The last outside wolf to arrive was a male who came via an ice bridge in 1997 providing a much-needed boost of genetic diversity siring 34 pups.
Should wolves be imported to add much-needed genetic diversity? Or should wolves just be allowed to die out?
Dozens were killed by a virus linked to domestic dogs in the 1980s for example and in 2012 three wolves were found dead in an abandoned mine pit.
and not at all weird one of the scientists working on the project Margarita Levinskikh of the Institute of Biological Problems assured The Voice of Russia.
At that point the astronauts send the modules back to Earth for analysis. Biologists On earth examine the modules to see
Its genome has been sequenced fully so scientists will be able to compare space rice with Earth rice to see
if space affects which genes the staple expresses RIA Novosti reports. Updated February 3: Added comments from Bruce Bugbee c
#Genetic Pesticides Could Target Individual Speciesif you use a neuro-poison it kills everything Subba Reddy Palli an entomologist at the University of Kentucky who is researching the technology
The technique called RNA interference or RNAI works by creating snippets of RNA that correspond to genes in the target species say corn rootworm.
When these chunks of genetic material enter the rootworm perhaps after being sprayed onto the crop the animal reacts to this RNA snippet as it would an invading virus. This prompts a response that attacks and silences the corresponding gene in the host's own DNA.
If this gene is necessary for the organism's survival the theory goes it dies.
Now the biologists use cameras that can run at 7500 frames per second significantly higher than what was once available to researchers and that work in infrared light.
On Sunday a large (seriously look at that list of authors) international team of scientists published the genome of the hot pepper for the first time.
The information that lies within the genome could mean a more efficient plant breeding process
but it also helps reveal a few interesting secrets hiding within the pepper's genes. Because peppers are not so different from their cousins the potato
and tomato the genome could also elucidate more about the evolution and adaptation of other delicious species. One of the study's co-authors Allen Van Deynze has been working with peppers for about 20 years.
He's also a director of research at the University of California Davis Seed Biotechnology Center. Van Deynze studies hot peppers in part because he enjoys eating them.
This new genetic data reveals in more detail the titular spicy taste of the hot pepper.
and we even know the gene that could turn it on and off Van Deynze tells Popular Science.
That gene is called capsaicin synthase. With the genome the team of researchers learned more about capsaicin synthase
which joins two pathways ne based on fatty acids and another one that determines color flavor and other traits.
CS biosynthesizes the capsaisin and the Capsicum genus is the only one that evolved to biosynthesize capsaicinoids.
The study suggests that the pungency from peppers was evolved through new genes by unequal duplication of existing genes.
and one had an unusual pattern of bioactivity against Gram-negative bacteria that suggests a potentially new mode of action.
Although years of studies in Western societies have found that people are really bad at describing smells a new study of a language found in Malaysia suggests the deficiency is cultural not biological.
He found that there is little risk of genetically modified genes cross-pollinating with plants of other species
They likely arise from extensive herbicide use with Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops not directly from the Roundup Ready genes themselves.
Genetically modified crops are banned now from the island. The New york times k
#Breeding For High Milk Production Created Less-Fertile Cowsafter generations of careful breeding dairy cows around the world produce more milk than ever.
*Now a team of European biologists has uncovered one reason behind the decline at least for several types of Danish cattle.
The same genes that make cows produce more milk also kill off cow embryos they found.
The European researchers found that up to a third of Nordic Red Cattle are missing one copy of each of the same four genes.
Like humans cows are supposed to have two copies of all of their genes one from their moms and one from their dads.
Having no copies of those four genes is deadly but at the same time having one copy of each makes a cow produce more milk than normal cows that have two copies.
Those missing genes are a gift with a dangerous catch. Of course before this study farmers didn't know how all of this worked.
thus passing on their shortened genes. That's why the genetic flaw is so common in Nordic cows.
Inbreeding makes the situation worse but with artificial insemination it's common on farms. Farmers could improve things by checking
whether the bulls they use in breeding are missing copies of these four genes Goutam Sahana a Danish geneticist who worked on the study said in a statement.
which may be missing those genes too. By preventing animals that are both missing genes from mating with each other a quantum jump in fertility could be achieved in Nordic Red breeds Sahana said.
