The theme of this year's conference is Water Food Energy & Innovation for a Sustainable World (https://www. acsmeetings. org/.
Global food security is a huge issue says Khosla. Smart agriculture is very much a part of the solution
and leaves its offspring nearby where they can attach to the outside of the host and feed from it.
whether to approach or retreatthink of the smell of freshly baking bread. There is something in that smell without any other cues--visual or tactile--that steers you toward the bakery.
On the flip side there may be a smell for instance that of fresh fish that may not appeal to you.
If you haven't eaten a morsel of food in three days of course a fishy odor might seem a good deal more attractive.
we need to understand much better than we now do the biological processes underlying food selection and preferences.
New research by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) published in The Journal of Neuroscience reveals a set of cells in the fruit fly brain that respond specifically to food odors.
when the fly is presented different food odors--apple mango banana--predicts incredibly well how much the flies will given'like'a odor says the lead author of the research paper Jennifer Beshel Ph d. a postdoctoral investigator in the laboratory of CSHL
Professor Yi Zhong Ph d. We all know that we behave differently to different foods--have different preferences.
And we also all know that we behave differently to foods when we are hungry explains Dr. Beshel.
Is there somewhere in the brain that deals with food odors in particular? How does brain activity change
When Beshel and Zhong examined the response of neurons expressing a peptide called dnpf to a range of odors they saw that they only responded to food odors.
Moreover the neurons responded more to these same food odors when flies were hungry. The amplitude of their response could in fact predict with great accuracy how much the flies would like a given food odor--i e. move toward it;
the scientists needed simply to look at the responses of the dnpf-expressing neurons. When they switched off these neurons the researchers were able to make flies treat their most favored odor
The arrangement of roots is determined by a complicated combination of environmental signals based on the availability of nutrients and water in the surrounding environment hormonal signals and external stimuli.
One in three mouthfuls of our food depend on bee pollination said lead author Dr John Bryden from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway.
However most of this Bt corn has been used for animal feed or processed into corn meal starch or other products.
Due to pressure from activist groups some grocery stores have refused to carry Bt sweet corn. However a new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology suggests that Bt sweet corn is better for the environment
When birds and small mammals feed on the fruit they subsequently excrete the indigestible seeds elsewhere
Dr. Thilo Fischer Privatdozent at The chair of Plant Biochemistry and Physiology at LMU and Professor Wilfried Schwab of the Center for Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan at the Technische Universitã¤t
Land impoverishment is often due to salt infiltrations in the ground which weaken the plants and lower the yield.
and ten percent of all the stored grains worldwide mainly corn wheat sorghum rice and beans. Until five years ago the main fumigation technique and pest control inside warehouses
In Mexico companies with large grain and flour warehouses already use this technology. Thanks to this technological innovations and the business plan created with the help of the Mexico-United Estates Foundation for Science (FUMEC) the Mexican enterprise that had 10 employees in 2008 today counts with 73 permanent employees and 20
Biochar's surface properties prevent nutrients from being washed out of poor soils. It also positively influences the abundance composition
Several insect species suffer toxic effects from feeding on Se-contaminated food. In the case of the honey bee Se enters the body through ingestion of contaminated pollen and nectar.
Organic forms of Se can alter protein conformation and cause developmental problems and inorganic forms of Se can cause oxidative stress.
High concentrations of Se will not kill foragers outright so they can continue to collect contaminated pollen and nectar
Currently the researchers are conducting experiments feeding honey bee colonies with Se-laden food. They will monitor the bees for changes in survival and behavior.
And food production will need to increase by about 70%over the next 35 years to meet the needs of a growing population.
It is used for many purposes such as drinking water water for homes and businesses and irrigation water for agriculture.
Researchers from University of Copenhagen have discovered big differences in the variability of eating habits among pigs.
With 30 million pigs produced in Denmark each year genomics scientist at University of Copenhagen Haja Kadarmideen decided to turn this to his advantage with his latest research on people's eating habits surrounding obesity and diabetes.
