise of human genomics over the next decade. go. nature. com/w8zzsx 23 february NASA's Glory
Maryland, pinpointed the genetic mutation that causes a rare artery-hardening condition (C. St Hilaire et al.
Nature Newsan international treaty aimed at protecting and improving access to the world's plant genetic resources has obtained more than US$10 million from donors to fund its second round of research grants for helping
The funding was confirmed at a meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture this week in Bali, Indonesia.
signatories are legally bound to pass on genetic information about the world's 64 most important food crops,
zar, a geneticist who works on hunger and poverty issues at the University of Cordoba in Spain,
says that conserving global plant genetic diversity is the only way to develop crops that are adapted to changing climates and resistant to new diseases.
Trend watch Developing countries look poised to overtake industrialized countries in planting genetically modified (GM CROPS (see chart.
Brazil, Argentina, India, China and South africa together accounted for 43%of the global total of biotech crops planted commercially last year.
In 2010, Pakistan and Myanmar grew GM CROPS commercially for the first time, opting for biotech cotton. Sweden also made its first foray into commercial GM CROPS,
planting the'Amflora'high-starch potato. Coming up 3 6 march The American Association for Cancer Research hosts a conference in Vancouver,
Research Brain atlas debuts A genetic and anatomical map of the human brain, bankrolled by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen,
The Seattle, Washington-based Allen Brain science Institute's human brain atlas (www. brain-map. org) logged gene expression patterns and biochemical activity at 1,
Golden Rice is expected to receive regulatory approval in the Philippines in 2013 and in Bangladesh in 2015, according to Ingo Potrykus, a retired geneticist at the Institute of Plant sciences in Zurich, Switzerland,
a plant geneticist and the director of the Biocassava Plus Program, based in St louis, Missouri.
Geneticists bid to build a better bee: Nature Newsfor Scott Cornman, the honeybee genome is prized a resource,
Cornman, a geneticist for the Bee Research Laboratory of the US Department of agriculture (USDA) in Beltsville, Maryland, is trying to characterize the various pathogens that plague the honeybee (Apis mellifera), arguably the world's most important insect.
His strategy is to subtract the honeybee genome from every other stray bit of genetic residue he can find in bee colonies, healthy and diseased.
The remaining genetic material gives a complex metagenomic portrait of other organisms that inhabit the bee's world
but with genetic markers you could do it faster, he says. In cases in which nature cannot do the job
what could be the world's largest research database linking genetic profiles with health records.
People New to US academy Among 72 members elected to the US National Academy of Sciences on 3 may were geneticist George Church of Harvard Medical school in Boston, Massachusetts, and Neil Shubin
and was protested widely by geneticists and migration organizations (see Nature 461,697; 2009). ) The Times newspaper reported on 17 june that the project had been abandoned;
The ongoing genetic characterization of the strain might also reveal why the bacteria is mostly infecting adults,
it exposed a serious weakness in the regulations governing GM CROPS. These are based not on a plant's GM nature
but on the techniques used for its genetic modification. With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
On 1 july, secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote to the company to say that the variety is not subject to the same regulations that govern other GM CROPS.
Developers then used genetic control elements derived from pathogenic plant viruses such as the cauliflower mosaic virus to switch on the genes.
The Plant Pest Act was completely inappropriate for regulating biotech crops, but the USDA jury-rigged it, says Bill Freese, science-policy analyst at the Center for Food safety in WASHINGTON DC.
to facilitate the regulation of GM CROPS. Nevertheless, Agrobacterium is still industry's tool of choice for shuttling in foreign genes,
a strategy that Botterman says may make it possible to introduce multiple new traits into existing GM CROPS.
Kenya set to give green light to GM CROPS: Nature Newskenya is expected to become the fourth African country to allow the commercial production of transgenic crops.
The country's National Biosafety Authority is due to publish long-awaited regulations governing the cultivation of genetically modified (GM CROPS in open fields for research and commercial purposes.
Despite its importance, sequencing has been delayed by the genetic complexity of the common commercial potato. Its genome comprises more than 39,000 protein-coding genes,
geneticists selected one copy of each chromosome and duplicated these to produce a double-monoploid clone in
thanks to its complex genetics, the tuber has been notoriously difficult to improve through breeding. The possibilities for improvement through marker-assisted breeding and genetic modification could make the potato a more viable alternative to grain crops,
especially in developing countries, says Sarah Gurr, a molecular plant pathologist at the University of Oxford, UK,
Quick, cheap tests can pick out gene mutations that help the mosquitoes'nerve cells withstand pyrethroid attack. But other forms of resistance,
complicating attempts at genetic improvement. It has such great promise, says Neal Gutterson, president of Mendel Biotechnology,
Archaeologist Brendan Foley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts and geneticist Maria Hansson of Lund University, Sweden, retrieved DNA from nine amphorae the storage containers
a plant geneticist who led the work for the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the research arm of the Ministry of Agriculture,
helping Brazil to become the world's second-largest producer of genetically modified (GM CROPS, behind the United states. Farmers have planted vast tracts of GM maize (corn),
says Rubens Nodari, a plant geneticist at the Federal University of Santa catarina in Florianopolis. Environmental groups and a presidential advisory panel, the National Council for Food security and Nutrition, have called for more transparency in biotechnology science and decision-making,
says that the commission improperly granted EMBRAPA's request for confidentiality regarding key aspects of the genetic engineering.
and other opponents of genetic engineering are taking an ideological position aimed at promoting fear and uncertainty as they demand that scientists provide the impossible:
EMBRAPA says that it must keep core information about genetic insertions confidential, to allow it to patent the work.
whereas some other GM CROPS produce unfamiliar proteins that could in theory cause an allergic reaction when eaten, the GM pinto bean produces only small snippets of RNA,
Future medicine The US National Research Council (NRC) has called for a network that would connect patients'health records with layers of data on molecular tests, genetics,
or genetic diversity which species would go extinct and which would survive. It almost seems like it's a random process,
a palaeo-geneticist at the University of Copenhagen who led the study published online today in Nature1.