What about cattle in the U s.?This study looked only at Nordic herds so it can't say
whether American cows have the same genetic flaws. But American researchers are also looking into genetics for an explanation of fertility declines in cows at home.
Last year Texas A&m announced it received a $3 million grant to study the genetics of dairy cattle fertility.
After all it's those cute baby calves that keep the farm going. Check out the entire study in the journal PLOS Genetics.*
*Some hard numbers for the curious: In 1960 the average American Holstein cow gave about 6300 kilograms (13900 pounds) of milk a year.
#Field trial with lignin modified poplars shows potential for bio-based economythe results of a field trial with genetically modified poplar trees in Zwijnaarde Belgium shows that the wood of lignin modified poplar trees can be converted into sugars in a more efficient way.
These sugars can serve as the starting material for producing bio-based products like bioplastics and bio-ethanol.
The field trial however also showed that the suppression of the lignin biosynthesis in the trees is variable.
The biosynthesis of lignin is very complex. We will now search for modifications that provide a strong and uniform suppression of the lignin biosynthesis
. Because in the meantime we are also getting a pretty good idea of what causes the growth retardation we immediately will start to work on poplars that grow normal
This enzyme plays a key role in the biosynthesis of lignin but its suppression apparently does not lead to a uniform lowering of the amount of lignin.
This new trial therefore fits into the search for modifications that provide a more uniform suppression of the lignin biosynthesis. Story Source:
#Molecular evolution of genetic sex-determination switch in honeybeesit's taken nearly 200 years but scientists in Arizona and Europe have teased out how the molecular switch for sex gradually
The first genetic mechanism for sex determination was proposed in the mid-1800s by a Silesian monk named Johann Dzierson according to the study's co-author and Arizona State university Provost Robert E. Page Jr.
Dzierson posited that males were haploid--possessing one set of chromosomes which was confirmed in the 1900s with the advent of the microscope.
However how this system of haplodiploid sex determination ultimately evolved at a molecular level has remained one of the most important questions in developmental genetics.
In the December issue of Current Biology Page and Martin Beye lead author and professor with the Institute of Evolutionary Genetics in the University of Duesseldorf Germany and their collaborators laid out the final pieces of how these systems
The authors studied 14 natural sequence variants of the complementary sex determining switch (csd gene) for 76 genotypes of honey bees.
because they have one gene locus responsible for sex determination. Also Page and former graduate student Greg Hunt identified genetic markers--well-characterized regions of DNA--close to the complementary sex determining locus to allow gene mapping.
In addition Hunt and Page found that the honey bees'high recombination rate--the process by which genetic material is mixed physically during sexual reproduction--is the highest of any known animal studied
which helped Beye isolate sequence and characterize the complementary sex determining locus. Page and Beye were also able to knock out an allele
and show how one could get a male from a diploid genotype; work that was featured on the cover of the journal Cell in 2003.
However the questions of which alleles were key how they worked together and in what combinations and why this system evolved were unanswered left
though tantalizing close. This compelled the current team of collaborators to step back to review what actually constitutes an allele.
There has to be some segment of that gene that is responsible in this allelic series where
if you have two different coding sequences in that part of the gene you end up producing a female said Page.
So we asked how different do two alleles have to be? Can you be off one
or two base pairs or does it always have to be the same set of sequences?
and look at these 18-20 alleles and find out what regions of these genes are responsible among these variants.
In this process we also had to determine if there are intermediate kinds of alleles and discover how they might have evolved said Page.
What the authors found was that at least five amino acid differences can control allelic differences to create femaleness through the complementary sex determiner (csd) gene--the control switch.
We discovered that different amounts of arginine serine and proline affect protein binding sites on the csd gene which in turn lead to different conformational states
which then lead to functional changes in the bees--the switch that determines the shift from female to not female said Page.
'It's a very encouraging result'said Marco Ballardini a biologist at that time research assistant at the Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura (CRA-FSO) in Sanremo Italy and first author of this study.'
'The identification of palm individuals at the species level as well as the detection of hybrids can also be very helpful for preserving the genetic characteristics.
#Genetic discovery points to bigger yields in tomato, other flowering food plantsevery gardener knows the look of a ripe tomato.