Realizing it would be impossible to monitor the eating behaviour of 1200 humans every single hour of every day he turned to Danish pigs to find out why do humans pig out Indian-born Australian Haja Kadarmideen who is a professor
while others have control over their eating habits? Is it behavioural for example when we are stressed
or happy or sad or are programmed we genetically to seek more food than we need?
and digestive systems over a period of four years nearly 1200 pigs were given unlimited access to food.
With the help of the Pig Research Centre from the Danish Agriculture and Food Council each day the pigs were monitored for how often they would eat how much time they spent visiting the feeder how much they had eaten and
what kind of food they were eating while constantly mapping their overall weight gain. Each of the 1200 pig's DNA was assessed using a genomic chip technology that simultaneously created a genetic profile at 60000 locations across the entire DNA of each pig.
and eating behaviour observations on all pigs via genome wide association studies to detect eating behaviour genes--a big task equivalent to finding polar bears in a snowstorm says Kadarmideen.
They discovered big differences in the variability of the pigs eating habits. The research was clearly able to show that for some (pigs with certain genetic variants) overeating was normal behaviour.
That for a particular group of pigs there was clear evidence they were programmed genetically to eat more food than others.
and sometimes unhealthy) food and why some of us overeat so consequently developing obesity and diabetes both
whether humans are susceptible to unhealthy eating behaviour and potentially develop diseases like obesity and diabetes.
Our pig model research indicates that eating behaviours runs in families. If a mother or father or both had unhealthy eating habits they are likely to pass on some part of their habits to their children through their DNA.
However not all children in the same family are similar in eating behaviour and this is because they may have received different variants of eating behaviour genes
which could lead to obesity. There is also an environmental and psychological influence to consider the'epigenetic'factor
and'fetal programming'in the mother's womb that can permanently affect the eating behaviour of children.
Overall it is a complex issue that needs further investigation Kadarmideen says. Kadarmideen says that potentially we could come to understand
and treat this'unhealthy eating behaviour'as a disability issue. I believe more follow-up studies would strengthen our findings that some people cannot stop pigging out as it is written in their DNA.
#Fear of predators drives honey bees away from good food sourcesmost of us think of honey bees as having a bucolic pastoral existence--flying from flower to flower to collect the nectar they then turn into honey.
Such fear drives bees to avoid food sources closely associated with predators and interestingly makes colonies of bees less risk-tolerant than individual bees according to a study published in this week's issue of the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
This strategy of colonies collectively exhibiting significantly more caution than the riskier individual foragers may help honey bees exploit all of the available food sources with some intrepid foragers visiting more dangerous food
In a series of experiments they presented bees with different combinations of safe and dangerous feeders--depending on their association with the larger
Bees avoided the dangerous feeders and preferred feeders that provided sweeter nectar says Nieh. However predators are clever
and can focus on sweeter food ones which bees prefer. So we also tested how bees would respond
when sweeter food was also more dangerous. What we found was that the individual bees were more risk-tolerant.
They avoided the giant hornet at the best food but continued to visit the lower quality food with the smaller hornet.
Other scientists involved in the research were Zongwen Hu Weiwen Chen Zhengwei Wang and Yuchong Wang all of the Eastern Bee Research Institute of Yunnan Agricultural University.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-San diego. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
They are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for consumption as flavors or fragrances and are already being used as flavoring agents in some foods.
But now they can be applied to bed-nets clothes curtains--making them ward off insects. Using novel chemical informatics strategies Ray's lab screened half a million compounds against the DEET receptor to identify substitutes.
Of the four compounds three are approved already by the Food and Drug Administration as food additives.
And that time would appear to be from Mid-february to Mid-march a few weeks before the buds would be expected to open.
and food security national and global efforts to catalog and conserve these plants are ramping Up on Wednesday Nov 6 at 1: 05 pm Nora P. Castaã eda of the International Center for Tropical agriculture (CIAT) in Cali Colombia
and analyze data on the distributions of the wild relatives of 80 important food crops worldwide.
Although North america isn't known as a hotspot for crop plant diversity the inventory uncovered nearly 4600 CWR in the United states including close relatives of globally important food crops such as sunflower bean sweet potato and strawberry.
#Understanding soil nitrogen management using synchrotron technologyas food security becomes an increasingly important global issue scientists are looking for the best way to maintain the organic matter in soils using different methods of fertilization and crop rotation.
when we this research was how different nitrogen fertilizer supplements affected the overall soil organic matter composition says Dr. Adam Gillespie a postdoctoral fellow working with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).
