#Report proposes microbiologys grand challenge to help feed the worlda greater focus on the role of microbiology in agriculture combined with new technologies can help mitigate potential food shortages associated with world population increases according to a new report from the American Academy
The report How Microbes can Help Feed the World is based on the deliberation of a group of scientific experts who gathered for two days in WASHINGTON DC in December 2012 to consider a series of questions regarding how plant-microbe interactions
These estimates rest on the recognition that all plants rely on microbial partners to secure nutrients deter pathogens
and often debilitating osteoarthritis. The researchers found that mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage
and cow cartilage tissue was funded by medical research charity Arthritis Research UK the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC
and you cannot give healthy people drugs unnecessarily so this is where diet could be a safe alternative.
because it is about how diet might work in osteoarthritis. Once you know that you can look at other dietary compounds which could protect the joint
and ultimately you can advise people what they should be eating for joint health. Developing new strategies for combating age-related diseases such as osteoarthritis is vital both to improve the quality of life for sufferers
Until now research has failed to show that food or diet can play any part in reducing the progression of osteoarthritis so
if these findings can be replicated in humans it would be quite a breakthrough. We know that exercise
but this adds another layer in our understanding of how diet could play its part.
The spread of plants and animals throughout Europe between 6000 and 4000 BC involved a complex interplay between indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and incoming Neolithic farmers but the scale of the interaction and the extent to
#Genetic treasure hunting in sorghum may benefit crop improvementa consortium of researchers from The University of Queensland the Queensland Department of agriculture Fisheries
and Forestry (DAFF Qld) and BGI has discovered that sorghum a drought-tolerant African crop holds vastly more genetic variation than previously reported.
This study published in Nature Communications today provides an invaluable resource for the genetic improvement of sorghum
and other grass species. Sorghum is not only a food and feed cereal crop but also can be used as the basis of biofuel.
Its resistance to heat and water stress allows it to grow in poor dryland regions as a staple food resource for 500 million poor people in Africa
and Asia alleviating both poverty and hunger. Sorghum is in the same family as rice (Oryza sativa) wheat (Triticum aestivumlinn)
and maize (Zea mays) and it is expected to play an increasingly important role in feeding the world's growing population.
Furthermore sorghum's special features such as a small diploid genome and phenotypic diversity make it an ideal C4 grass model.
By conducting whole-genome sequencing the team obtained the genomic data of 44 sorghum lines to represent all major races of cultivated grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in addition to its progenitors and the allopatric Asian species S. propinquum.
The analysis indicated that sorghum possesses a diverse primary gene pool but with decreased diversity in both landrace and improved groups.
The researchers'analyses revealed that sorghum has a strong racial structure and a complex domestication history involving at least two distinct domestication events.
More importantly they found that modern cultivated sorghum was derived from a limited sample of racial variation.
The study identified 8m high-quality SNPS 1. 9m indels and specific gene loss and gain events in S. bicolor providing the largest dataset obtained in sorghum to date.
Our joint efforts yield an invaluable genetic resource for researchers to explore sorghum evolution and its genetic improvement. said Shuaishuai Tai Project Manager from BGI BGI is making continuous efforts for the advancement of agricultural research.
but thinking about orange juice he says that may change the way you experience the milk.
If you expect it to be orange juice and it tastes like orange juice it's fine.
But if you expected it to be milk you'd think something was wrong. Story Source:
In the presence of water it decomposes into oxygen and other salts. The current formulation used by the researchers generates oxygen for about three hours.
Increasing alkalinity hardens drinking water makes wastewater disposal more difficult and exacerbates the salinization of fresh water.
which are often important drinking water sources for densely populated areas and have decades'worth of water quality records.
and that this ability was lost then repeatedly over the course of evolution. The big hurdle to redesigning nitrogen fixation
Overcoming the challenge of sustainably producing food for a world population of more than 7 billion
Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant panda there are apparently only 2 species
and they had not been examined in very great detail except by the gorillas see image. It had been thought that they were very closely related to the hundreds of similar bamboos in Asia
which spread to Asia on drifting tectonic plates. A new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys studies the diversity and evolution of African bamboo.
#Toxic nanoparticles might be entering human food supplyover the last few years the use of nanomaterials for water treatment food packaging pesticides cosmetics
In a new study researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a reliable method for detecting silver nanoparticles in fresh produce and other food products.