Their research has revealed one genetic mechanism for hybrid vigor a property of plant breeding that has been exploited to boost yield since the early 20th century.
Teasing out the hidden subtleties of a type of hybrid vigor involving just one gene has provided the scientists with means to tweak the length of time that bushy tomato varieties can produce flowers.
First identified at CSHL by George Shull in 1908 hybrid vigor--or heterosis as biologists call it--involves interbreeding genetically distinct plants to generate offspring more robust than either inbred parent.
In his previous work CSHL Associate professor Zach Lippman and Israeli colleagues identified a rare example of hybrid vigor involving a genetic defect in the gene that makes florigen a hormone that controls the process of flowering
They found that bushy plants with a mutation in one of the two copies of the florigen gene producing half as much florigen as plants without the mutation do postpone the moment
#Personalized biochemical analysis of breast milk to help enhance nutrition for the smallest infantsphysicians in the Neonatal Intensive care unit in the Maxine Dunitz Children's Health Center launched a pilot study in
while he and Jeffry Mitton a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology were walking through a stand of high-elevation limber pines.
Fossil evidence and reconstructions of past climatic conditions suggest that early flowering plants lived in warm tropical environments explained co-author Jeremy Beaulieu at the National Institute for Mathematical & Biological Synthesis (NIMBIOS) at the University
In addition Academy scientists discovered a new genus of beetle and a previously unidentified genus of sea fan.
As we race to discover the other 90 percent of the species that make up the tapestry of life we are focusing our efforts on global biodiversity hotspots--places that are both unusually diverse
This is a place the California Academy of Sciences considers a global biodiversity hotspot. However Madagascar's biodiversity is threatened increasingly adding new urgency to the research being conducted on the island.
This year Academy scientists were able to identify 38 previously unknown ant species seven new plants and two new spider species from Madagascar.
Ants and other insects provide a better map of true biodiversity. New species unearthed close to homewhile researchers from the California Academy of Sciences are spanning the far reaches of the globe to find new plants animals
On November 19 2013 Igor Sokolov a Schlinger Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Academy of Sciences published a paper on Zookeys describing eight new species and a new genus of beetle.
A case of mistaken identity points to need for increased protectionsthis year Academy scientists identified three new species of soft corals and two new species and a new genus
After comparing a colony collected off the coast of San francisco to older samples in the Academy's collection Williams announced an entirely new genus
According to the paper published this year in the International Journal of Ichthyology sharks of this genus are nocturnally active bottom-living animals
and biodiversity#he explained. Agricultural researchers are also studying methane reduction through improved animal genetics
and methods to inhibit production of the gas during digestion. International climate negotiations such as the UNFCCC have not given#oeadequate attention#to greenhouse gas reductions from ruminants they added.
#Biologists find clues to a parasites inconsistencytoxoplasma gondii a parasite related to the one that causes malaria infects about 30 percent of the world's population.
MIT biologist Jeroen Saeij and his colleagues are trying to figure out why some forms of the disease are so innocuous
This reveals which genes--both parasite and host--are most active during infection. Most strikingly some South american and some atypical North american strains induced a type of immune reaction usually only seen during viral infection known as the type 1 interferon response.
which includes gene expression profiles for all 29 strains into a publicly available database for other researchers to use
DNA of storied plant provides insight into the evolution of flowering plantsthe newly sequenced genome of the Amborella plant addresses Darwin's abominable mystery--the question of why flowers suddenly proliferated On earth millions of years ago.
The genome sequence sheds new light on a major event in the history of life On earth: the origin of flowering plants including all major food crop species. On 20 december 2013 a paper by the Amborella Genome Sequencing Project that includes a full description of the analyses performed by the project as well as implications for flowering plant research will be published in the journal Science.
The paper is among three on different research areas related to the Amborella genome that will be published in the same issue of the journal.
Amborella (Amborella trichopoda) is unique as the sole survivor of an ancient evolutionary lineage that traces back to the last common ancestor of all flowering plants.
An effort to decipher the Amborella genome--led by scientists at Penn State university the University at Buffalo the University of Florida the University of Georgia
In the same way that the genome sequence of the platypus--a survivor of an ancient lineage--can help us study the evolution of all mammals the genome sequence of Amborella can help us learn about the evolution of all flowers said Victor Albert of the University
Scientists who sequenced the Amborella genome say that it provides conclusive evidence that the ancestor of all flowering plants including Amborella evolved following a genome doubling event that occurred about 200 million years ago.