According to Gillespie 40 per cent of people alive today derive their nitrogen nutrition from synthetically-fixed fertilizer.
and scientists alike as they work to maximize the potential growth of food while maintaining healthy soils.
The animals show up expecting a food bonanza but they find that the cafeteria already has closed.
The team members explained that while plants respond to warmer temperatures and other changes in climate simply by adjusting the timing of their growth caribou
and the timing of when animals are most dependent on them for nutrition Kerby said. In addition to analyzing their own data Post and Kerby also used information from a 1970s study of caribou calving and calf survival at the same site by Danish biologists Henning Thing and Bjarne Clausen.
and other types of food webs on land in the Arctic is a question that deserves greater attention Post said.
whether the nanotube sandwiches were compressed or pulled apart. That suggests growth issues or buckling could not fully account for the differences observed.
#Foods toxins that can cause cervical, liver cancermexican scientists identified and quantified the amount of aflatoxins (carcinogenic) in food such as corn tortilla rice chili pepper processed sauces chicken breast
and eggs and revealed its relationship with cervical and liver cancer in humans. The research won the National Award in Food Science
and Technology in the Science Professional in Foods category organized jointly by CONACYT (National Council of Science and Technology) and the Mexican Coca-cola Industry.
It explains that both types of cancer can be originated by the ingestion of food contaminated with aflatoxins produced by the fungi Aspergilus flavus and A. parasiticus.
Magda Carvajal Moreno from the Biology Institute at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and head of the research explained that this is the first time both conditions are related with the presence of aflatoxins the most frequent carcinogenic we ate daily she said.
UNAM researcher analyzed 800 kilos of tortilla in Mexico city ten different kinds of chili pepper rice and corn among others.
She also studied how much of this substance stays in animal tissues after ingesting this kind of food
and found that aflatoxins are present in chicken breast gizzard liver and eggs-white and yolk.
Carvajal Moreno explained that such molecule was recovered from tissue samples of liver and cervical cancer in humans therefore aflatoxins are a very important factor in triggering this diseases.
This research is the first in the world to report that cervical cancer can also be caused by ingesting aflatoxin contaminated food.
This carcinogenic has also been detected as a trigger of colorectal pancreatic breast and lung cancer. The specialist clarified that Human Papillomavirus is more carcinogenic and prone to trigger cervical cancer than aflatoxins.
The toxins-the researcher said-are in the water soil and airborne the fungi that produce them are an olive green mold that can be found in refrigerators besides they are very resistant to high temperatures.
To avoid these substances the UNAM researcher suggests properly storing food which would control the production of the toxin.
Also vary the foods one ingests and preferably consume wheat tortilla and fish as well as antioxidants.
The research that Carvajal Moreno did in collaboration with Jaime Berumen Campos from the Genomic Medicine Unit from General Hospital of Mexico now will be focused in studying stomach esophagus
These initiatives are promoted by the PNCTA (National Award in Food Science and Technology. For more information visit www. pncta. com. mx (Agencia ID) Story Source:
But unlike in women neither soy protein nor a common antidepressant provides relief for men according to researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
Changing hormone levels cause hot flashes in both women and men so we hoped that using soy supplements
soy protein powder and placebo pill; or venlafaxine and milk powder. Hot flash symptom severity and frequency and quality of life were assessed by the researchers.
The researchers found that neither venlafaxine nor soy protein alone or in combination reduced hot flashes in men.
Studies have found biochar can improve both the nutrient -and water-holding properties of soil but its popularity in recent years also owes to its ability to reduce greenhouse gases by storing carbon in soil in some cases for many centuries.
Masiello and another member of the group Rice biologist Jennifer Rudgers (now at the University of New mexico) were investigating the combined effects of adding biochar and nutrients to soils.
In all but one case the biochar and nutrients seemed to enhance one another. In the lone exception a soil fungus that was typically beneficial to plants began growing so rapidly that it impeded plant growth.