More than 1000 products on the market are based nanotechnology products said Mengshi Lin associate professor of food science in the MU College of Agriculture Food and Natural resources.
and quantify these nanoparticles in food and food products and study their toxicity as soon as possible. Lin and his colleagues including MU scientists Azlin Mustapha
and reach potentially sensitive sites such as the spleen brain liver and heart. The growing trend to use other types of nanoparticles has revolutionized the food industry by enhancing flavors improving supplement delivery keeping food fresh longer
and brightening the colors of food. However researchers worry that the use of silver nanoparticles could harm the human body.
This study provides a promising approach for detecting the contamination of silver nanoparticles in food crops
or other agricultural products Lin said. Members of Lin's research team also included Zhong Zang a food science graduate student.
The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Missouri-Columbia.
The original article was written by Diamond Dixon. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
Some of the same gases are emitted also from cow pats on pastures. But now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in cow pats may reduce emissions of the key greenhouse gas--methane.
Among these cattle farming for meat and milk are major sources of methane a gas with a potent warming effect.
Much of this methane comes from the guts of ruminating cattle but some escapes from dung pats on pastures.
Cow pats offer a prime food for a large number of organisms. In fact there are probably as many beetle species living in dung as there are bird species on this planet.
--and make sure to include them in our calculations of overall climatic effects of dairy and beef farming.
When you combine the current increase in meat consumption around the world with the steep declines in many dung beetle species overall emissions from cattle farming can only increase.
The mixture permits a controlled release of nutrients the regulation of water and an ideal environment for growing crops.
The coal waste contains chemical elements that can be ionised by the biofertiliser making nutrients which are essential to growth available for uptake by the plants.
which is essential for plant nutrition. The biofertiliser also helps plants develop dense root systems which stabilise the soil against erosion.
and crop yields helping global food supply keep pace with population growth. However this has come at a cost as they are detrimental to long-term soil health.
'This is a whole new approach to plant nutrition says Dr Peter Leggo of the Department of Earth sciences who developed the material.
Based on these results the authors conclude that native fruits grown in sub-optimal conditions can confer similar nutritional benefits to apples which are considered among the most antioxidant-rich foods.
and food industries for the development of new products promoting the sustainable development of regions with the characteristics of the Cerrado.
The maps allowed the team to estimate the location of each colony as well as how far each bumblebee travelled to find food.
For example reducing the distance that bumblebees have to fly to find food might increase their chances of survival into the next generation
Our findings could help land managers to plan schemes to help conserve bumblebee populations in both agricultural
Bumblebees are among the most important pollinators of many food crops and wild plants. The next stage of the research is to use mathematical models to produce a bees'eye view of the landscape.
and how these can be created against the backdrop of modern farming and the need for sustainable food production.
or disabled by the disease a parasitic-worm infection spread by mosquitoes. Our study quantifies the effect of the most widely implemented vector control measure--insecticide-treated bed nets
They block female mosquitoes from securing blood a process that is essential for them to lay eggs and produce offspring.
Working in three Chinese provinces researchers led by Yi Guan Ph d. of the University of Hong kong collected samples from the throats and digestive tracts of chickens ducks geese pigeons and quail.
According to their analysis domestic ducks and chickens played distinct roles in the genesis of the H7n9 virus infecting humans today.
Within ducks and later within chickens various strains of avian H7n9 H7n7 and H9n2 influenza exchanged genes with one another in different combinations.
The resulting H7n9 virus began causing outbreaks among chickens in live poultry markets from which many humans became infected.
#Forest-interior birds may be benefiting from harvested clearingsefforts to conserve declining populations of forest-interior birds have focused largely on preserving the mature forests where birds breed
Their study appears in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Eiichiro Fukusaki and colleagues point out that Kopi Luwak (Indonesian for civet coffee) is the world's costliest coffee often fetching $150-$200 per pound.
Palm civets eat coffee berries digest the soft fruit surrounding the bean and excrete the bean. Workers retrieve the coffee beans
and clean ferment and roast them. The price makes Kopi Luwak a tempting target for fraud with ordinary coffee sold as Kopi Luwak
Meat-eating predators occasionally eat fruitit turns out that alligators do not live on meat alone. Neither do Nile crocodiles.
and a dozen other crocodile species enjoy an occasional taste of fruit along with their normal meat-heavy diets of mammals birds and fish.
and other plant-based nutrients though studies suggests that fruit eating is likely to yield nutritional rewards for crocodilians.
