Acting as a natural bioengineer in prairie landscapes they shaped plant communities transported and recycled nutrients created habitat variability that benefited grassland birds insects
Other deadly viruses and possibly chemical contaminates play a roll as well. To stave the losses the USDA program will pay farmers
and chemical additives are hardwired into our food system and make up the majority of the American diet.
In a recent report NRDC focused on a single legal loophole that allows hundreds if not more than a thousand chemical additives into the U s. food supply those unpronounceable ingredients on the back of the box bypassing safety review by the U s. Food
and often manufacturers don't even have to disclose the name of the additive or how it's used to the FDA or to the public.
when chemical additives enter our food supply. All this adds up to a serious lack of oversight intowhat goes into Americans'food.
Some additives which manufacturers claim to be recognized generally as safe have been linkedto fetal leukemia in human cell tests
Despite these potential risks these additives are already in our food supply. NRDC found these additives listed as ingredients in at least 20 food products.
The FDA can't do its job and protect public health if it doesn't know the identity of these chemicals in the first place
Ultimately the U s. Congress needs to close the GRAS loophole that allows manufacturers to leave the FDA and the public in the dark about the safety of chemical additives in food.
and should move now to end the inherent conflict of interest in the current system for reviewing the safety of chemical additives in food
The widespread use of chemical additives is just one of several deep-rooted problems in our industrialized food system.
For the new study researchers looked for telltale biomarkers in bits of fossilized feces (often called coprolites) found in the soil at El Salt an archaeological site in Alicante Spain which Neanderthals occupied at various times
The study will be published in the December issue of the journal Food Microbiology. Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter.
The authors claimed to have found the evidence that pieces of PLANT DNA large enough to harbour full genes circulate in our blood.
Spisak makes no mention of GM genes in the original paper. My mind is completely put at ease by the thought that DNA from food has always been circulating in our blood.
For that to happen it would first need to be incorporated into your genome within the cell nucleus where all of your other genes reside.
Spisak s study tells us about a significant biological finding that needs to be analysed carefully.
#Once Endangered, Bald eagle Populations Soar Bryan Watts is director of the Center for Conservation Biology a joint program of the College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Since that time biologists have learned a lot about eagles. At the Center for Conservation Biology new technology has helped us understand the lives
and movements of individual eagles at a level that was just about unimaginable 38 years ago. We've been able to deploy nest cameras to watch the birds'chick-raising habits and their family life.
and some are now even sequencing the genome of cultivated cacao. But the continuing intricacies in chocolate and cacao that we are discovering through science can only add to the very simple human pleasure of breaking off a piece and popping it in our mouths.
Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically attack bacteria. These phages as researchers call them have evolved alongside bacteria
Scientists are interested most in lytic phages viruses that inject their DNA into a bacterium and then hijack the cell s machinery to make new copies of the virus. The copies eventually burst through bacterium s membrane killing it
and attack neighboring cells. Recently a team of researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette Indiana developed a cocktail of different phages that was extremely effective against Escherichia coli o157:
Phage bio-control products are already available commercially. One product called Listshield sold by Intralytix controls Listeria monocytogenes
#oeit s a microorganism the concept of putting a virus on foods is initially hard to swallow
Sulakvelidze added that phage bio-control products are an alternative to chemical washes and irradiation two mechanisms commonly used to kill bacteria in ready-to-eat food products.
and 30s#said Jason Gill a microbiologist at Texas A&m University in College Station who was involved not in the study.
Some scientists even say Earth's biology suggests the possibility of thinking plants somewhere in the universe.
and sensing plants is not at all outlandish Danny Chamovitz director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel aviv University and author of
Chamovitz calls rootedness the primary principle of plant biology. Plants do make movements however they just do it by growing Gilroy said.
Capable of unlimited growth and regeneration he grabs an out of reach-reach battery by simply growing taller.
Plant communication even has some researchers in the new field of plant neurobiology considering the potential for leafy intelligence.
and then re-root he told Forbes. As for creating plant-animal hybrids here On earth that's most likely to happen in a geneticist's lab. It's theoretically possible given the right gene transfers to give people a coating of green photosynthetic skin.