The team found no way to predict the future extinction of a species, based on either an animal's genetic diversity or the size of its range.
Variome project A project to log all the genetic variations that cause disease in humans took a step forward last week with the launch of its Chinese arm at a meeting in Beijing.
The Human Variome Project, based in Victoria, Australia, hopes to collect genetic data from laboratories all over the world,
and will set up a genetics institute in Beijing to coordinate activities and give training in genetic counselling and testing.
See go. nature. com/intbvt for more. Preventing HIV Pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences wants to sell anti-HIV drugs to healthy people,
Targeting cancer Efforts to create cancer therapies tailored to a patient's genetic make-up were boosted by promising clinical-trial results reported on 7 december (J. Baselga et al.
Moshe Yaniv, a geneticist at the Pasteur institute, and Jean Rossier, a neurobiologist at ESPCI Paristech.
and avian viruses, creating opportunities for genetic reassortment in co-infected animals. Fouchier argues that many countries collect more and more-timely,
and genetic surveillance more comprehensive and timely. But building such systems would require sustained political will, financial resources,
But he believes that more extensive genetic surveillance could eventually pay off.""The research points us to where we need to go,
Denisovan genome The complete genetic sequence of an extinct relative of humans the Denisovan was posted online (see go. nature. com/vvtcfi) on 6 february,
in 2008 yielded the genetic material. See go. nature. com/w3evow for more. PEOPLE China science prize Chinese physicist Xie Jialin, who pioneered the building of China's first high-energy linear particle accelerator in 1964,
ISAAATREND WATCH Brazil has continued its rapid rise in planting of commercial genetically modified (GM CROPS. The country,
In total, 29 countries now plant GM CROPS. COMING UP 16-17 february In Geneva Switzerland, the World health organization will gather experts to discuss'urgent questions'about research censorship
To assess trends in global genetic surveillance, Nature analysed the records of nonidentical sequences from all subtypes of avian
head of the Molecular genetics of RNA VIRUSES lab at the Pasteur institute in Paris. One reason is that many of the virus samples are sequenced in retrospective research studies.
Almost all come from just a handful of countries most countries have little or no genetic surveillance in place.
The genetic make-up of one individual a female farmer known as GÃ k4 bears a startling similarity to that of modern-day Mediterraneans.
an evolutionary geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden and the lead author of the study,
Scandinavia was clearly home to people of very different genetic backgrounds even 5, 000 years ago,
we would not expect to see a farmer in the north with such genetic affinity to southern populations,
The genetic variation amongst the farmers indicates that there was a complex pattern of settlement, with waves of colonization bringing small and different Neolithic groups into the region."
"Given the genetic evidence from studies of both modern-day and ancient DNA, I am convinced that farmers expanded in many different ways
There is also the tantalizing prospect that as understanding of the genetic basis of behaviour improves,
a population geneticist at the University of Uppsala and a co-author of the Science paper."
says Pierre Taberlet, a geneticist at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, and co-editor of the April issue of Molecular Ecology, which is devoted to the emerging field of studying environmental DNA.
But last year, he received an e-mail from geneticist Thomas Gilbert at the University of Copenhagen,
but not how to apply them to routine biodiversity surveys, points out Mehrdad Hajibabaei, an evolutionary molecular geneticist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
The researchers can then check the genetic sequences against databases to learn which plants or animals they come from.
Focusing on DNA from chloroplasts and mitochondria energy-producing structures in cells that have their own genomes the researchers produced 49,000 genetic sequences.
because plant genetic databases are incomplete. The researchers also found DNA from eight genera of vertebrate animals.
Genetic material from the critically endangered Saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) was present in one powder; and boxes marked as bear-bile powder
Nearly half of the medicine samples tested for animal DNA contained genetic material from multiple animals,
Monkey genetics track social statusimagebroker/FLPAGROOMING is one way in which rhesus macaques show deference and curry favour.
Jenny Tung, a geneticist at Duke university in Durham, North carolina, and her colleagues studied 49 captive female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).
Tung and her colleagues analysed blood samples from the monkeys for differences in gene expression. Of the 6, 097 genes tested
whether an animal was high, middle or low ranking with 80%accuracy, on the basis of gene expression alone.
when other animals entered the group showed that their gene expression responded rapidly, and predictably, to match their new status."It suggests a lot of plasticity in our gene expression response to our social environment,
which is an optimistic note, says Tung. It was known already that social status can change which genes get turned on and off in insects and fish,
"Clearly, changing ranks leads to changes in gene expression and not the other way around, he says. The macaque study suggests potential mechanisms for the Whitehall study's findings,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011