#Honeyguide birds destroy own species eggs to eliminate competitionlike cuckoos honeyguides are parasitic birds that lay their eggs in other birds'nests
Now scientists reveal that unlike in cuckoos the resemblance between honeyguide eggs and those of their bee-eater bird hosts hasn't evolved to trick hosts into accepting the imposter egg as one of their own.
Rather it appears to have evolved to trick other honeyguides who would otherwise destroy the eggs because of fierce competition for host nests.
The new research is published today 21 august in the journal Biology Letters. Honeyguides are intriguingly odd birds that are best-known for their unique mutually beneficial relationship with humans.
The researchers'curiosity was piqued by their earlier finding that like cuckoo eggs honeyguide eggs resemble those of each of their several host species. Instead of mimicking their colour
For example honeyguides parasitising little bee-eaters lay smaller eggs in their nests than do honeyguides parasitising larger hosts.
Many classic studies have shown that comparable mimicry in cuckoo eggs has evolved to reduce rejection by choosy hosts that eject mismatched eggs from their nests.
I assumed honeyguide egg mimicry had evolved just like cuckoo mimicry so was bowled over and baffled when little bee-eaters turned out to be pretty dim.
and experimentally parasitised their nests the bee-eaters blithely incubated eggs even much larger than their own.
and my experimental eggs were pecked to pieces that the penny dropped--perhaps they need to look like bee-eaters
A second experiment supported this hypothesis again the researchers placed a larger foreign egg in bee-eaters nests
and lay her own egg. When this happened they counted the number of puncture holes the female honeyguide made in each egg in the clutch.
This revealed that laying honeyguides punctured the larger foreign egg more heavily than host eggs
lest it be another honeyguide's egg and kill their own chick should it hatch first.
Evolution should then favour honeyguide females that lay eggs resembling those of bee-eaters and thereby avoid being detected
and destroyed by a competing honeyguide. The suggestion that mimicry might evolve because parasites benefit from concealing their eggs from one another was made first by Cambridge scientists Nick Davies
and Michael Brooke 25 years ago but this study is the first to show that it probably happens in the wild.
and about a third of parasitised nests contain eggs laid by two or more honeyguide females resulting in especially strong parasitic competition.
Fewer crop losses anticipateda new study about the common problem of preharvest sprouting or PHS in wheat is nipping the crop-killing issue in the bud.
Wheat is the only major food plant not to have sequenced its genome. The genome of wheat is nearly three times the size of the human genome.
#Unscrambling the genetics of the chickens blue eggresearchers at The University of Nottingham have unscrambled the genetic mutation that gives the distinctive blue eggs laid by some breeds of chickens.
and look set to become big business in the baking aisles of all the major supermarkets--the blue egg produced by some chickens is prettier
--and now thanks to scientists from The University of Nottingham we know what caused the eggs in some breeds to turn this unusual Colour in a four-year research project just published in the journal PLOS ONE the team from the School of Biology has identified the genetic mutation
which first produced the blue egg in native South american chicken the Mapuche fowl and their European descendants Araucana between 200 and 500 years ago.
if demand for the blue egg continues to grow. The scientists used the unique genetic resources conserved by heritage
which revealed the genetic cause of the blue coloured egg shell--surprisingly--an ancient harmless retrovirus in the domestic chicken.
In this case the retrovirus'effect was to trigger an accumulation of a green-blue bile pigment called biliverdin in the eggshell as the egg develops in the hen.
An unexpected find was the unique integration sites for the retrovirus in South american/European and Asian chickens.
and so the chance of a retrovirus integrating at more or less the same location in two chicken populations is extremely low.
Moreover when appearing in the population the unusual egg coloration must have attracted the attention of the owners who must be praised for having selected the trait in subsequent breeding.
Of course it's not only some breeds of chicken that produce blue eggs. They are commonly found across species of birds including those that lay blue eggs as well as non-blue eggs within a single population like the cuckoo and guillemot.