When the earthquake-triggered tsunami hit minutes later the wave was blazing It was an eerie thing to see a huge tide of fire washing ashore survivor Gene Kirkpatrick told National geographic magazine in 1964.
Doctors know of no biological mechanism to enable this. Detox in this regard is more of a marketing concept than a biological one Talalay said.
Yet good health can be maintained not through periodic detoxification but rather by preventing toxins from taking hold through a healthy diet.
#Papadum the Goat and His Model Genome (Gallery)< p>Currently living on a farm In virginia Papadum was selected recently by the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) to represent one of more than twenty distinct goat populations from the United states Africa and other
and sharing DNA and performance measures for the animals in an effort to identify unique genes with the goal of connecting performance traits with DNA from various breeds.
and food systems the program called Feed the Future will also increase the biodiversity of goat breeds across the world making it a true win-win.
With these materials safely stored SVF can reawaken a heritage breed with its full genetic diversity within one generation.</
This group was part of SVF's genetic preservation program providing semen embryos cells and blood.
All of the genetic material collected from endangered breeds at SVF is stored using liquid nitrogen and should remain viable indefinitely for future use.
Two Arapawa bucks on pasture at SVF Foundation in Newport R i. This critically endangered breed is a close genetic link to the now extinct Olde English goats.
which aims to preserve genetic diversity in animal agriculture. Red poll dam and heifer calf future embryo donors for SVF's preservation program.
and as much genetic diversity as possible within each targeted population. SVF Foundation's main campus in Newport R i m
Myanmar one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in Asia has also several species of rosewood highly prized by the Chinese furniture trade.
and spreads across the greater Mekong region rosewood species might face not only commercial extinction but also final biological extinction.
biomarkers of wine and herbal additives that were mixed into the drink including mint cinnamon and juniper.
But the wines with the more complex additives were generally found in jars near a platform in the middle of the cellar
So if we can get DNA from our wine cellar we'll have this genetic blueprint of presumably wine that for centuries was suited best to grow in the land we call Israel today.
Livestock affect most of the world's biodiversity hotspots Jianguo Jack Liu a human-environment scientist at Michigan State said in a statement.
Joel Berger a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and chair of wildlife biology at the University of Montana posted the picture on Twitter from eastern Russia's remote Wrangel Island.
Located 300 miles (483 kilometers) north of the Arctic circle Wrangel Island boasts the highest biodiversity in the Arctic including the biggest population of Pacific walruses and the greatest density of polar bear dens.
and even promote cancer cell death according to a 2008 study in the journal Cellular Microbiology. Other work revealed that probiotics may enhance the effects of the vaccine against rotavirus vaccine the most common cause of severely dehydrating diarrhea in infants and children according to a 2008 study in the journal Vaccine.
and his colleagues used hearts from pigs that had been engineered genetically to remove genes known to cause tissue rejection in humans
and replaced them with human genes that wouldn't cause an immune reaction. Pigs were chosen because their anatomy is similar to humans
and genetic diversity within the group Douglas Richardson head of living collections for Highland Wildlife Park said in a statement.
In monkey genus groups that practice polygyny the leader will mate with multiple females. The gestation periods for monkeys vary depending on the genus. For example the gestation for a rhesus monkey is 164 days Baboons have a similar gestation period of around 187 days.
Chimps on the other hand have a much longer gestation period of around 237 days according to the San jose State university.
In addition they analyzed the DNA of six specific genes in the women's infants when they were 2 to 8 months old. 7 Ways Pregnant Women Affect Babies The researchers found that in all six genes the infants who were conceived during the rainy season had consistently higher rates of methylation in their DNA.
A methylation is made a change to DNA it's the addition of methyl groups to the DNA strand a so-called epigenetic modification to DNA
and is a process that can silence the expression of a gene. Methylation generally depends on nutrients such as folate choline methionine
In the study methylation in the infants'genes was linked to various nutrient levels in the mother's blood.
Our results represent the first demonstration in humans that a mother's nutritional well-being at the time of conception can change how her child's genes will be interpreted with a lifelong impact senior study author Branwen Hennig of the London School of Hygiene
We want to develop a catalog of all regions in the human genome that can get altered epigenetically by diet Waterland said.
