Endemic in many parts of Africa and South america, the virus that causes the disease has been eradicated in much of Europe and North america.
Bryan Charleston, a foot-and-mouth expert at the UK Institute for Animal health in Pirbright, Surrey which is on the site where the virus leaked in 2007
and his team exposed eight cows to one form of the virus. They then attempted to transmit the virus from these'source'cows to other bovines in a biosecure compound on the Pirbright site,
Previous estimates based on isolation of the virus from infected animals have come up with significantly longer periods of infectivity.
Only a small fraction of these actually had the virus, he says. Neil Ferguson, a mathematical biologist at Imperial College London, says that there has been some debate in the foot
-and-mouth community about whether the disease was transmitted pre-clinically or not. He adds: The paper is fantastic in terms of being one of the few studies that quantify how infectious animals are as a function of how long they've been infected and
a biologist at the University of Paris-Sud and a contributor to the new study along with Mousseau and M ¸ller.
Biologist Kevin Mcgraw of Arizona State university in Tempe says that pigments are good ecological tools:
Nevertheless, he and other biologists have argued for years that scoring bird pigments by eye is not as persuasive as a chemical analysis,
Beachy, a prominent plant biologist who retains a position at Washington University in St louis, has worked doggedly to raise the political profile of agricultural research
the Federal Experts Security Advisory Panel identified 11 biological agents that it said needed more rigorous monitoring,
The pathogens include bacteria and viruses that cause smallpox, the plague, anthrax, Ebola and foot-and-mouth disease.
goat and sheep pox viruses. The report was a response to an executive order from US President Barack Obama last year.
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;
But the decision suggests that lawmakers are prepared to ditch support for biofuels to help close the budget deficit.
Funding Plant grants Fifteen plant-biology researchers have won a total of US$75 million from two private US foundations for their work.
Coming up 25 墉 oe30 June The complexity of RNA biology features in the Federation of European Biochemical Societies congress in Turin. go. nature. com/kvlglw 25 june
but Adams cautions that it suggests no overarching strategy for conserving biodiversity while reducing poverty.
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria, and they are star players in the chain of events that led to this outbreak.
The genes for the Shiga toxin are not actually bacterial genes, but phage genes being expressed by infected bacteria.
So when an E coli bacterium gets infected with a Shiga-toxin-producing phage, it becomes pathogenic to humans.
Our use of antibiotics may be helping those viral genes to spread. If bacteria are exposed to some types of antibiotics they undergo what is called the SOS response,
H4 is that it has resistance genes to multiple classes of antibiotics. This suggests that wherever the bacteria have come from there has been selective pressure to resist antibiotics.
Heather Allison, a microbiologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, and David Acheson, a managing director for food safety at consulting firm Leavitt Partners in WASHINGTON DC, agree it is plausible that exposure to antibiotics in agricultural use
Shiga toxins have been causing diarrhoeal disease in humans for centuries the bacterial genus Shigella and the Shiga toxins were named first for Kiyoshi Shiga,
According to Allison, Shiga-toxin producing phage probably picked up the genes encoding Shiga toxin from these bacteria,
and since the 1980s have been spreading these virulent genes to other bacteria, including many strains of E coli.
says Alison Weiss, microbiologist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. How have Shiga-toxin-producing phage spread so widely in just a few decades?
The genome of strain O104: H4 has been sequenced, and it shares many genes with enteroaggerative E coli (EAEC) strains.
EAEC strains are associated not typically with zoonotic infections, and EAEC and Shiga toxin is a very unusual combination,
The parties settled for a declaration of goodwill about the biodiversity, climate, economic and social importance of their regions.
The Amazon basin in South america, the Congo Basin in Central africa and the Borneo-Mekong Basin in Southeast asia are home to about 80%of the world's rainforests and two-thirds of global terrestrial biodiversity.
But there is a momentum around biodiversity and forests at the moment we're in a good flow
when it comes to political commitment for biodiversity and forests. Some nations used the conference to announce new forestry plans.
Scientists in Germany are feverishly analysing the genome sequence of the bacterium, and have found clues as to how this strain
a microbiologist based in Wernigerode who works for the Robert Koch Institute, the federal agency responsible for disease control.
Lothar Wieler, a veterinary microbiologist at the Free University of Berlin, cautiously agrees with this theory.
In addition to the antibiotic-resistance genes, the bacteria contain a gene for resistance to the mineral tellurite (tellurium dioxide.
The ongoing genetic characterization of the strain might also reveal why the bacteria is mostly infecting adults,
But he suspects that the strain might have biological characteristics that make adults more susceptible to the infection.