It's therefore entirely possible that retroviruses could be playing a part in the diversity of egg colour
and patterning across avian species more generally but this remains to be studied. The work was initiated by Professor Olivier Hanotte
whose curiosity about blue eggs was sparked on a trip to Brazil where he met Professor Jos Antonio Alcalde co-author of the paper.
because some of these rarer native breeds of chicken with this unusual egg colour and high quality have become low in number
so fuel production won't drive up food costs. Lin's team used corn stalks and leaves but their ecosystem should also be able to process other agricultural byproducts and forestry waste.
The fungus Trichoderma reesei is already very good at breaking down tough plant material into sugars.
James Liao's lab at the University of California-Los angeles provided E coli bacteria that had been engineered to convert sugars into isobutanol.
Colleagues at Michigan State university had treated pre the roughage to make it easier to digest. If you've ever had puffed rice cereal it's somewhat analogous said Jeremy Minty first author of the paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
and a recent doctoral graduate in Lin's lab. The fungi turned the roughage into sugars that fed both microbe species with enough left over to produce isobutanol.
The team managed to get 1. 88 grams of isobutanol per liter of fluid in the ecosystem the highest concentration reported to date for turning tough plant materials into biofuels.
Breaking cellulose down into sugar is hard work so T. reesei's tendency to do this and then share the spoils mark it as a cooperator.
Meanwhile the E coli use the sugars without offering the fungus anything in return which makes it a cheater.
because the fungi produce the sugars near their cell membranes which gives them the first crack at using the sugars.
The researchers can control E coli's advantage by tweaking how quickly the bacteria grow. Minty and others in Lin's group are now trying to improve on their energy conversion rate
#Eating poisonous plants saves life of gemsbok in Namibian desertin drought periods browsing springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) feed on all plant material they can find
while grazing gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazella) in contrast switch their diet to a high proportion of poisonous plants
Researchers from theizw the University of Namibia and other Namibian partners found that gemsbok (also called oryx) adjusted its diet according to season.
When food was plentiful gemsbok specialised exclusively on grasses and more ephemeral succulent species. In contrast springboks fed on a higher proportion of shrubs and trees than grasses and succulent plants irrespective of environmental conditions.
As the researchers expected springbok opportunistically adjusted their diet in response to variation in food sources availabilities preferring e g. grass sprouts during the wet season and browsing predominantly on leaves of bushes when grass quality decreased during drought.
Springbok therefore adopted a different dietary strategy than gemsbok when facing a shortage of food sources.
Because global climate change increases drought periods and enhances desertification in Southern Africa it is crucial to understand how wildlife species respond to the impoverishment of their natural environments and the decline of their food sources.
#and so has global food production. As a result the use of pesticides and their effect on humans animals and plants have become more important.
Professor Heinz KÃ hler and Professor Rita Triebskorn from the University of TÃ bingen's Institute of Evolution and Ecology (Eve) have published a study on the link between pesticides and changing ecological systems
The researchers forecast changes to natural selection the spread of infections and the sexual development and fertility of wild animals.
This in turn could have a knock-on effect on populations ecosystems and food chains. The researchers say it is a further challenge for science to show how strongly the effects of pesticides are influenced by climate change
and herbs especially Mexican oregano all contain apigenin and luteolin flavonoids that kill human pancreatic cancer cells in the lab by inhibiting an important enzyme according to two new University of Illinois studies.
when we pre-treated cancer cells with apigenin for 24 hours then applied the chemotherapeutic drug gemcitabine for 36 hours said Elvira de Mejia a U of I professor of food chemistry and food toxicology.
According to Johnson the scientists'in vitro study in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research is the first to show that apigenin treatment can lead to an increase in interleukin 17s in pancreatic cells showing its potential relevance in anti-pancreatic cancer activity.
Pancreatic cancer patients would probably not be able to eat enough flavonoid-rich foods to raise blood plasma levels of the flavonoid to an effective level.
Additionally R. eurasiaticus could eat many different types of food according to the researchers. The fossil--particularly its dentition which reveals teeth designed for shearing plant matter--confirms a 2012 analysis of tooth types that suggested multituberculates consumed an animal-dominated diet for much of their existence later diversifying to a plant-dominated one.
Multituberculates arose in the Jurassic period and went extinct in the Oligocene epoch occupying a diverse range of habitats for more than 100 million years before they were competed out by more modern rodents.
By the end of their run on the planet multituberculates had evolved complex teeth that allowed them to enjoy vegetarian diets
and its teeth were oriented already for an omnivorous diet. Based on their findings the researchers suggest that such adaptations must have arisen very early in the evolution of the order setting the stage for the major diversification of rodent-like mammals that ensued.