The driving force behind the project designed by researchers at Nottingham Trent University was unprecedented the rate of declining global biodiversity caused by an increasing human population.
We think that by and large the fighting is a really significant biological event for them and that's probably why they are not so common.
Patagonian pumas kill around 50 percent more prey than their North american counterparts according to cougar biologist Mark Elbroch.
and all by following the trail of a plant biologist who had collected maple branches there more than 40 years ago during the height of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam war.
I became extremely grateful to scores of plant biologists like the one who archived a foot-long maple twig from Hill Forest in 1971.
Can we do it for functions like pollination and biological control of pests? I hope we can start watching urban ecosystems for problem insects
Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb. 12692. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook Twitter and Google+.
According to a 2009 article in the Journal of Physiology and Biochemistry bananas contain an abundance of fructooligosaccharides.
and protein According to a 2011 article in the journal of Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology banana peels also have various bioactive compounds like polyphenols carotenoids and others.
Researchers have found a virus that typically infects plants has been systemically infecting honeybees in the United states and China.
It is now common and routine for researchers to screen bees in colonies for rare viruses.
The detection of this virus (the Tobacco Ringspot Virus or TRSV) could help explain the decline of honeybees
and the collapse of colonies researchers from the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) Research Service and China's Academy of Agricultural Science said in a new study in the American Society for Microbiology's open-access journal
whether this plant-infecting virus could also cause systemic infection in the bees said Yan Ping Chen a study author who works at ARS.
The study results provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected
and whether such a virus could cause systemic infection in the honeybees. Since CCD was reported first to have wiped out entire hives across the United states in 2006 and 2007 more than 10 million hives in all researchers have linked strongly toxic viral cocktails to the collapse of the honeybee colonies.
Besides TRSV researchers have linked Israel Acute Paralysis Virus Acute Bee Paralysis Virus Chronic Paralysis Virus Kashmir Bee Virus Deformed Wing Bee Virus
Black Queen Cell Virus and Sacbrood Virus to some degree as causes of honeybee viral disease.
The TRSV virus is an especially dangerous type of host-jumping virus because it lacks an internal genomic process that edits out errors in replicated genomes meaning that TRSV can generate all sorts of variant error-filled copies with lots of different infection characteristics that cannot be defended easily once they jump from plants to honeybees and spread throughout the hives.
More insidiously as far as bees are concerned is the way in which these error-filled virus copies become a sort of cloud of genetically-related variants that seemingly work in concert to determine the pathology of their hosts.
That sort of genetic diversity coupled with large population sizes is quite literally a recipe for disaster
when it jumps from plants to bees. Viruses such as TRSV once they jump species are a likely source of emerging
and reemerging infectious diseases the researchers said in their mbio study. What is becoming clear the U s
The increasing prevalence of TRSV in conjunction with other bee viruses is associated with a gradual decline of host populations
While studying the impacts of wolf snares on moose Alaska biologist Craig Gardner reported in the journal Alces:
Based on my 15 years of experience releasing nearly 40 moose from snares and discussions with other Alaskan biologists
Biological scaffolds when they degrade release signal molecules said Dr. Stephen Badylak of the University of Pittsburgh who led the study.
and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and it contains several globally important wetlands. Yet with the exception of serious birders attracted to its rare and abundant bird life most people have heard never of it.
The rest are attributed to smoking pollution and genetics which may affect you no matter what you eat.
since past extinctions actually have led to increases in biodiversity due to the opening of new environmental niches.
The benefit of the terrestrial protected areas where human activities are regulated to protect biodiversity and endangered species for example is not clear for the inhabitants around them
even though biodiversity may indeed benefit. Some climate adaptation and mitigation actions are no-regret decisions (the cost-to-benefit ratio can easily be justified)
Maybe geneticist Craig Venter will find a way to produce food in the lab making traditional agriculture disappear.
and in the Guatemala Maya Biosphere 20 times lower. An added advantage in protecting community forest rights is that the quality of the forests tends to be better often containing about one-third more carbon per hectare than areas outside community forests.
but they may also boost a person's immunity when dealing with everyday viruses and infections like the common cold.