One telltale sign is that the strain does not contain the eae gene, which codes for a protein called intimin,
Gad Frankel, a microbiologist at Imperial College London, suspects that the genome of this strain will reveal more information about the adherence mechanisms of E coli.
But the biodiversity of farmland birds declined by 43%between 1970 and 1998. Continued population growth and climate change in the country will probably put more pressure on ecosystems in the future, further reducing benefits and services.
such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a European effort to assess the global economic benefits of biodiversity,
which began in 2007. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment is advanced the most interdisciplinary assessment of ecosystems
A new eye on biodiversity: Nature Newsfor tropical ecologist Greg Asner, it's all about seeing the forest through its trees.
'and will significantly advance the team's biodiversity research. With the digital catalogue as a reference, Asner hopes that the observatory will be able to perceive the species of many individual trees by their optical properties,
biochemistry and ecology, beginning with measuring subtle differences in the way the forest canopy absorbs
which begins with mapping out tropical biodiversity. One thing is for sure: the array of chemical traits in these upper canopies is amazing and radically under-appreciated,
Transgenic grass skirts regulators: Nature Newswhen the US Department of agriculture (USDA) announced this month that it did not have the authority to oversee a new variety of genetically modified (GM) Kentucky bluegrass,
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.
The grass, a GM variety of Poa pratensis, is still in the early stages of development by Scotts Miracle-Gro
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.
The bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens which can cause tumours on plants shuttled foreign genes into plant genomes.
Developers then used genetic control elements derived from pathogenic plant viruses such as the cauliflower mosaic virus to switch on the genes.
By revealing similar elements in plants'DNA, genome sequencing has liberated developers from having to borrow the viral sequences.
foreign genes can be fired into plant cells on metal particles shot from a'gene gun'.
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,
says Johan Botterman, head of product research at Bayer Bioscience in Ghent, Belgium. The technique is established well for many crops,
and particle bombardment is less predictable, often yielding multiple, fragmented insertions of the new gene.
But Agrobacterium isn't suitable for some new techniques. Many companies are developing'mini-chromosomes'that can function in a plant cell without needing to be integrated into the plant's genome.
Last summer agribusiness giant Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, conducted the first field trials of maize (corn) containing engineered mini-chromosomes,
and showed that the mini-chromosomes, which carried multiple genes for insect and herbicide resistance, were stable in the field.
I would expect that by the end of the decade, this technology will be used well by many as a way to deliver large stacks of genes to plants,
says Roger Kemble, head of technology scouting for Syngenta. Other techniques under development insert foreign genes into designated sites in the genome,
unlike the near-random scattering generated by Agrobacterium. In 2009 researchers at Dow Agrosciences in Indianapolis, Indiana,
and Sangamo Biosciences in Richmond, California, announced that they had used enzymes called zinc-finger nucleases to insert a gene for herbicide resistance at a specific site in the maize genome (V. K. Shukla et al.
Nature 459,437-441; 2009). ) Bayer is interested in harnessing other enzymes called'meganucleases'to do the same type of targeted engineering,
a strategy that Botterman says may make it possible to introduce multiple new traits into existing GM CROPS.
-or under-regulating GM plants, says Roger Beachy, a plant biologist at Washington University in St louis, Missouri,
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.
Kenya follows Burkina faso, Egypt and South africa in giving commercial production of GM organisms the go-ahead.
crop scientist and head of the biotechnology centre at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in Nairobi.
The first transgenic crop likely to be put forward for approval for open trials and commercial release is Bt cotton
which has added genes from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium, making the plant produce toxins that confer resistance to some insect pests.
Other crops undergoing confined field trials include virus-resistant sweet potatoes and drought-resistant maize, he says.
which allowed the commercial production of transgenic crops in principle. These regulations set out the details of how the law will be implemented,
For example, when seeking permission to release a transgenic product into the environment or place it on the market
and set out all the uses of the GM crop to the Kenyan biosafety authority. The authority will screen the submissions for accuracy
but facilitating the development of biotechnology. Biotechnology has the potential to help solve some agricultural and health problems in Kenya.
So it should be harnessed, but safely, he explains. For example, Kenya is suffering from a shortage of maize
Without the regulations, Kenya is unable to import the white variety of maize Kenyans like to eat as the majority of this is transgenic,
including transgenic crops, that will enable them to produce greater volumes for less money. But not everyone is in favour.
Anne Wanjiku Maina, advocacy coordinator for the African Biodiversity Network, an anti-GM group based in Thika,
which are taking steps to improve national provision for biotechnology and biosaftey. If Kenya succeeds it will have an impact on others to follow,
says Getachew Belay, biotechnology policy adviser for the Common market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) a regional trade block.