Sugars derived from the grain of agricultural crops can be used to produce biofuel but these crops occupy fertile soils needed for food and feed production.
Fast growing plants such as poplar eucalyptus or various grass residues such as corn stover and sugarcane bagasse do not compete
and can be a sustainable source for biofuel. An international collaboration of plant scientists from VIB and Ghent University (Belgium) the University of Dundee (UK) The James Hutton Institute (UK) and the University of Wisconsin (USA) identified a new gene in the biosynthetic
A plant cell wall mainly consists of lignin and sugar molecules such as cellulose. Cellulose can be converted to glucose
which can then be used in a classical fermentation process to produce alcohol similar to beer or wine making.
Lignin is a kind of cement that embeds the sugar molecules and thereby gives firmness to plants.
Unfortunately lignin severely reduces the accessibility of sugar molecules for biofuel production. The lignin cement has to be removed via an energy-consuming and environmentally unfriendly process.
The olinguito (oh-lin-GHEE-toe) looks like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear.
They learned that the olinguito is mostly active at night is mainly a fruit eater rarely comes out of the trees
E-cigarettes are powered battery devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapors and flavorings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 6 percent of adults have tried e-cigarettes a number that has doubled nearly since 2010.
These products are approved not by the Food and Drug Administration and this is concerning because it's impossible to know what you're really getting
High risk times for the disease to spread include during transportation slaughter preparation and consumption.
and recommendations will help stop the spread of other infectious diseases. The H5n1 avian flu strain has been responsible for the deaths of millions of poultry as well as 375 confirmed human deaths.
The UEA research team adopted a system widely used in the food production industry known as Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)
-Transportation and sale of poultry and eggs. -Purchase and slaughter of poultry from markets. -Preparation of poultry for consumption--particularly in unhygienic conditions and when meat is undercooked raw
or. Preventative measures outlined in the report include isolating and quarantining flocks using protective equipment such as masks gloves
which is used already in the food production industry could work very effectively as a precursor to more time-consuming quantitative data collection and biomedical testing.
The research was conducted as part of a three year interdisciplinary study of the impact of H5n1 on mechanisms of transmission local livelihoods and food security.
#Watermelon juice relieves post-exercise muscle sorenesswatermelon juice's reputation among athletes is getting scientific support in a new study
which found that juice from the summer favorite fruit can relieve post-exercise muscle soreness.
The report in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry attributes watermelon's effects to the amino acid L-citrulline.
Encarna Aguayo and colleagues cite past research on watermelon juice's antioxidant properties and its potential to increase muscle protein
But scientists had yet to explore the effectiveness of watermelon juice drinks enriched in L-citrulline.
They tested natural watermelon juice watermelon juice enriched in L-citrulline and a control drink containing no L-citrulline on volunteers an hour before exercise.
Both the natural juice and the enriched juice relieved muscle soreness in the volunteers. L-citrulline in the natural juice (unpasteurized)
however seemed to be more bioavailable--in a form the body could better use the study found.
and food production--results in greater increases in testosterone than does a directly competitive activity such as soccer.
and the environment testosterone levels are closely related to the availability of food energy. When young men skip even a single meal their testosterone levels can drop as much as 10 percent.
Fast for a couple of days and they decrease to castrate levels. The same is true for infection he added.
The body uses food energy for a number of critical processes. Among them are building muscle mass
When food energy is limited the body has to choose between one and the other. For populations in industrialized countries like the United states there isn't much of a tradeoff Trumble said.
I can go to the grocery store and gather 20000 calories in 10 minutes without breaking a sweat.
--and use a lot more food energy--but also have to grow hunt or fish for the vast majority of the calories they consume the tradeoff is much greater.
Given the important of testosterone in supplying energy to muscles we wanted to look at how testosterone changes during another vital part of Tsimane life--food production.
While Tsimane men have a relatively low baseline testosterone level--33 percent lower than that of men living in the United states where life is less physically demanding--they appear to maintain their testosterone levels over the course of their lives.
One of the important take-home messages of this study is that over the course of human evolution we had very physical strategies for producing calories.
not only for competition over mates but also for critical daily tasks such as food production. The paper's other co-authors include Hillard S. Kaplan and Daniel K. Cummings of the University of New mexico Albuquerque;
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