Studies have shown that about 10 to 15 percent of colon cancers have a mutation in a gene called BRAF.
or botanical gardens preserving some genetic diversity. Biologist Sean Hoban uses mathematical and computational tools to develop guidelines for ecologists
and others engaged in this work. A postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis Hoban helps determine how many seeds are needed
and where they should be collected to best represent a species'diversity. With collaborators in Italy France and elsewhere he developed software to help people plan the best preservation strategies especially
National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesisfield of Study: Computational biology What is your field
and why does it inspire you? As a computational biologist I work in several fields of life science primarily in ecology and genetics and particularly with plants.
I use simulations and statistical tools to solve problems of big data or answer questions about complex systems such as will species be able to move northward as the climate warms?
I use mathematical and genetic models to determine how many seeds are needed and where they should be collected from geographically in order to best preserve a species'diversity diversity that will be needed to adapt in the future.
For the first challenge genetic scientists are only just beginning to understand how to construct detailed genetic models of important traits such as the number of genes
and the amount that each gene contributes to a complex trait like drought tolerance. For the second challenge as a mentor of mine recently said It's one thing to do applied research
Researchers from computer science biology and economics are collaborating on these problems. As for the topic I've been enamored increasingly with plants over the years.
A really exciting area of research is discovering the connections between the microscopic scale of genetic diversity
We are beginning to learn that the genetic diversity of keystone species such as common tree species is very important for the resistance of an ecosystem to disturbance as well as its ability to bounce back after disturbance.
There are still few examples of direct connections from genes to the ecosystem level but this is a whole new realm for both ecologists and geneticists.
Who is your#1 hero and why? Charles darwin of course! He is a hero not only for his contributions to science
though it's not yet clear why males of this species have the biology to spontaneously produce milk.
Importantly human biology also makes male lactation a possibility. For both women and men breast tissue contains hollow cavities called alveoli
But despite the image of Ebola as a virus that mysteriously and randomly emerges from the forest the sites of the cases are far from random said Daniel Bausch a tropical medicine researcher at Tulane University who just returned from Guinea
A very dangerous virus got into a place in the world that is the least prepared to deal with it Bausch told Live Science.
The virus causing this outbreak is the deadliest type of Ebola virus. The Ebola virus has five species
This virus was previously found only in three countries in Central africa: the Democratic republic of the congo the Republic of the Congo and Gabon.
It is also possible that the virus was actually in West Africa before the current outbreak circulating in bats
Biological and ecological factors may drive emergence of the virus from the forest but clearly the sociopolitical landscape dictates where it goes from there an isolated case
Even if the Ebola virus had been circulating in Guinea for some time animals carrying the virus or other pathogens are not usually in the vicinity of humans
and learn about the biodiversity of the ecosystems the animated characters are discovering. Children also are encouraged to investigate their real-world surroundings
However while bison are also bovines (a subfamily of bovids) they are in a different genus from true buffalo.
Grzywacz is working on spraying a biological control agent a nucleopolyhedrovirus, which has been tested in Tanzania. The virus attacks the worms every year,
but usually occurs too late in their outbreak cycle to prevent serious crop damage. The chances of spraying the virus in the current outbreak are zero,
says Grzywacz, because the treatment hasn't been proved on the ground, it isn't available in large quantities
Nature Newslike many remote islands, the Galapagos islands that fired Charles darwin's imagination are both a hotbed of biodiversity
Really, the options that are available are salvage logging of the wood for biomass or long-lived wood products to keep the carbon from the atmosphere,
Nature Newswhen the Ebola Reston virus was discovered in pigs in the Philippines last year, it marked the virus's first known foray outside primates,
and raised fears of a potential threat to human health. Last week, a joint mission of 22 international health and veterinary experts returned from investigating the outbreak with more questions than answers about the virus's pathology and epidemiology.
The Ebola Reston virus was discovered first, in 1989, in crab-eating macaques imported to the United states from the Philippines.