Belay is leading efforts to create common biosafety rules between COMESA member countries. See'Transgenic harvest')Â
All eyes on the potato genome: Nature Newsa global effort has cracked finally the complex genome of the potato,
which is published today in Nature1. The not-so-humble potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the world's fourth most important food crop
and is vital for global food security. It has proved surprisingly economically stable compared with major grain crops such as rice, wheat and maize (corn:
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,
and it is a highly heterozygous autotetraploid this means that it has four copies of every chromosome,
and often considerable variation among the corresponding four copies of each gene. This is in contrast to the two copies in most human cells.
According Glenn Bryan of the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee UK one of the 26 research institutes that came together from around the globe to form the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium several factors made the sequencing possible.
The meeting of minds within the consortium and the use of next-generation sequencing technologies were vital for success. Having access to these next-generation technologies is just fantastic,
But the key was finding a type of potato with a genome that could be simplified adequately.
has a diploid genome, meaning that it has a more manageable 2 copies of every gene.
Using this potato, geneticists selected one copy of each chromosome and duplicated these to produce a double-monoploid clone in
which the two genes that make up each pair are identical, or'homozygous'that they could sequence almost completely.
The scientists also sequenced substantial sections of the heterozygous diploid variety RH, although due to its heterozygosity were not able to assemble it into a complete genome.
It's quite nice actually now we've got data on two types of potato,
it gives us quite a good handle on the biodiversity of the potato as well, says Bryan.
The most important finding of the consortium's initial analysis is the identification of more than 800 disease-resistance genes, each
Singling out these genes will make it easier to develop new varieties of potato because 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,
Nature Newsserious viruses carried by bats pose a considerable risk to people in West Africa,
Bats are thought to have been the source of several of the nastiest viruses to jump to humans from animals during the past 40 years,
Researchers hope that by studying how the viruses jump to people they can come up with ways to limit the spread of disease without culling the bats
There is no vaccination to protect against Hendra virus or Nipah virus, the two established species of henipavirus.
We are concerned the solution will be to just kill the bats to control the virus, says Cunningham.
The viruses were thought then to be restricted to Asia and Australasia but in 2008 the team reported finding antibodies to them in Eidolon helvum fruit bats in Ghana, West Africa, indicating that these bats had been infected too1.
The expanded virus range is cause for alarm, says James wood, a veterinary researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK,
which could be infected with the virus. Such huge colonies in residential areas are uncommon in Asia and Australasia.
The findings, due to be published later this year in the journal Biological Conservation, were collected from a survey of 551 Ghanaian bat hunters, vendors and consumers.
Cunningham says it's too early to say for sure how many people are infected with the viruses in Ghana.
But the team has found evidence of a'henipa-like'virus in domestic pigs from two villages about 70 kilometres north of Accra.
In a paper published on 22 september in Plos ONE, the team reports finding antibodies against members of the Henipavirus genus in 5%of 97 pigs studied.
Nipah virus is known to multiply in pigs, and the species had a key role in a 1999 outbreak in Malaysia that killed more than 100 people.
We spend millions on hunting down new viruses but very little on working out what causes viruses to jump species,
says Andrew Dobson, an infectious-disease ecologist at Princeton university in New jersey who commends the project's focus.
imperilling farming and biodiversity, scientists lack a clear definition of it or agreed standards to measure its causes and progression.
Nature Newsthe perennial grass Miscanthus giganteus has all the makings of a biofuel superstar. It grows rapidly,
converts sunlight into biomass ten times more efficiently than the average plant and has need little for fertilizer.
But M. giganteus is a headache in the lab. Its genome has few markers to help would-be breeders keep track of desirable genes,
complicating attempts at genetic improvement. It has such great promise, says Neal Gutterson, president of Mendel Biotechnology,
a company in Hayward, California, that is developing the grass as a biofuel crop. But from a research perspective it is underdeveloped so painfully.
Gutterson hopes that the first ever summit to map the future of US plant science will change that,
by encouraging researchers to tackle the genomic wilderness of emerging biofuel crops in a more systematic way.
After a stint chairing the public-affairs committee for the American Society of Plant Biologists in Rockville
and industry scientists along with representatives from funding agencies and growers'associations to draw up a ten-year plan for plant biology.
On the meeting's agenda are topics from bioenergy and informatics to the field's grand, overarching goal of predicting how a plant with a given set of genes will fare in different environments.