Unlike the fungi that use this communication method in soil the E coli could be grown in clear agar gels in a petri dish
We needed a way to conduct two experiments in the same dish one where biochar had a chance to interfere with a conversation
Working with his son's Legos Silberg constructed a pair of rectangular platforms that sat parallel in the dish about one inch apart.
Agar was added to fill all parts of the dish except for the areas blocked by the bricks.
Speaker organisms were added to the middle of the dish and listeners were placed on the opposite side of each trough.
because it jibed with the results from a 2012 study by Masiello that found that biochars created with higher-temperature processes were more effective at holding water and nutrients.
A freely available food supplement could help in this respect scientists from ETH Zurich have demonstrated in roundworms.
and certain vegetable oils are capable of neutralising these free radicals. Many scientists believe that antioxidants are beneficial to health.
A whole series of foods naturally contain niacin including meat liver fish peanuts mushrooms rice and wheat bran.
Gary Stacey an investigator in the MU Bond Life sciences Center and professor of plant sciences in the College of Agriculture Food and Natural resources found that crops such as corn are confused
When the bacteria interact correctly with a crop the bacteria receive some food from the plant and simultaneously produce nitrogen that most plants need.
since 1888 but it only exists in legume crops like soybeans and alfalfa. We're working to transfer this trait to other plants like corn wheat or rice
which translates literally as being in low or depressed spirits. The disease is caused by a parasite that enters the animals'blood as a result of the bite of the Tsetse fly.
Zebus produce more meat and milk than Baoul but fall severely ill when infected with trypanosomes.
Crossing large breeds of cattle that produce a lot of meat and milk such as the Zebu with the smaller but immunologically stronger Baoul could be very beneficial for farming in Africa.
Interstellar magnetic fields are ubiquitous in spiral galaxies like our Milky way and are believed to be essential regulators of star formation and the evolution of proto-planetary disks.
There seemed to be said two culprits William Laurance of James Cook University in Australia. Native mammals suffered the harmful effects of population isolation
However it is approved federally for use by the beef industry to promote weight gain and increase feeding efficiency in cattle.
and that have been shown to improve food availability environmental sustainability and human health. We're finding a chemical that is broadly utilized to behave in a way that is different from all our existing regulatory
and other drugs'effects on fish through fewer eggs produced by females to skewing the sex of some species. We rarely see fish kills anymore
spread of invasive plant species by changing soil chemistryinvasive species are among the world's greatest threats to native species and biodiversity.
On one side was the native prairie the other side had this towering monoculture of invasive Sorghum.
if the microbes she and her colleague Tom Chrzanowski (The University of Texas Arlington) discovered in invasive Sorghum might be providing similar benefits to this invasive plant.
whether these microbial agents facilitate the perpetuation and spread of this invasive grass. They published their findings in a Special Section in the American Journal of Botany on Rhizosphere Interactions:
which in turn facilitates its spread and establishment. Moreover these changes to the soil chemistry not only increase the competitive edge of this invasive species but also can inhibit
With the growing human population and concerns for meeting the global food crisis in the coming decades invasive plants
The analysis recently published in the'American Journal of Epidemiology'was directed by researchers from ten countries including Spain as part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC.
Greater effect in people with bad habitsthe mortality risk reduction due to fruit and vegetable consumption was greater in those participants who consumed alcohol (around 30-40%risk reduction
which mitigates the oxidative stress caused by alcohol tobacco and obesity. As such these population groups in particular could benefit from the positive effects of fruit
These disease-causing bacteria reside in the tree's phloem--the vascular tissue that carries vital nutrients throughout the tree.
and decreasing photosynthesis. They also found that normal metabolism of sucrose a sugar also key to photosynthesis was disrupted.
#Sustainable livestock production is possibleconsumers are increasingly demanding higher standards for how their meat is sourced with animal welfare and the impact on the environment factoring in many purchases.
and ethically sourced food including production without negative impacts on animal welfare the environment and the livelihood of poor producers.
Current cattle production mostly occurs on cleared pastures with only herbaceous plants such as grasses grown as food for the cows.
and waterways by agricultural chemicals as well as carbon costs because of vehicles and artificial fertiliser necessary to maintain the pasture.
Additionally shrubs and trees with edible leaves and shoots along with pasture plants produce more food for animals per unit area of land than pasture plants alone.