Since then, the virus has killed most infected monkeys, yet had no effect on the 25 people that it infected unlike three of the four other strains of Ebola,
which kill between 25%and 90%of the humans they infect. Because few people come into close contact with primates in the Philippines,
By contrast, the appearance of the virus in an important livestock species was unexpected and worrying, says Pierre Rollin, an Ebola expert at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia,
Once inside the pig it may be possible for the virus to mutate into a version that is deadly to humans
as the avian influenza virus is thought to have done. And we still don't know what it might do to someone who is immunocompromised by HIV or by drugs,
But there seems to be little threat to human health from the current form of the virus. It is destroyed by cooking,
if they have developed antibodies to the virus. The investigation into the Ebola Reston infections began after farmers in the Philippines reported high mortality rates in their pigs in 2008.
samples from 28 dead pigs were sent to the Plum Island Animal disease Center in New york, where researchers found evidence of the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, also known as blue-ear pig disease,
This virulent, biosafety-level-4 pathogen requires special laboratory facilities, so the pig samples were rushed to the CDC labs in Atlanta for further analysis
because histological samples showed that the virus had pervaded the spleen, similar to its mode of attack in monkeys.
Although Rollin does not expect to find the virus itself in these samples, the pigs may carry antibodies that should indicate an approximate mortality rate associated with exposure.
the infections resulted from contact with a reservoir of the virus, rather than spreading from animal to animal.
The virus is likely to be spread by bat droppings falling into the pigs'feed,
genes for better milk: Nature Newson 13 january, the US Department of agriculture (USDA) launched a service that allows dairy-cattle breeders to double their chances of selecting the best bulls to sire milk-producing cows.
a geneticist at the USDA's Bovine Functional genomics Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. Working with Illumina Inc. of San diego, California, Van Tassell's team created a microarray chip containing 54,000 genetic markers called single nucleotide polymorphisms,
or SNPS, that involve at least a dozen traits, including those known to affect milk quality and production.
says geneticist Ole Meland, vice-president of Accelerated Genetics in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The new technique identifies the best bull 70%of the time.
Nature Newstropical forest that has regrown after clear-cutting can become almost as biodiverse as untouched forest, according to new research.
The results, presented at a tropical biodiversity symposium last week in WASHINGTON DC suggest these regrown areas may be worthy of conservation,
not just focusing on the pristine biodiverse gems, says Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair of the Heinz Center in WASHINGTON DC,
who was associated not with the study. The symposium, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, brought together biologists, policymakers,
and environmental organization representatives to address controversy arising from a 2006 paper. In that, Joseph Wright of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Balboa, Panama,
Chazdon and her colleagues assessed tree biodiversity changes in northeastern Costa rica by surveying 18 hectares of preserved old-growth forest and 11 hectares of secondary forest,
William Laurance, a conservation biologist at STRI, notes that the presence of seedlings doesn't necessarily translate into stable long-term populations.
Asner's and Wright's data will appear an upcoming special issue of Conservation Biology.
or genetic modification should raise their albedo by about 20%,%from 0. 2 to 0. 24.
say researchers seeking to resolve a mystery that has puzzled biologists for several years. Instead, they believe,
A search of plant genome databases found them to contain no genes comparable to those of certain bacteria known to make the gas.
There's no fundamental biochemistry to be discovered, and no new metabolism. We certainly don't need to rewrite the plant textbooks.
A sustainable biosphere is one that is ecologically sound, economically feasible, and socially just.</</br>In Science, 1998 Tom Daschle:
and the infrastructure to support them, the broader application of biotechnologies and expanding broadband connectivity.</
and palm trees for biofuels many worry that appropriate regulation and controls may come too late.
and his colleagues have calculated that 6 million tonnes of biomass carbon stock were lost in the prefecture between 1976 and 20031.
is the task leader of the bank's Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Initiative in the Greater Mekong Subregion.
The initiative also tries to raise awareness of biodiversity among villagers and help them to plan
and biodiversity offsets to help conserve the land and reduce poverty. Meanwhile, Chen is looking to turn the XTBG into a Chinese version of the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
The XTBG is also seeking a greater advocacy and policy role in biodiversity conservation in the region.
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