The resultant list of priorities should aid coordination across a diverse research community and help to target the funds it receives from an array of federal sources.
a quick-growing weed with a small genome that serves as a reference for plants that are harder to study.
which aimed to identify the function of every Arabidopsis gene by 2010. Stacey says that the need for broad planning is now even greater
) Many Arabidopsis researchers are now hoping to apply what they have learned from the weed to agriculturally important species with genomes once considered too big to tackle.
Stacey and organizers at the American Society of Plant Biologists hope to issue a report by early 2012,
because even molecular biologists are flocking to learn more about how the genes and processes they study function in natural environments.
and what's coming out of the genome, says Andy Baxevanis, a genomicist at the National Human genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
His team recently sequenced the genome of the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi, and is now comparing it to sequences from sponges,
cnidarians, worms and other animals to sort out which lineages came first. So far, he says,
Claus Nielsen, a retired evolutionary biologist at the Natural history Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, doesn't think Eoandromeda represents comb jellies either.
Nathan Mcnulty, a microbiologist at Washington University in St louis, Missouri, recruited seven pairs of identical twins,
Jeffrey Gordon, the microbiologist at Washington University who led the study, was not surprised. We were only giving several billion bacterial cells in total to the twins,
the activity of genes that allow the native bacteria to break down carbohydrates did increase. One of the five yoghurt strains Bifidobacterium animalis lactis also showed a similar boost in its ability to metabolize carbohydrates.
with defined communities where all the actors and genes are known. The mouse models provide a foundation for critically evaluating the claims from manufacturers of functional foods and probiotics
Dusko Ehrlich, a microbiologist at The french National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), thinks that the team did not look at enough twins,
or sequence their bacterial genes at enough depth. We should reserve the judgement on the effects of probiotics in humans until broader and deeper studies are carried out,
Jens Walter, a microbiologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln calls the work an impressive technical achievement.
and it is possible to identify those patients most at risk by screening for certain biomarkers.
as well as the identity of thousands of microbial genes. Although wild and captive pandas have different diets
Wei's team found that samples from both groups contained previously unknown genes produced by Clostridium bacteria,
which resembled known genes for enzymes that break cellulose into simpler sugars. The microbial enzymes may help giant pandas to extract extra energy from the small amount of bamboo that they manage to process
But Ruth Ley, a microbiologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New york, says that pandas still harbour fewer cellulose-digesting enzymes than even non-exclusively herbivorous species such as humans.
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
Brazil cooks up transgenic bean: Nature Newspaired with rice or steeped in feijoada stew, beans are an essential feature of Brazilian cuisine.
But this relationship could face the ultimate test as Brazilian scientists roll out a transgenic pinto bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) engineered to fend off one of the crop's most devastating enemies:
Approved on 15 september by the Brazilian National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBIO), the transgenic bean uses RNA interference to shut down replication of the virus (K. Bonfim et al.
Mol. Plant Microbe Interact. 20,717-726; 2007). ) A product of more than a decade of homegrown research, the bean could begin appearing on tables across the country as early as 2014.
a plant geneticist who led the work for the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the research arm of the Ministry of Agriculture,
The biosafety commission has taken a favourable position towards biotechnology in past years, 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), soya and cotton with little public resistance,
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,
and increased research to rule out health risks stemming from the bean. Nodari, a former member of CTNBIO who has questioned long transgenic crops,
says that the commission improperly granted EMBRAPA's request for confidentiality regarding key aspects of the genetic engineering.
We don't know what we will be eating tomorrow in Brazil he says. Current members of the commission have defended aggressively their decision.
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.
and similar viruses, says Arag £o, who is a member of CTNBIO but abstained from the decision on the beans.
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,
and neutralize RNA from any invading virus. Herve Vanderschuren, a biotechnologist at The swiss Federal Institute of technology in Zurich, adds that plants naturally produce similar RNA snippets to defend themselves from viral attack,
With approval secured, EMBRAPA must now conduct a further round of field trials to ensure that the transgenic bean produces yields comparable to those of existing varieties.
and Arag £o says that the transgenic bean could increase production by 10-20, %enough to offset imports
EMBRAPA is already looking to develop other virus-resistant beans, including common black beans and the popular carioca bean.
It's very easy to transfer this gene to any other variety, says Arag £o.
The crop, MON 810, is made by US biotech firm Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri; the European union has approved it for planting.
PEOPLEMARGULIS dies Biologist Lynn Margulis (pictured), a creative and unconventional scientist best known for her work on the theory of endosymbiosis
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,
the absence of the virus, particularly during India's high-transmission season between June and November, is unprecedented.
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.
Biology offers one explanation for the differences, says Lorenzen. Musk oxen cope poorly with high summer temperatures, for example,
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.
But he says that a closer look at the biology and ecology of individual species should offer clues as to which are under greatest threat.
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