Such planting of'fodder trees'has already been successful in several countries including the plant Chamaecytisus palmensis
Another success has been in Colombia where a mixed planting of the shrub Leucaena with a common pasture grass resulted in a 27%increase in dry matter for food and 64%increase of protein production.
when compared with 3. 5 kg per day on pasture-only systems. As the numbers of animals per hectare was much greater production of good quality milk per hectare was four to five times greater on the silvopastoral system.
It is also found in small quantities in fruit and vegetables like mustard Goji berries almonds sunflower seeds cardamom fennel coriander and cherries.
Sleeping in the dark and consuming these foodstuffs could help control weight gain and prevent cardiovascular diseases associated with obesity and dyslipidemia.
which require extensive areas of continuous forest to be able to get enough food or avoid human persecution explains Brody Sandel.
because they are used to make fuel as opposed to say corn flakes Decicco said. Decicco stressed that research and development are important to create better options for the future.
and modeling it in the U s. To better understand UAH graduate student Zirnstein's work you first need to think of Voyager 1 as more like a mole than a hawk best at sensing only its immediate surroundings.
#Pesticide regulation in California is flawedapproximately 30 million pounds of fumigant pesticides are used each year on soil that yields valuable California crops--strawberries tomatoes peppers and the like--in an attempt to control pests.
#First look at complete sorghum genome may usher in new uses for food and fuelalthough sorghum lines underwent adaptation to be grown in temperate climates decades ago a University of Illinois researcher said he
and his team have completed the first comprehensive genomic analysis of the molecular changes behind that adaptation.
Patrick Brown an assistant professor in plant breeding and genetics said having a complete characterization of the locations (loci) affecting specific traits will speed up the adaptation of sorghum and other related grasses to new production
systems for both food and fuel. Brown is working on the project through the Energy Biosciences Institute at the U of
I hoping to use the sorghum findings as a launching pad for working with complex genomes of other feedstocks.
To adapt the drought-resistant tropical sorghum to temperate climates Brown explained that sorghum lines were converted over the years by selecting
The researchers used a new technique called genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) to map genetic differences in 1160 sorghum lines.
Part of the reason for caring about all of that now is that up to this point sorghum has mostly been grown for grain.
But now there is a lot of interest in using sorghum for other things such as growing sweet sorghum in areas where they grow sugarcane and growing biomass sorghum for bioenergy through combustion or cellulosic technology.
We'll basically be breed able to all these sorghum types more easily and use the genes that we bred for in grain sorghum over the last hundred years and move them into sweet sorghum and biomass sorghum.
We think that finding those genes is going to be said critical he. Even with this complete genetic map Brown said the research is still not at the end point.
Over here we've got exotic sorghum which hasn't been improved at all yet it's where most of the genetic diversity is.
or biomass sorghum researchers will need to bring in some of the genes from grain sorghum for traits like seed quality or early-season vigor.
Most of this sorghum now goes to chicken feed or ethanol in the United states. We do have a collaboration with Markus Pauly an EBI researcher at Berkeley who is looking at the composition of sorghum.
But the bigger problem with biomass sorghum right now is the moisture content of the biomass.
Unlike miscanthus or switchgrass where you can go in and harvest in February when it's pretty much bone dry and all the nitrogen has already been moved back down underground sorghum doesn't work that way Brown said.
Because biomass sorghum is grown annually growing until frost comes when it is harvested it has a high moisture content.
When we cut it down there's tons of biomass. I don't know that there's anything else that can match it in the area
For the existing cellulosic idea as it stands now that is not very useful he said That's one of the roadblocks to biomass sorghum right now he said.
Sweet sorghum where you squeeze the sugary juice out like sugarcane may be closer on the horizon.
Right now we're using sorghum as a model--maybe we can find sorghum genes that we can also tinker with in miscanthus
and improvements there are other value-added opportunities for sorghum grain. It's not quite as nutritious as corn
They are looking at compounds that will prevent you from absorbing all the nutrition in your food in the small intestine he said.
Another gene found shows that sorghum produces a huge amount of antioxidant in the outer layer of the grain.
The yield of sorghum hybrids with those traits aren't quite what they need to be yet.
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