Some duplicated genes were lost over time but others took on new functions including contributions to the development of floral organs.
Genome doubling may therefore offer an explanation to Darwin's abominable mystery--the apparently abrupt proliferation of new species of flowering plants in fossil records dating to the Cretaceous period said Claude depamphilis of Penn State university.
Comparative analyses of the Amborella genome are already providing scientists with a new perspective on the genetic origins of important traits in all flowering plants--including all major food crop species. Because of Amborella's pivotal phylogenetic position
it is an evolutionary reference genome that allows us to better understand genome changes in those flowering plants that evolved later including genome evolution of our many crop plants--hence it will be essential for crop improvement stressed Doug Soltis of the University of Florida.
As another example of the value of the Amborella genome Joshua Der at Penn State noted We estimate that at least 14000 protein-coding genes existed in the last common ancestor of all flowering plants.
Many of these genes are unique to flowering plants and many are known to be important for producing the flower as well as other structures and other processes specific to flowering plants.
Jim Leebens-Mack from UGA noted that The Amborella genome sequence facilitated reconstruction of the ancestral gene order in the'core eudicots'a huge group that comprises about 75 percent of all angiosperms.
As an evolutionary outsider to this diverse group the Amborella genome allowed the researchers to estimate the linear order of genes in an ancestral eudicot genome
or multiply within the genome (transposable elements) seem to have stabilized in the Amborella genome. Most plants show evidence of recent bursts of this mobile DNA activity
and function of protein-coding genes so the cessation of mobile DNA activity may have slowed the rate of evolution of both genome structure and gene function.
In addition to its utility in retrospective studies of the evolution of flowering plants the Amborella genome sequence offers insights into the history and conservation of Amborella populations.
Resequencing of individual Amborella plants across the species'range reveals geographic structure with conservation implications plus evidence of a recent major genetic bottleneck noted Pam Soltis of the University of Florida.
A similar narrowing of genetic variation occurred when humans migrated from Africa to found modern-day Eurasian populations.
#Controlling parasitic worms with genetic selectionhelminths are gastrointestinal parasitic worms that have become a major concern and source of economic loss for sheep producers around the world.
One such strategy is genetic selection. Certain breeds of sheep are more immune to helminths than the conventional breeds used in Canada
A key advantage to applying genetic selection rather than chemicals to get rid of the worms is that it is permanent
With today's developments in genomic selection breeding sheep for helminth resistance can be achieved efficiently without adversely affecting other economically important traits explained Niel Karrow lead author of the paper a researcher at the Centre for Genetic Improvement of Livestock at the University of Guelph.
when combined with good biosecurity and pasture management practises will greatly help to control against production losses due to gastrointestinal parasites.
Research by Cambridge Phd candidate Thanh-Lan Gluckman published today in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society looks afresh at similarities
Since the 1980s differences in the appearances of male and female birds have been seen through a prism of genetic correlation.
In other words it was thought that female birds may have evolved similar patterning to males due to common genes but that female patterns would be lost subsequently as it is not beneficial.
which allowed me to demonstrate that plumage patterns in females are not a result of genetic correlation.
Thanh-Lan Gluckman is a Phd candidate in the Evolutionary genetics group at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.
In order to exert their biological health benefits in vivo polyphenols must be available and still active even when present in a food matrix comments Dr. Haratifar.
This research published in Sfam's journal Microbial Biotechnology describes how scientists searched the roots of sugar cane
or turn nitrogen from the air into nitrogen compounds that are essential for growth (so-called biological nitrogen fixation).
and sequencing the genome to confirm that they had the genetic ability to turn nitrogen into plant food.
People and biodiversity factors are also importantin reality such a map of where most carbon could be stored is limited probably of use for deciding where to plan carbon projects
and benefit biodiversity and people says Michelle Greve from the University of Pretoria who led the project as part of her Phd at Aarhus University.
but would also conserve native biodiversity and support ecosystem services that is services that the environment provides which benefit humans.
The area currently has little vegetation biomass due to heavy degradation but has an excellent climate for tree growth
However it does not support as high biodiversity as some other areas and more importantly it is populated also densely by people who practice intensive agriculture in the area.
and co-benefits for biodiversity and people concludes Jens-Christian Svenning professor at Aarhus University and supervisor on the Phd project.
and respond to this new rich food resource said Charles Flower UIC postdoctoral research associate in biology and first author of the study.
This kind of bio-control would be as or perhaps more efficient than other methods to slow the spread of this pest said Flower.
and woodpecker activity in the area said Christopher Whelan an avian ecologist with the Illinois Natural history Survey UIC adjunct assistant professor of biology
and doesn't endanger the health of the rest of the Island has been a major challenge for wildlife biologists.
#Sugar beet genome sequenced and analyzeda new study published in Nature today describes the sugar beet reference genome sequence generated by researchers both from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) the Max Planck Institute for Molecular genetics and the University of Bielefeld in cooperation
with other centres and plant breeders. Sugar beet accounts for nearly 30%of the world's annual sugar production according to FAO and provides a source for bioethanol and animal feed.
The sugar beet genome sequence provides insights into how the genome has been shaped by artificial selection along time. What do foodstuff like muffins bread
Now a team of researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular genetics (Berlin Germany) lead by Heinz Himmelbauer head of the Genomics Unit at the CRG in Barcelona
and analyse for the first time the sweet genes of beetroot. The results of the study that will be published today in Nature shed also light on how the genome has been shaped by artificial selection.
Information held in the genome sequence will be useful for further characterization of genes involved in sugar production and identification of targets for breeding efforts.
These data are key to improvements of the sugar beet crop with respect to yield and quality and towards its application as a sustainable energy crop the authors suggest.
which has sequenced its genome. This group encompasses other plants of economic importance like spinach or quinoa as well as plants with an interesting biology for instance carnivorous plants or desert plants. 27421 protein-coding genes were discovered within the genome of the beet more than are encoded within the human genome.
Sugar beet has a lower number of genes encoding transcription factors than any flowering plant with already known genome adds Bernd Weisshaar a principle investigator from Bielefeld University who was involved in the study.
The researchers speculate that beets may harbor so far unknown genes involved in transcriptional control
and gene interaction networks may have evolved differently in sugar beet compared to other species. The researchers also studied disease resistance genes (the equivalent to the immune system in animals)
which can be identified based on protein-domains. These genes turned out as particularly plastic with beet-specific gene family expansions and gene losses.
Many sequencing projects nowadays targeted at the analysis of novel genomes also address the description of genetic variation within the species of interest.
Commonly this is achieved by generating sequencing reads obtained from high-throughput sequencing technologies followed by alignment of these reads against the reference genome to identify differences explains Heinz Himmelbauer a principle investigator of this study.
The current work nevertheless went one step further and generated genome assemblies from four additional sugar beet lines.
This allowed the researchers to obtain a much better picture of intraspecific variation in sugar beet than would have been possible otherwise.
In summary 7 million variants were discovered throughout the genome. However variation was distributed not uniformly: The authors found regions of high but also of very low variation reflecting both the small population size from
which has shaped the plants'genomes. Additionally gene numbers varied between different sugar beet cultivars which contained up to 271 genes not shared with any of the other lines as Juliane Dohm
and Andr Minoche two scientists involved in the study commented. The researchers also performed an evolutionary analysis of each sugar beet gene in order to put them into context with already known genes of other plants.
This analysis allowed them to identify gene families that are expanded in sugar beet compared to other plants
but also families that are absent. Notably such gene families were associated most commonly with stress response
or with disease resistance added Toni Gabaldon group leader in the CRG Bioinformatics and Genomics programme and ICREA research professor.
Finally the work also provides a first genome sequence of spinach which is a close relative of sugar beet.
Thanks to the sugar beet genome sequence made by the researchers and the associated resources generated future studies on the molecular dissection of natural
and artificial selection gene regulation and gene-environment interaction as well as biotechnological approaches to customize the crop to different uses in the production of sugar
and other natural products are expected to be held. Sugar beet will be an important cornerstone of future genomic studies involving plants due to its taxonomic position the authors claim.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Centre for Genomic Regulation. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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